Again, I say it's a joy to be in your midst, to be back in Jarvis Street, and to renew fellowship. Happy especially to see Dr. Holliday, Mrs. Holliday here tonight, and I think of years in which I have known them and rejoiced in association with them. As Dr. Adams has said, it is a very important subject that is before us. We live in a day when little is said about Christian singing. A day in which little is known about Christian singing, and a day in which Christian singing to a large extent has sunken to depths of ignorance and of irreverence in many, many quarters. We need to give particular attention to the subject of singing, why we sing, how we should sing, what we should sing. And I trust that tonight the Lord will use what I have to say to stimulate, especially in the minds of young men called of God to the work of the ministry, to stimulate a sense of inquiry and concern on this great matter. I'm going to look at, first of all, the singing used during the revival. We're talking of the revival in which God used the Westleys, Whitfield, others in England, Jonathan Edwards, and others in America 200 years ago. What kind of singing did they use in the revival then? And then compare, contrast that with the generality of so-called Christian singing today, and then see what lessons we can learn from that singing of 200 years ago to apply unto our singing now. Sure, we all recognize there are a number of admonitions to Christians singing in the New Testament scriptures. Paul in the listing and dealing with the charismatic gifts in I Corinthians, I will sing with the voice and I will sing with the understanding. Let me emphasize it. I'll sing with the voice, but I'll also sing with the understanding. Basic to all I have to say tonight is that thought of singing, not only with the voice, but also with the understanding. Then there come the passages that which was read tonight, be filled with the Spirit speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns, spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Parallel passage in Colossians. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Passage in Hebrews, the writer of the Hebrews dealing with Christians, persons at least who had been under Christian influence, who'd left Judaism and are under pressure to return to Judaism. He's dealing with the general arguments of Judaism which say to the Christians, you poor Christians have nothing. We've got everything. We have the Old Testament scriptures. We have the Fathers. We have the tabernacle in the wilderness. We have the temple in Jerusalem and all its elaborate worship. We have the hierarchy, etc. You Christians have nothing. You haven't any sacrifice. The writer to them, showing that we have everything, and they had nothing. All they had was shadows and types pointing forward, and it had all been fulfilled in Christ. Then he says about the sacrifice, By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. We go on to Revelation and we find the choirs of heaven joining together to sing the praises of Almighty God. We have our admonitions to Christian singing in these portions and others of the New Testament. Undoubtedly, some sections of the New Testament were actually portions used in singing. Quite possibly 1 Corinthians 1, the charity love chapter, was something that was sung. Other portions, I won't take time to go into those tonight, but undoubtedly there was singing in those groups that gathered together in these early New Testament days. Christianity also created an immediate great burst of singing. It's highly probable that the Old Testament persons did not have singing among them. They had their songs. The singing was undoubtedly that of the choirs in the temple. It's doubtful the synagogues had any kind of music and singing among them. I'm sure we can't think of Jewish people in their homes. with an Old Testament background doing any kind of singing on the Old Testament basis. But as soon as the gospel was heard, there came a great burst of glorious Christian singing. There came, first of all, Grecian hymns, hymns written in the Grecian tongue. And we could mention, and I'm just touching, the very surface of a great subject here looking over the singing of some hundreds of years. But there were numerous hymns written. Clement of Alexandria was one prominent in his hymn writing. These were doctrinal hymns. And when there came the doctrinal strife with Arianism, the Christians took to the streets to maintain and proclaim their opposition to Arianism by what? By singing. And they went along the streets of Alexandria and other cities singing hymns concerning the deity of Jesus Christ. They were singing praiseful hymns. They were singing doctrinal hymns. It is possible that something like 100,000 Christian hymns were written in the Greek language. a vast treasury of glorious literature. Very few have come down to us. One from the 8th or 9th century, Art Thou Weary, Art Thou Languid, Art Thou Sore Distressed, is one that is known to us. They say there is a great, vast, numerous treasury of hymns there. Parallel with the Greek hymns, but not as numerous, were the Latin hymns. And I mention two outstanding names here, Ambrose called St. Ambrose, but we'll forgo the so-called title. Ambrose