J.F. Cowan: I passed a wagon on a desperately muddy road. One horse, hitched in the shafts, was having a hard tug. Another harnessed horse was being led behind. I wondered why the driver did not hitch the second horse to the load.
The first horse, in relation to our prayer-meeting chariot, is the Bible, which we have just discussed. The second horse is the hymn-book. We wonder, sometimes, why our prayer-meetings drag. It is because the hymn-book has never been properly harnessed to them. The singing is doleful enough, weak enough, spiritless enough to spoil a good meeting. We need to study how to harness the hymn-book to the prayer-meeting.
1. A good meeting must have the element of praise. Religious life without praise is like a face without smiles. It is spiritual dishonesty. No one can be honest who receives divine favors without voicing thanksgiving to God. When we are continually beseeching God for blessings, in our prayer-meetings, and praising Him but little in return, we make the impression that we are serving a niggardly, hard Master, who seldom gives His people anything for which to praise Him. It is a dishonest impression. Our prayer-meetings will be more joyous and attractive, people will flock to them in larger numbers, when we are honest with God in them, and praise Him as much as we supplicate Him. Song is the natural expression of gratitude. People may say that they are grateful to God for His blessings, but if the singing drags in the prayer-meeting, they have falsified. God can't bless a dishonest prayer-meeting.
Therefore every prayer-meeting should have this element of praise. The meeting may be opened with a praise service - let it be a genuine one. Song may be sandwiched all through; the meeting may close with an outburst of praise. To be a well-balanced meeting it must have praise, and jubilant song is another word for praise. Harnessing the hymn-book to the prayer-meeting means,
2. The leader must plan praise into it. It will not do to trust to spontaneity or luck. The leader must study his hymn-book as well as his Bible. Several things must be anticipated:
(1) The tendency of Mrs. Malaprop to take advantage of any lack of readiness on the part of the leader, and propose "Hark from the tombs, a doleful sound," in a meeting devoted to "How I may count my Mercies," must be taken into account. Misfits provoke levity in a prayer-meeting as well as anywhere else. The hymns should all be selected beforehand, and should suit the topic. A familiar hymn should not be used that has no relevancy.
(2) The hymns should suit the audience. Every one has experienced that awful sense of humiliation, after dragging halfway through a new and difficult piece of music, proposed by the leader because it suited the topic, only to have it die out in absolute, cold-blooded failure, that left a chill that would have iced a cold-storage plant. Nobody knew how to sing it. While it is bad policy to continue pounding the old hymns to death, a devotional meeting is not the place for choir practice.
(3) The wisest selection of hymns may be spoiled in the singing. We become so familiar with certain hymns that we sing them as mechanically as the phonograph repeats what has been sung into it. How may a leader help his audience to see anew the beauty and meaning of words they have become accustomed to using in a parrot-like way? Before singing a hymn he may give a brief historical sketch of its origin; as, for instance, how Mr. Ufford came to write, "Throw Out the Lifeline," after witnessing the thrilling rescue of drowning sailors by the lifesavers, or similar instances. Or, he may ask the audience to read the first stanza with him thoughtfully before singing it; sometimes a hymn read without singing at all, is a pleasant change from the usual routine, and stimulates to thoughtfulness.
Variety may be secured by having a stanza of a hymn sung by the male voices alone, and a second by the female voices, all joining in the chorus. The resourceful leader will introduce solos, duets, instrumental music, when they will heighten the effect of the gospel message. Sometimes the junior choir may sing with fine effect in the church prayer-meeting, or the church choir may be asked to sing in the young people's meeting, or singers from the young people's society may sing in the church prayer-meeting.
This suggestion may not need to be seasoned with the reminder that special music in the prayer-meeting should never be announced as if it were a performance for the entertainment of those listening, or something thrown in to enliven things. That would be death to a devotional spirit. The leader may introduce the singer in such a way as to make all feel that his singing is a part of the devotions of the evening. The class of music that sounds like a performance, and that is so affectedly mouthed that the words cannot be understood, has no place in the prayer-meeting, if it has anywhere in the church. A cornet solo may be so skillfully set in the routine of worship as to seem a part of reverent worship.
One use of hymns to which all thoughtful Christians must seriously object, is for "filling in pauses" between prayers. It is degrading the beautiful and dignified hymnology of Christendom to "fill chinks" with the grand old hymns that have blessed generations. It is perfectly admissible, of course, to sing a prayer when other vocal prayer lags.
