MAKING HEAVEN SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY
"Oh, worship the King, all glorious above!
Oh, gratefully sing His power and His love!
Our shield and defender, the Ancient of days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise."
DO pious congregations now sing it in village and city, as they gather together to render thanks to Almighty God for the end of a world war and the benefits of a democratic peace?
The protestant minister of to-day faces perplexity as he thumbs through the hymnal of his church to make selections suited to the present events. His perplexity is salutary to contemplate, suggesting, as it does, the social archaisms that pervade our hymnology. To find among "old favorites" hymns unmarked by images of autocracy and military sentiment is somewhat hard; to find, except in the Gospel Hymns of the extreme wing of modern Dissenters, sacred songs of service, brotherhood and joyful labor is still more difficult. So we should not feel surprise to-day if from our family pew we all join in singing that fine old war song of Bishop Heber’s:
"The Son of God goes forth to war,
A kingly crown to gain;
His blood-red banner streams afar,
Who follows in his train?"
as we celebrate the abdication of emperors, the condign punishment of a militaristic caste, and the prohibition of the red flag of Revolution.
The material of our hymns has come, of course, to a large extent from the Bible. For sentiment and imagery the hymn-writer has ranged through the sacred lore of psalmist and prophet, the gospel narratives, and the epistles of St. Paul, expressing his own personal faith and the faith of his time in terms borrowed from a Hebrew worshipper of a tribal God, from the aggressive promoter of early Christian theology, and more rarely from the comforting words of the Founder of his faith.
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