Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T21:39:04.133Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hymnody as History: Early Evangelical Hymns and the Recovery of American Popular Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Stephen Marini
Stephen Marini
Affiliation:
Elisabeth Luce Moore Professor of Christian Studies atWellesley College.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The hymns of evangelical Protestantism are the most widely used spiritual texts in American history. Sacred lyrics like “All hail the power of Jesus' name,” “Jesus, lover of my soul,” “How firm a foundation,” and “When I survey the wondrous cross” have been sung, preached, and prayed by millions of Americans since the eighteenth century. At worship, revivals, youth services, conferences, conventions, and colleges, and in the family circle, these hymns have been ceaselessly repeated in an unending round of living oral tradition. Since the Great Awakening two and a half centuries ago, the churches of the evangelical tradition have published tens of thousands of hymn texts and tunes. This continuous popularity since colonial times establishes hymnody as a crucial expression of American evangelical religiousness.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 71 , Issue 2 , June 2002 , pp. 273 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Williams, Peter W., Popular Religion in America: Symbolic Change and the Modernization Process in Historical Perspective, 2d ed. (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1989), xi.Google Scholar

2. This short list names just a few of the most significant among many editors whose hymn collections and tune books enjoyed enormous sales and played a vital role in the shaping early American popular religion. See Billings, William, The Complete Psalm Singer (Boston: Edes and Gill, 1770)Google Scholar; Mercer, Jesse, The Cluster of Spiritual Songs, Divine Hymns, and Social Poems 3d ed., rev. (Augusta, Ga.: Hobby and Bunce, 1810)Google Scholar; Worcester, Samuel, Christian Psalmody, in Four Parts (Boston: Samuel T. Armstrong and Crocker and Brewster, 1819)Google Scholar; Wyeth, John, Repository of Sacred Music, Parts I and 2 (Harrisburg: John Wyeth, 1810 and 1813)Google Scholar; Walker, William, The Southern Harmony (Spartanburg, S.C.: Williams Walker, 1835).Google Scholar

3. Hatch, Nathan, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 34–40, 146–61.Google Scholar

4. Hatch, , Democratization, 34–40.Google Scholar

5. Hall, David D., ed., Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1997), vii–xii.Google Scholar

6. Lippy, Charles H., Being Religious, American Style: A History of Popular Religiosity in the United States (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1994), 10.Google Scholar

7. Julian, John, A Dictionary of Hymnology (London: John Murray, 1892)Google Scholar; Benson, Louis F., The English Hymn: Its Development and Use (New York: Doran, 1915)Google Scholar; Foote, Henry Wilder, Three Centuries of American Hymnody (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1940)Google Scholar; Lowens, Irving, Music and Musicians in Early America (New York: Norton, 1964)Google Scholar; Karl, Kroeger, ed., The Complete Works of William Billings (Boston: American Musicological Society/Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1981–1990)Google ScholarKroeger, Karl and American Fuging-Tunes, 1770–1820: A Descriptive Catalogue (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1994)Google Scholar; Britton, Allen, Lowens, Irving, and Crawford, Richard, American Sacred Music Imprints, 1698–1810: A Bibliography (Worcester, Mass.: American Antiquarian Society, 1990)Google Scholar; Davie, Donald, A Gathered Church: The Literature of the English Dissenting Interest (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978)Google Scholar, Dissentient Voice: The Ward-Philips Lectures for 1980 with Some Related Pieces (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982)Google Scholar, and The Eighteenth Century Hymn in England (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Watson, J. R., The English Hymn: A Critical and Historical Study (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Bruce, Dickson R., And They All Sang Hallelujah: Plain-Folk Camp-Meeting Religion in the South, 1800–1845 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Sizer, Sandra [Frankiel], Gospel Hymns and Social Religion: The Rhetoric of Nineteenth Century Religion (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978)Google Scholar; Spencer, Jon Michael, Protest and Praise: Sacred Music of Black Religion (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1990)Google ScholarSpencer, Jon Michael, and Black Hymnody: A Hymnological History of the African-American Church (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Hobbs, June Hadden, “I Sing for I Cannot be Silent”: The Feminization of American Hymnody, 1870–1920 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997).Google Scholar

8. Diehl, Katherine Smith, Hymns and Tunes: An Index (Metuchen, N.J.: ATLA Press).Google Scholar

9. Crawford, Richard, The Core Repertory of American Psalmody (Madison, Wisc.: A-R Editions, 1984).Google Scholar

10. Temperley, Nicholas with Manns, Charles and Herl, Joseph, The Hymn Tune Index (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).Google Scholar

11. This research was made possible by the American Protestant Hymns Project, a 1997–2001 grant by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. to the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois. I am grateful to Mark Noll and Edith Blumhofer, successive Directors of the Institute, for their enthusiastic support of this work.

