I really think the
hawker was very happy, who blundered New Form of Prayer into New _former_
Prayers.[1]
I exceedingly regret that our church pays so little attention to the
subject of congregational singing. See how it is! In that particular part
of the public worship in which, more than in all the rest, the common
people might, and ought to, join,--which, by its association with music, is
meant to give a fitting vent and expression to the emotions,--in that part
we all sing as Jews; or, at best, as mere men, in the abstract, without a
Saviour. You know my veneration for the Book of Psalms, or most of it; but
with some half dozen exceptions, the Psalms are surely not adequate
vehicles of Christian thanksgiving and joy! Upon this deficiency in our
service, Wesley and Whitfield seized; and you know it is the hearty
congregational singing of Christian hymns which keeps the humbler
Methodists together. Luther did as much for the Reformation by his hymns as
by his translation of the Bible. In Germany, the hymns are known by heart
by every peasant: they advise, they argue from the hymns, and every soul in
the church praises God, like a Christian, with words which are natural and
yet sacred to his mind. No doubt this defect in our service proceeded from
the dread which the English Reformers had of being charged with introducing
any thing into the worship of God but the text of Scripture.
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