died in the year 397, was the father of a whole school of hymnology. Likewise, 200 years later, dying 604, Gregory, sometimes spoken of as a pope. Gregory, also a leader in the writing of hymns and the singing of hymns. coming up through the dark ages that followed, of course, hymnology and the singing of hymns, came into a much more minor position, but from out of the cloisters there came Bernard of Clairvaux, died 1153, number of hymns, O Sacred Head Now Wounded, Jesus the Very Thought of Thee, From Thomas of Solano, one of the followers of Francis of Assisi, Thomas dying 1250, day of wrath, that dreadful day when heaven and earth shall pass away, what then shall be the sinner's stay? It's one of the hymns, written in Latin, came from the pen of Thomas. But in general, from the days of the beginning of the dark ages in round figures, the year Through to the days of the Reformation in round figures 1500, there was little popular singing. Singing was for the clergy, it was done behind the walls of the cloister, and the common people who did not have a Bible and did not know the Bible had nothing to sing about. Religion, Christianity as they knew it, largely a matter of forms and often of fears and nothing to sing about. With that, we move speedily on to Reformation times. Even the morning stars of the Reformation, I speak of John Hus, John Hus, as he's better termed, who died 1415, martyred, was an author of a number of hymns in Bohemia and set his people singing. And from that day in Bohemia, a number of hymns stemmed down through to Luther's day, came hundred years later. John Wycliffe, in England, died 1384. John Wycliffe, also an author of hymns, sent his Lollard preachers up and down England, open air preachers, and certainly it appears they were men clear in the gospel. And as the Lollards went forth, they also went singing. But God raised up Dear old, wonderful Martin Luther, in Germany. Luther died 1546, just to allow you to set the date in your mind. Luther knew what it was to be soundly converted. He knew what it was to have labored and struggled for salvation, and by all manner of penance and asceticism, but finding none, pointed by Staupitz, the superior of the monastery, away from the crucifix unto the cross to see the dying Saviour. And Luther knew what it was by faith and in faith to plunge his soul in total dependence upon Christ. received the joy and assurance of salvation. Now Luther couldn't keep from singing, and immediately he began to write hymns. Hymn after hymn flowed forth from his pen. By 1517 he inlaid his theses on the door of the Wiedenberg church. By 1523 Luther had published eight of his own hymns. also hymns of others, and by 1745 he had 125 of his own hymns. Luther's hymns are scriptural. They're magnificent, strong, masculine, robust hymns. The very personality of the mighty man comes forth in his hymns. Many of them wonderfully expressed the conditions and the emotions of the time. It was at a moment at which certain government actions had seemingly turned authority back over into the Church of Rome that would have proved very harmful to Protestantism. I don't like the word, but what else can I use right now to indicate what I mean? It would have proved very harmful, and in the midst of seeing a seeming new ascendancy of Rome, it was then that Luther wrote, A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing. This was Luther, and this went down through his hymns. And yet Luther had this great rotundity of person. It is said that Away in a Manger was written by Luther. There's great doubt as to whether it was or not. But if it wasn't, it was the kind of hymn Luther could have written. He could have felt those simplicity of feelings manifest in that hymn that we sing at Christmas time, especially with the children in mind. Thank God for Martin Luther. and the great outburst of Christian singing that came with him. The students went from Wittenberg University and from its church out to Germany, Holland, Belgium, Scandinavian lands, all over Europe. The students went and they carried by word of voice Luther's message, the Reformation message of justification by faith. But other than carrying it in the printed word in the Bibles, Bible that Luther had translated into German, and other than carrying it in Luther's servants, they carried it by their singing. And throughout the streets, towns and villages and cities of Europe, there could be heard the groups of traveling students singing Luther's hymns. It is probable that the singing And the use of Luther's hymns did as much or more to spread the Reformation message than Luther's preaching or than Luther's writing. Then there rose up a number of other German hymnists, Lutheran, Reformed, Pietistic, and we're told that there are possibly 100,000 hymns in the German language today. We think we have a treasury in our English language with a fraction of that number. Maybe we should all envy those of you who have a knowledge of the German language, but there have been a number of magnificent German hymns translated into our English. But the revival spread to other lands. Speedily I mention that it spread to Sweden, to Norway, Denmark, especially France. I wish some of you who know the French language would undertake, and