(4) But when the hymn-book has been harnessed to the prayer-meeting, don't ride it to death. Some thoughtless leaders wear the edges of the book ragged in frantic efforts to keep the meeting "alive." If there is an instant's pause, they fancy that they must rush in with a hymn, or all will be lost. Some of the most helpful and impressive moments of a meeting may be the pauses. They are not necessarily time wasted. We Americans feel that we must be bustling about something, or else we are guilty of inexcusable inactivity. The Spirit works when we are silent. The old Quaker fashion of sitting in silence until the Spirit spoke might help to cure our religious fussiness. The silent moments are not wasted, if the leader quietly suggests meditation, silent prayer, or the soft whispering of some introspective song.
This suggestion may be ventured for the benefit of more inexperienced leaders of young people's meetings; the hymn-book maybe harnessed to the prayer-meeting without running away with it. Volume of song is not spirituality. Lung-power is not pentecostal power. Luther's battle hymn gives a legitimate occasion for "raising the rafters;' but "Whisper to me, Lord Jesus," or "Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling," are often spoiled by boisterousness that seeks to put "life" into the meeting by putting a din into it. Neither need the hymns go at a gallop to prove that the hymn-book is harnessed to the prayer-meeting. A galvanized prayer-meeting is not necessarily a vitalized prayer-meeting. Rush, and dash, and speed are not spirituality. The leader in song who permits the singing to lag and drag and drowse, and the leader who gestures like a jumping-jack and slaps the book, and exclaims, "Now; altogether!" as though he were bossing a gang of roustabouts, are alike hindrances to true devotions.
Let me speak also of abbreviated hymns. The fashion of indiscriminately chopping off the heads of all hymns used, and throwing the bodies away, is a deplorable one. In so many young people's meetings one never hears more than the first two stanzas of a hymn. The completed thought of the writer is never expressed. I know numbers of young people who could repeat the first two stanzas of a score or more of hymns, but beyond that you might as well ask them to repeat the Koran. Better sing fewer hymns and sing some of them through.
(5) A word about opening and closing hymns. It is poor policy to sing half a dozen hymns "while the friends are gathering" - hymns with no related thought, perhaps. It tires the people and leads to nothing. If it is done simply to "kill time," while the audience gathers, it belittles the use of song. I have known of a leader who, after singing a string of hymns in this way said, "Now we will open our meeting by singing No. 50." What was he doing before he "opened"? Has a man any business to use hymns so?
The opening hymns should lead to the central thought of the evening, and the closing piece should, if possible, be one to clinch the good impressions of the evening. More thought needs to be given to the selection of these than any others. The closing hymn should never be weak and inconclusive. It is well for the leader to have in mind several closing pieces that are in accord with his theme, and at the last moment use the one that seems best to fit.
The leader's goal should be, not the entertainment of his audience, but the spiritual quality of the music; its lasting, uplifting effects. He may tickle the ears of some by jingling trash. They may go away saying, "That was a lively meeting; the music had a swing to it!" but they may have stirred in them no deeper loyalty to Christ, no higher sentiments of gratitude to God, or devotion to the church. As Dr. Parks Cadman says, "Cheap hymns make a cheap meeting." On the other hand I would not go to the extreme of singing nothing but music that would meet classical tests. There are certain hymnbooks so very artistic and dignified that you could not harness them to a service for the common people. You might as well expect an iceberg to splash and play as a fountain in your summer garden. John and Charles Wesley made the Methodist movement spread like wildfire by giving the multitudes popular religious hymns. Many of those hymns, condemned at first according to the canons of correct religious music, live to-day, and will live forever.
The hymn-book is harnessed to the prayer-meeting when the hymns accentuate the message of the evening, and when they are so singable and yet so pervasive of spiritual influences that they take hold upon the spiritual susceptibilities of men and women, and nerve them to take up life's duties with renewed courage. If what has been said impresses the need of careful thinking and planning in regard to the selection of hymns for the prayer-meeting, and their proper use in the meeting, just the point will have been made that was intended - if we used our wits more in planning the music of the prayer-meeting, we should not so often have dull, lethargic, uninviting meetings.
By John F. Cowan, New York, 1906
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By John F. Cowan, New York, 1906
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