HYMNS TODAY
SIR,—In your issue of October 9th Mr. R. W. Howard says of Hymn 593 in Songs of Praise: Masefield's four fine verses from ' The Ever- lasting Mercy' (beginning ' 0 Christ, Who holds the open gate '), when sung on an imaginative boy's First Communion Sunday, are calculated to produce in him a genuine response of devotion which no amount of mere theology could create." That is a true and a very fine thought, and suggests the idea that we should make far more use of noble poetry in our church services than we do at present. Not alone by singing it in hymn form, but by having it read at times in place of the more unsuitable of the prose "Lessons " we use at present.
For years I happened to sit in church in a position which enabled me to study the faces of the pupils in a- large Bible class. I was amazed to see the spiritual response in the young faces when pure, exquisite poetry from Psalms or Prophets was read, or poetical gems from the New Testament, such as the " house founded upon a rock." There is not enough of such poetry in the Bible to suffice for two or three services a Sunday without undue repetition, but why not use noble poetry out- side the Bible? Poets have been called " God's mouthpieces." Mr. Robert Lynd has written of the " Longing for God," and has described poetry as its " supreme utterance." It cannot but, as Mr. Howard suggests, " produce a genuine response of devotion."—Yours, &c.,
Tighnaneilan, Pitlochry, Perthshire. I. SOMERS NEILL.
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