Brother Holiday has put this, his mention put this first in my mind, the study of the Huguenots in Quebec province. Champlain, if he wasn't a Huguenot, was very friendly toward them. There was at Tadoussac in Quebec a strong Huguenot settlement. It was all wiped out. We hear much about the driving out of the poor Acadians by the bad Protestants. I wish some of the students might make an excellent subject of a thesis to look into the grand Huguenot movement in its settlement in Canada and to let us know what happened there in that place. Thank God for the Huguenots and the work in France of the gospel and the singing of hymns there. But I want to come especially to England. The Reformation came much more slowly to England than to Germany. There was still a favor toward Rome in England under Henry VIII and then following Henry under Edward and under bloody Queen Mary. Then Queen Elizabeth came to the throne and she called a halt, blew the whistle on all activity. Everything stayed just frozen as it is. Maybe it was the best move at the time, but under Henry VIII's time, and we're dealing back now in the 1500s, there was practically no singing of hymns or even of psalms in the English language, and one of Henry's A servant's the only word I can think of for the moment. Courteous isn't quite the term I want. One in his household, anyway. Thomas Sternhold was the groom of the robes to Henry. And he heard the obscene songs that were sung around Henry's court, and he said, I'm going to put some of the psalms into metric form and try to get people singing these psalms. So Thomas Sternhold made and published a book of psalms in metric form. set to various tunes, and for about 100 years, Sternhold psalms were sung in England. From 1530, 1540, through for virtually 100 years, we have the singing of the psalms as put in metric form by Sternhold. I mentioned there were other hymn writers that arose at the time, and you'll find some of their hymns in the hymn book. I have no use for the kind of hymn book that doesn't tell us who was the author of the hymn. I would like a hymn book that not only tells the author, but tells his dates, tells something about the author of the hymn, and then perhaps something about the composer of the music to which it is set. It doesn't do to let people feel that this is just an accident. Here's a book full of hymns and they all just came from somewhere by chance. A good hymn is the outflow of the soul of some hymn writer, perhaps some vast depth of experience is expressed there, and a hymn book should have it in. As you look at your hymn book, you'll notice some hymn writers from those days, that century which I'm speaking, I mention a few names. Herbert, known for secular poetry and for some sacred songs, and of course, John Milton. By the way, I hope you all know John Milton was a Baptist, and he left an excellent essay on baptism by immersion. This is a good publication for the Gospel Witness sometime. I have it, Milton's essay on baptism by immersion. And we're dealing here with a man, one of the finest intellects England ever raised, and Baxter left us some hymns. But these hymns did not find, at the time, access into public singing, and were known and used privately, and very little did they get into churches for church singing. Then God raised up Isaac Watts. I'll give you his date, 1674 to 1748. Isaac Watts, 1674 to 1748. Isaac Watts grew up in troubled times. Back in the end of those 1600s, there was still persecution of those who did not conform to the Anglican prayer book, dissenters, nonconformists, they were termed. Isaac Watts grew up in Southampton, where our friend David Fountain comes from. Isaac Watts grew up in a dissenter's home. He saw his father twice thrown into prison because he wouldn't conform unto the Anglican system of the times, and many others went to prison then. John Bunyan was one example. Many were put out into the West Indies virtually as slaves out there. Isaac Watts grew up in the midst of troubled conditions. Isaac Watts, when he was ten, complained to his father about some hymns that were being sung in the Southampton church that they were attending at the time. These were hymns by a man who is unknown today named Barton. Little Isaac Watts, at ten years of age, told his father he didn't like them. Father said, can you do any better? Ten-year-old Isaac Watts produced a hymn, Behold the Glories of the Lamb, now found in many, many hymn books. And he found a tune to which to set it. They sang it at that church that Sunday. Isaac had another one ready for next Sunday, and another one ready for the next Sunday. And this started Isaac on a glorious career of hymn writing. Isaac Watt's hymns, however, were not immediately accepted for church singing. They were the good old-timers who said, we won't sing anything but the Psalms. Now, thank God for the Psalms and their singing. I feel no hymn book among us can be complete without onto the hills around do I lift up my longing eyes. Or the Lord's my shepherd I'll not want he makes me down to lie. Some of the richest putting together of words possible in our language is a great place for the singing of psalms. But in Isaac Watts' day they said we'll sing nothing but the psalms. And so it was with difficulty, and