Instead of reading the whole hymn at the beginning, there may be a reading of each stanza as it is sung, if the thought of the hymn will bear such separation of its parts. In connection with the original reading of the hymn, or with the reading of the separate stanzas, there may be interesting comment or development of the idea expressed. It may be wise to emphasize and impress upon the congregation the thoughts to which they give musical utterance and so awake the very emotions these hymns are intended to express.

Again there may be a statement of the historical connections of the hymn to be sung, a few words regarding the author or the circumstances under which it was written, or its relation to the church life at the time when it was written. The results that have been achieved through the singing of this particular hymn may be brought out in an interesting and forceful way. Incidents connected with the hymn, either as regards its results in the lives of others, or an incident that will properly illustrate its meaning will be found very helpful. Indeed there is no better way in which a congregation may be brought into tune with a hymn which they are all about to make the expression of their feeling than by arousing that feeling by the use of appropriate and effective emotional anecdotes.

In making these comments on the hymn it is not simply a matter of creating a general interest, historical or literary, but of reproducing the emotional and spiritual atmosphere of the verses to be sung, and, if that is not done, the comment is a failure no matter how brilliant, scholarly, or entertaining it may be.

One point must be guarded: the beauty and effectiveness of its music must never be allowed to obscure the

literary, and more especially the spiritual values of a hymn. The more popular a sacred song becomes the more likely are its words to lose their weight and the more need is there of emphasizing their sentiment. I wonder how many of the millions of people round the world who have been singing Gabriel's "Oh, That Will be Glory" have ever had any real sense of the meaning of the words. They are so far above the reach of the average Christian experience as to be almost inaccessible, and yet multiplied thousands in a single meeting have joined in the song. If instead of a mechanical exhortation to sing out, the leader should read that wonderful passage in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, where he describes how God raised Christ from the dead, " and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all," there would be something more tangible to that "Glory" of which they sing so thoughtlessly and even flippantly.

The very fact that the people are prone to sing perfunctorily and mechanically the most exalted thoughts and the noblest words that have ever flowed from an uninspired pen, only makes the duty laid upon the minister to prevent such insincerity and irreverence in the house of God more positive and imperative. Let me say in the most emphatic manner possible, that if the people lie to God by singing praise they do not feel, or by bringing petitions they do not desire, if they hypocritically express consecrations they do not intend, or emotions they

do not feel, if they address useless exhortations to their fellows that are insincere and that they themselves have no thought of carrying out, it is all the minister's fault. It is not wanton prevarication and hypocrisy, but mere courtesy to the leader of the service who asks them to perpetrate these monstrous falsities. The responsibility must be his, not theirs, for the divine displeasure that must rest upon such a farcical and even blasphemous performance.

In some of the Protestant church services I have attended here in America, I have had the same feeling of indignant protest against careless and irreverent handling of infinitely holy things that rose in me when I saw a priest baptizing little children in the Baptistry at Florence, Italy. According to his faith, he was initiating the souls of the children brought to him into the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and conferring upon them the gift of blessed immortality; but as he mumbled the formula of baptism his gross eyes wandered over the tourists as they came and went with curious and evil glances that showed how far his mind and heart were from the solemn mystery he was performing. Worship is no less holy than baptism, and a Protestant minister may be as irreverent and unworthy as was that Florentine priest.

III

THE SELECTION OF TUNES

HERE is perhaps no greater blunder made by the average minister than his ignorance of or his indifference towards the tune to which the hymn he has selected shall be sung. He is thinking only of the hymn and its relation to his subject, and he selects two hymns on the same page in the same meter. The result is the precentor or choir leader must find another tune, for it would be a rare leader who would consent to the using of the same tune twice in the same service.

While the average hymnal has a large variety of tunes and the average mating gift of the hymn-book compiler may be ordinarily trusted, there are emergencies in the life of the church which no hymn-book compiler can possibly foresee. He has troubles of his own in finding a large variety of tunes for the number of hymns his collection contains. To repeat a given tune indefinitely does not seem wise. Hence he may decide to put a tune to the given hymn that is not usually sung with it, simply because he has used the tune generally sung with it elsewhere so often that he feels compelled to select something less well known. In such a case as that the minister must use his discretion and ask his precentor or choir leader to sing the more satisfactory music.

The question is still further complicated by the fact that many of our hymnal compilers consult their artistic

pride rather than their practical sense. In many of our more ambitious hymnals the majority of the tunes have been transferred from "Hymns Ancient and Modern," the popular hymnal of the Established Church of England, not because they are adapted to American needs, not because they can be sung in the average congregation, but because the high standing in England of this very excellent collection of hymn tunes for English Church use so impresses the hymn-book compiler that he feels under a sort of moral compulsion to supply American congregations with the music that has been so widely accepted in Great Britain. I need hardly say that when a hymn is selected that is wedded to such a tune from foreign sources, the minister must decide whether he shall accept the judgment of the hymnal editor, using the tune provided, and seeing his congregation stumble and blunder and fail, or whether he shall rise above the judgment of the compiler and select a tune for the hymn in question which the congregation can sing with general participation and spontaneity.

As I have elsewhere insisted, I have no quarrel with the English hymn tune. Many specimens of it are magnificent music. But to accept an English tune simply because it is English, because it bears the name of some prominent English composer, or because it belongs to a style that is recognized as churchly and dignified, is to throw aside all critical discrimination and to invite defeat in the practical work of congregational singing.

In many a congregation these English tunes are used in spite of the fact that congregational singing has become a mere form as a result of this theoretical and impracticable selection. In some cases hired singers are scattered through the congregation in order to keep up