More battles are won by singing hymns than by firing cannon. Advent Songs OLD HYMNS REVISED for NEW NEEDS WONDER is often expressed that the American people sing so little, yet this wonder would cease if more attention were given to the nature and history of the songs we use. The thought content of the English-speaking races is of comparatively recent origin, and in the epoch we have passed through attention has been devoted to the restatement in English of ideas that had their rise in other lands and ages. We have translated what others have written rather than created new thought for ourselves. This is especially true of America, where we think in terms of the places from which our ancestors came, or have made a crude blending of many antiquated philosophies. In this sense the real American is yet to come, for our emotions and sentiments are aroused not by home happenings, but by foreign events. In no field is this fact more apparent than in poetry. A firm literary tradition was created long before the English language arose, and in this tradition literary people are educated. They still think in terms of foreign language, and hold thought to be beautiful only as it is expressed in the forms of this traditional culture. But these forms do not harmonize with the needs of our language; nor does the spirit of other ages and races reflect our deepest emotions. Now, song is not song unless it appeals to the emotions and serves as a binding force holding some group together. It is easy to generalize in this way, but it is hard to produce songs that meet the intellectual and artistic requirements. When I became interested in hymns I had no thought of writing myself. Poetic talent seemed to be going to waste on every side, simply because no appropriate theme suggested itself to the isolated poet. I found that authors in general wrote descriptive poetry instead of hymns, and the kinds of poetry, narrative and lyric, were not clearly distinguished. Again, most of them conveyed a thought different from what I sought. This led me to ask myself what it was in the older hymns that I disliked, and I soon saw that I should get nowhere by criticising the hymns others wrote. I must either write models to show what was my aim, or be content to let each poet follow his own bent. When I set to work the difficulties of the task became ap |