in the face of opposition, that little by little, Isaac Watts' hymns were sung and gradually accepted. However, by the time Isaac Watts died, at 1748, the age of 74, his hymns had found a place in a great many of the Protestant at least the non-conformist churches of England at the time. He wrote, we figure, something like 600 to 700 hymns. Many of them were psalms put into metric form for singing. Others were virtually New Testament passages or other scriptural passages that he put into metric form as he did the psalms. He would say, no, we're not singing human composition. We are singing scripture in various of these hymns that he thus produced. Some of them came with great meaning. For instance, I'm not ashamed to own my Lord or to defend his cause. Very easy for us to sing that, isn't it? No one here is going to face any persecution. None of you saw your father go to jail because of his faith. When Isaac Watts wrote that, I'm not ashamed to own my law. It meant I'm not afraid to go to prison, as my father did, for the sake of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll make mention of some of the hymns that Isaac wrote. Many of them, of course, are known to you by heart. Jesus shall reign where the sun of his successive journeys run. O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come. Sweet is the work, my God, my King. This is the day the Lord hath made, he calls the hours his own. How pleased and blessed was I to hear the people cry, Come, let us seek the Lord today. Here's a hymn that I heard, I was in England for a month recently, and church after church we sang, I'll praise my Maker while I've breath. I've been unable to find the tune to which they set it. If anyone knows that tune commonly sung in England to that hymn, please let me know. But oh, how I rejoice to hear them singing, Isaac Watts, I'll praise my Maker while I've breath. He wrote, When I survey the wondrous cross, Come, let us join our cheerful songs with angels round the throne. There is a land of pure delight where saints immortal reign. Am I a soldier of the cross, a follower of the Lamb? Come, we that love the Lord, and let our joys be known. Alas, and did my Saviour bleed, and did my Sovereign die? Jesus shall reign where the sun doth his successive journeys run. Now these are just some 12 or 13 out of 600 or 700 hymns that Isaac Watts wrote. Oh, I know the whole 600 or 700 aren't suitable for Christian singing. Some of them were pretty lacking in literary merit, but oh, many of them were magnificent hymns. I'm sure your heart is joined with mine as I've quoted those. The feeling here is a glorious treasury of Christian hymns. And as I've said, little by little, the dissenting churches took up with Isaac Watts' hymns. From the time he died, much of the life of those churches throughout England, and from England stemming out to this continent also, they were singing those glorious hymns of Isaac Watts. Did you notice them again? solid magnificent hymns, doctrinal hymns, hymns of great biblical truth in. Those I quoted, you don't find some light froth sentiment in there. It wasn't Beautiful Isle of Somewhere or something of that nature. I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses. Joy we share as we tarry there none other has ever known. God save us from that light, utterly senseless, froth and doggerel of that kind. We got something vastly better to sing, and I hope you saw something in those hymns of Isaac Watts that I quoted. God raised up others at that time, and I mentioned Philip Doddridge. Doddridge was not well throughout much of his life. I should mention Isaac Watts wasn't well either. Isaac Watts remained unmarried. He was asked to go to the home of Sir Thomas Abney for a week. He went for a week and stayed 28 years. The Abneys, however, had a magnificent English mansion, and they rejoiced to have the little doctor in their home. He was chaplain, as it were, to them. He was teacher to their children. He was man of God in their midst. We can rejoice in the Abneys that they provided this refuge for Watts at a time when he needed it, and they enabled much of the literary output that came from his pen. Philip Doddridge unwell much of his life. He died at the age of 49. He conducted a theological seminary academy at Northampton in England. He was an author and an able preacher and perhaps remembered best today for his hymns. I'll quote a few of them. Heart the glad sound, the Savior comes. Grace is a charming sound, harmonious to the ear. My God, and is thy table spread, and doth thy cup with joy o'erflow? O happy day that fixed my choice on thee, my Saviour and my God! Triumphant Zion, lift thine head from dust and darkness and the dead. O God of Bethel, by whose hand thy people still are fed, who through this weary wilderness hath all our fathers led. Add these to these of Isaac Watts, and ye see this treasury of English hymns growing in number. All of these helped to prepare England, however, for the great unparalleled burst of singing that was with the latter years of Watts and Doddridge that was immediately before the people of England. I speak of the coming then of the Methodist revival, evangelical revival, I'd call it the 18th century revival. Glorious revival that God granted then. Now immediately it'll come to your mind, I'm sure, these were the days of the Wesleys, and both John and Charles Wesley were magnificently gifted in the matter of Christian poetry. I'll deal with Charles for the moment. Him writing with Charles undoubtedly began at his conversion. It's to be doubted if Charles wrote a verse of any kind until he was converted. John wrote various verses, things of a secular nature, before his conversion. It's to be doubted if Charles wrote anything until he was converted. Then came that glorious experience. Charles, graduate of Oxford University with his master's degree, ordained a deacon and a priest of the Church of England, had been a missionary in Georgia, Back home to England, the realization as he met with the Moravians that there was something they had that he did not have as he heard Peter Bowler talk about an assurance of salvation. The experience of Charles as he talked with Bowler. Bowler asked him if he had an assurance and Charles shook his head. He was able to tell Bowler, however, that I hope to be saved. By what, said Bowler? Said Charles, by my endeavors. And Charles said he but sadly shook his head. I hope to be saved by my endeavors, said Charles. And then Charles said, what? Are not my endeavors a sufficient ground of hope? I have nothing else to trust to. Would he rob me of this? But ah, this got Charles seeking. and longing and praying for salvation. And in a few days, Charles, a few days after the hearing of those words, from Pierre Bowler, Charles Wesley, came into the assurance of faith and two days later said, I began a hymn on my conversion. What hymn? Well, the Methodists have long been in dispute over it, and some say, where shall my wandering soul begin? But it is very probable that it was the hymn we sang tonight Charles' conversion, God used the scripture, who loved me and gave himself for me. Charles, writing him in his conversion, wove that into him, and can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood? Died he for me who caused his pain, for me who him to death pursued? Amazing love, how can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me. I can't forbear quoting another stanza where Charles forgot his Arminianism and recognized his salvation came from God. Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in chains of nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I awoke, my dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off, my soul was free. I rose, went forth, and followed thee. Now, that's likely Charles' conversion hymn, but oh, that was just the start, the undoing of a dam, as it were, that had held back the torrent of poetic and scriptural ability within him. And now that he's converted, now he knows the Lord. His whole soul is aglow and all his days filled with the joy of the Lord. And now the hymns began to flow from Charles' pen in abundance. He'd be riding along the road and a great feeling of emotion within him. his soul and he'd pull up his horse and tie the rein to a fence post or something and sit down on a stump and pull out a pad of paper and a pencil and I've read a number of these of his hymns in his own, the originals in his own handwriting as his soul burst forth in the glory of these hymns. Possibly some 7,000 hymns came from him altogether. Poetry ran in the Wesley family. The old father was something of a rhymester at least. I hope to get time to say a word about the difference between rhyme and true poetry. The old father was something of a rhymester, perhaps something of a poet. Hetty the sister wrote some magnificent poetry. Poetry was normal to John and to Charles and God had raised up the men with these gifts of true poetry within them. So the revival This whole movement that went on for three quarters of a century used the hymns of Isaac Watts, the hymns of Philip Doddridge, and the hymns of others. They used many of the Metric Psalms, but added to it this vast outflow of magnificent hymns from the pen of Charles Wesley. John translated a number of the best of the German hymns, hymns from the Pietistic School in Germany, Gerhardt, From Gerard he translated, Jesus, thy boundless love to me. From Ter Stegen, thou hidden love of God, whose height from wrath Now have I found the ground wherein my soul's sure anger may remain. From Scheffler thee will I love my strength, my tower. Some of the grandest hymns in any language, these German hymns translated by John Wesley. I'll mention some of Charles' hymns. Many will think of others, I'm sure. But I want us to see this vast outflow of glorious hymn writing in the revival O love divine, how sweet thou art! Heart, the herald angels sing, Jesus, lover of my soul, Come, let us join our friends above, Thou hidden source of calm repose. Christ the Lord is risen today, O what shall I do, my Savior, to praise? Leader of faithful souls and guide of all that travel to the sky. Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim and publish abroad His wonderful name. Come, thou long-expected Jesus, arise, my soul, arise. Rejoice, the Lord is King, Christ whose glory fills the skies. Love divine, all love is excelling. So we might go on, but oh, do you feel with me something of the majesty and the magnificence and the glory of great Christian singing available to us in these hymns of Charles Wesley and these which John Translated briefly others who followed upon Charles Wesley Charles died 1788 I believe it was John 1791 others followed along right away Joseph Grigg at the age of 10 Wrote Jesus and shall it ever be a mortal man ashamed of thee tell that to your children in your church At ten years of age, Joseph Grigg wrote that. Or Joseph Hart gave us the grand invitation, hymn, Come ye sinners poor and needy. John Senech, I can't fail to mention, my dear, beloved John Senech, and from him we have the present at our table, Lord. Lo, he comes with clouds descending. Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone. Children of the heavenly King, ere I sleep for every favor. Oh, I rejoice in every remembrance of dear John Sennett. These added to part of the revival movement, adding to the hymns, the treasury hymns from the Westleys. Then the Olney hymns. Olney is a village in the middle of England, and in that village lived, and I may not get the pronunciation you want, William Cowper, properly pronounced Cooper. But I was always brought up in school to call it Cowper, and many of you were too, so we'll settle for Cowper. And in your own mind, say Cooper if you want. But William Cowper and John Newton lived in Olney. Newton lived in the Anglican Parsonage, and his garden went back, and from a side gate, it led through to the yard of the poet William Cowper. And Newton had a great influence. Oh, the secular writers that tell you Newton's strong evangelical doctrine drove Culper out of his mind. Newton's glorious message of peace and forgiveness in Jesus Christ brought Culper to the grandest periods of peace and quietness in life that Culper ever knew and helped to bring forth the great torrent of poetry that came from William Cowper. And I mention briefly some of the hymns from Newton. How sweet the name of Jesus sounds. In evil long I took delight. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. Glorious things of thee are spoken. From Cowper heart, my soul, it is the Lord. Oh, for a closer walk with God. Jesus, where thy people meet, there is a fountain filled with blood. Then came along Augustus, top lady, and we all know his rock of ages cleft for me. I must mention one of the greatest, most pure hymn writers, poetry of the purest order ever produced in England among hymn writers, Montgomery, James Montgomery. Hail to the Lord's anointed according to thy gracious word. Go to dark Gethsemane, ye that feel the tempter's power, angels from the realms of glory. Prayer is the soul's sincere desire. Songs of praise the angels sang. I'd like to take time, I don't dare, to ask how many know Songs of Praise? It's a magnificent little gem of a hymn. I've only ever heard it sung once in a public congregation, but we've In all its simplicity and beauty, nothing better perhaps in our English language, these are some of the hymns that came from the revival. A few words about them looking back on this vast Wesley's hymns and associated with them Watts and Doddridge and these others who followed. Here were hymns produced by men who knew their Bible. Now we have today people pouring out choruses who have so little knowledge of the Bible. To be a good hymn writer, one must be something of a theologian. He must have some doctrinal understanding. Here were men who were theologians, knew their Bible, knew biblical truth, and pouring forth these great truths. And in this vast heritage of hymns of the revival, we have a great storehouse of biblical truth set forth before us. There are hymns of poetic merit. There's a vast difference between a little bit of rhyme at the end of a line and poetry. Now I know it's indefinable. I'm not going to try to define it. It's something you feel more than you can actually put into words. But true poetry has a certain indefinable quality that touches the emotions and lifts the soul. And the rhyme plays a part of it, or it may even be without the rhyme. But it's just part of a certain faculty there that is in what we call true poetry. It's been developed down over the centuries. And oh, today, so many that have no concept of a difference between a mere little jingle with a rhyme at the end and something that is true. deep poetry with depth of feeling, not deep in meaning perhaps, but oh, the feeling and expression of the deepest emotions of the soul. And in these hymns of the revival, we have that. Thank God for them. Then they found tunes to suit. The tune has a message just as much as the words do. And we must see that the music to which we set it has the same message as the words themselves. And the Westleys had a marvelous feeling for good music, and they found compositions of some of the great of their own day and of days previous to them, and married their hymns with these musical expressions from the past. And in these hymns you have the three great qualities of a good hymn expressed, biblical truth, literary merit, and musical worth. We look back, I say, upon the singing of the revival, the hymns that were developed, We see this vast heritage in the English language, would to God that they were as widely known today as they were back in that day. I've got a little time to talk about some of the singing that is done today, but following the revival there was a drift. First there was a gradual doctrinal failure as men, often in the pulpit, pulpit to blame, wanting to get sensationalism and all of the hearing and the extra folks in that comes by sensationalism, and therefore lowering their doctrinal standards in order to accomplish that. One thing was the adding of the refrain or the chorus to the hymn. For instance, Doddridge in Grace is a charming sound. didn't write that refrain that comes in, saved by grace alone, this is all my plea, Jesus died for all mankind and Jesus died for me. Some editor of a hymn book put that in a hundred years after Doddridge's time. This is just a little example, the adding of the refrain to make it a little more entertaining. Don't have to use your understanding so much. Just sing with your voice only and the refrain will make something pleasant and lively. And so this is the beginning of a long downward course. I'll bring a little bit of a personal mention in this regard. I grew up in a Christian home. I went from my early days to a Baptist church. I went to a Brethren Sunday School in the afternoon, Baptist church morning and evening. And in the Baptist church, I remember they were using the old Canadian Baptist hymnal in the morning. Then we got a preacher who was, oh, tremendous get and go, great crowd Sunday night. Preacher, I would have policemen there to control the crowd sometimes. and a very popular figure, but couldn't use the Baptist hymnal for these lively evening services, so he brought in songs for service. And I remember right in the corner where you are, right in the corner where you are, oh, we had that. And we had beautiful Isle of Somewhere and all of them with it. And the whole of the church was going downward. And after he left, all the crowds were gone, too, and there had been so little accomplished. Now, this went on. And anyone who is going to write any kind of history of Baptist work in Canada over the last century is going to have to talk of this gradual a lowering of standards throughout all manner of our Baptist churches. And this experience of mine in my boyhood is an evidence, I'm sure, of what went on in all manner of churches. And there was a lowering of doctrinal standards, a lowering of the challenge to think, a lowering of the standards of people's reading, both of the Bible and in turn of good biblical books, theological books. And with it all, the opening of the door to the incoming of modernism. Modernism didn't enter into a denomination that was strong and sound in the faith, but into a denomination that long had been lulled to sleep by an entertainment kind of Christianity, both in the pulpit and in choir, in soloists and in music. Much could be said on it. I've got to try to boil it down. Within the last few years, we've come to a tremendous ignorance of this great heritage of hymns of the past. I've talked to all manner of pastors who admit, I know nothing about hymns, I don't know what's a good hymn, I don't know what's a bad one, all I know is something that sounds nice. Easy little jingle, goes well. The people sing it well, that's about all they know about it. I say an ignorance of what to look for in a hymn and an ignorance of this vast treasury of hymns that we've had here in the past. It's a parallel somewhat to the lack of appreciation of poetry and of literature in general. And it finds a parallel also in the modern art. A moment to mention. In the days when modern art first came in in France, A number of the old traditional artists got a donkey named Gerard and they backed him up to a canvas. And they dipped his tail in red paint and they let him swish away. And then they dipped it in yellow paint and in green paint. They mixed up their various colors and let Gerard swish away with his tail on the canvas. They had the canvas, they wrote his name on it. Girard, and they put it in one of the great exhibitions in Paris, and the modern art critics raved about the work of Girard. What fervor expression, what vivid use of color, what sheer abandonment of brushstrokes. Modern art, hang it this way up, turn it this way, back to front, upside down. This kind of thing has gone on in so-called modern poetry and in much of modern literature, and it has entered into Christian singing, into the words that are sung and into the tunes to which they are set. We have today a wholly different attitude towards singing from what was known back in the revival days. Oh, we can think of some of those vast gatherings in the field and somebody leading them in singing one of Charles Wesley's mighty hymns. Now, there's no evidence they did any kind of beating of time back then. People bought their own hymn book. I brought a couple copies of some of the old hymn books. They had marvelous eyes. You see the size of the print. But everybody had their own hymn book, their Bible and their hymn book. These were their companions at home and they carried them to church with them. They had their own hymn book, and we can imagine the great crowd in the field singing some magnificent hymn, Love Divine, all loves excelling. Joy of heaven to earth come down. Men and women who'd experienced the transformation of heart and life by grace and couldn't help but tell it forth. singing with the voice, but singing with the understanding and singing with all the depths of emotion and feeling within them. From that we come to much of the singing in evangelical circles today. I always rejoiced in the singing I heard in Jarvis Street. I won't take time to go into some of the remembrances of great hymns singing here in this place, but all throughout much of America and in many circles in Canada. Oh, what a vast change today. Now, when it comes to the traveling groups of musicians, there may be a place for some of them. I'm yet to see it. Now, there may be some good ones. I'm not speaking against them all, but from what I've seen of them and experienced, I was asked to go to speak in a certain town, and when I got there, here were four fellows all dressed in bright red suits, and I could see them setting up a big box, a loudspeaker in the aisle, and equipment up here, and they could have filled the building themselves without all, and they were standing with a mic in front of them, and oh, the noise, ready to blow the roof off. Brother Braxton says they must think God's death. I think everyone in the building is deaf, and if they're not deaf, they're going to make them deaf. I deplore, detest this whole kind of mere acting procedure, and I'm sure those folks, and I could speak of others in the other church I was in, they sang nine times, and they were worn out. Then I get up to preach. What did I do? I read Isaiah chapter 6. I saw the Lord high and lifted up. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, try to get some sense of solemnity and the majesty of divine things that had been decried and denied in this singing that had gone on. Oh, how much they've lost. Let them get back to this grand heritage of hymns. I live near the United States, and we get some of the Christian stations from America on the radio all day long, and from two of them at least, most of it sickly, syrupy, cheap, sentimental kind of thing that hardly has an ounce of doctrine in a dozen hymns and musical content that is utterly trivial, little jingles that they set them to. We had in my days in seminary a brother who could almost talk in rhyme. He could have filled pages and pages with rhyme like this stuff that's so-called singing now. I've got to mention how many of these young fellows I've seen get a guitar and they can strum away on a guitar and they make compose some piece, words and music of their own. I want to tell them, brother, go back and read your Bible, become something of a theologian before you start trying to set the people of God to singing. Oh, I say there may be a place for some of it, but we're in a day when there's a vast drift from the glory of Christian singing and, oh, how much we've lost. I'm not saying good hymns aren't written today, and I must mention a Toronto woman, Margaret Clarkson. She has given us two, at least that I know, magnificent pieces. We come, O Christ, to thee, and so send I you. One of Oswald Smith's numbers, For Salvation Full and Free. One of Dr. Shields' hymns, God of all grace, great three in one. And I brought the doctor's own selection of hymns, the 150 hymns that he chose with me. Some may want to see it, it's unknown today. But the doctor wrote himself, there are hymns written today. I better close my word all for a return to doctrinal preaching, doctrinal understanding, a new revived sense of God's greatness, of the character of God. And when there is that, then in turn there will be a return to a singing of hymns that recognize the character of God. Not this, pardon me even for mentioning it, the man upstairs idea, put your hand in the hand of the man of Galilee or something like that. Oh, a sense of the solemnity and majesty of God in his greatness and of all the character and the attributes of God. I've got to close it. I remember when I came first to Jarvis Street, the church I'd been in in London, we had a lot of very lively singing. We never knew anything about singing, anything of any depth. When I walked into Jarvis Street, I said, it's different at least. But it took me four or five months, perhaps, to get the feel of it. They come in the Sunday mornings and sing some of those Sunday morning hymns. This is the day the Lord hath made. He calls the hours his own. But I especially remember... a hymn that's so seldom used today, leader of faithful souls and guide of all that travel to the sky. Come and with us, ye must abide, who would on thee alone rely, on thee alone our spirits stay while held in life's uneven way. We've no abiding city here, but seek a city out of sight. Thither our steady course we steer as pilgrims to the land of light. palace of our glorious King. We feel it nearer while we sing. And I've seen the congregation just lifted heavenward. We feel it nearer while we sing. Raised by the breath of love divine, we urge our way with strength renewed. The church of the firstborn to join, we travel to the mount of God with joy upon our heads arise and meet our captain in the skies. Oh, how far ahead of the trivial singing of today is a magnificent hymn of that kind. God get us back to doctrinal preaching, doctrinal understanding, doctrinal singing and all how it can enrich the whole of the ministry of God's Church.