12. I have relied especially on Foote, Three Centuries; Jackson, George Pullen, Spiritual Folksongs of Early America (New York: Augustin, 1937)Google Scholar; and Britton, et al. , American Sacred Music Imprints in selecting hymn collections and tune books for the database.Google Scholar

13. Kaufmann, U. Milo, The Pilgrim's Progress and Traditions in Puritan Meditation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966)Google Scholar; Hambrick-Stowe, Charles, The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Disciplines in Seventeenth-Century New England (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982).Google Scholar

14. At ninety-nine editions, Watts's, IsaacPsalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New TestamentGoogle Scholar was the most frequently published work in eighteenth century America, followed by his Hymns and Spiritual Songs with seventy-eight printings, while the volume of early national and antebellum evangelical hymn collections is simply staggering. See Shipton, Clifford and Mooney, James E., National Index of American Imprints through 1800: The Short-Title Evans, 2 vols. (Worcester, Mass.: American Antiquarian Society, 1969).Google Scholar

15. Geertz, Clifford, “Religion as a Cultural System,” in The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic, 1973), 87–125.Google Scholar

16. Watts, Isaac, Hymns and Spiritual Songs (London: J. Humphreys, 1707), book 1, hymn 10 (Hereafter HSS)Google Scholar; Heber, Reginald, Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Service of the Year (London: J. Murray, 1827).Google Scholar

17. Newton, John and Cowper, William, Olney Hymns (London: W. Oliver, 1779), book 1, hymn 60Google Scholar; Fawcett, John, Hymns (Bristol, 1782), hymn 104.Google Scholar

18. Watts, HSS, book 2, hymn 14, and The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament (London: J. Clark, 1719), Psalm XCII, part 1.Google Scholar

19. Watts, altered by Wesley, John, in Wesley, Psalms and Hymns (Charleston, S.C.: Lewis Timothy, 1737)Google Scholar; Robert, Robinson, A Collection of Hymns used by the Church of Christ in Angel-Alley Bishopsgate (London, 1759)Google Scholar, Watts, , HSS, book 2, hymn 34.Google Scholar

20. Charles, Wesley, Hymns of Intercession for All Mankind (Bristol: F. Farley, 1758)Google Scholar; William, Cowper in Olney Hymns, book 3, hymn 15.Google Scholar

21. Noll, Mark A., Bebbington, David W., and Rawlyk, George A., eds., Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles, and Beyond, 1700–1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 6.Google Scholar

22. John, Wesley, A Collection of Hymns for the People Called Methodists, ed. Franz, Hildebrandt and Beckerlegge, Oliver A. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983), 74.Google Scholar

23. Isaac, Watts, Horae Lyricae: Poems Chiefly of the Lyrical Kind (London, 1706).Google Scholar

24. Watts, , HSS, book 2, hymn 9.Google Scholar

25. Samuel, Stennett in Rippon, , Selection of Hymns, hymn 80.Google Scholar

26. William, Cowper in Conyers, R., A Collection of Psalms and Hymns from Various Authors (London: T. and J. Pasham, 1767).Google Scholar

27. A recent postmodernist study that assigns subjectivity the primary role in determining evangelical religious identity is Payne, Rodger M., The Self and the Sacred: Conversion and Autobiography in Early American Protestantism (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998).Google Scholar

28. Hambrick-Stowe, Charles, Charles G. Finney and the Spirit of American Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 108–9.Google Scholar

29. Jones, Edmund in Rippon, , Selection of Hymns, hymn 355.Google Scholar

30. Watts, , HSS, book 1, hymn 7Google Scholar; Joseph, Hart, Hymns Composed on Various Subjects (London, 1759)Google Scholar; Anne, Steele, Poems Chiefly Devotional (London, 1760), 1:17Google Scholar. On class attitudes in these poems see Lionel, Adey, Class and Idol in the English Hymn (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1988), 21–32.Google Scholar

31. Watts, , HSS, book 2, hymn 88.Google Scholar

32. John, Newton in Olney HymnsGoogle Scholar; Phillip, Doddridge in Hymns Founded on Various Texts.Google Scholar

33. Charles, Wesley, Hymns for Those That Seek, and Those That Have Redemption in the Blood of Jesus Christ (London, 1747).Google Scholar

34. The three-verse common use text of “Come Thou Fount” was first published in Martin, Madan, A Collection of Psalms and Hymns Extracted from Various Authors (London, 1760).Google Scholar

35. Watts, , HSS, book 2, hymn 65Google Scholar; Watts, , Sermons, 3 vols. (London, 1721–1724), vol. 3Google Scholar; HSS, book 2, hymn 54.

36. Grigg's original version was published in Joseph, Griggs, Four Hymns on Divine Subjects (London, 1765)Google Scholar. The common use version first appeared in Rippon, , Selection, hymn 451Google Scholar. Watts, , HSS, book 1, hymn 103.Google Scholar

37. Watts, , HSS, book 2, hymn 3 and book 2, hymn 110Google Scholar; Charles, Wesley, Funeral Hymns, Enlarged (London, 1759).Google Scholar

38. Stennett in Rippon, , Selection, hymn 584Google Scholar. “Jerusalem, My Happy Home” has a complex translation, redaction, and publication history treated in Julian, , Dictionary of Hymnology, 580–83Google Scholar. Watts, , HSS, book 2, hymn 66 and book 1, hymn 62Google Scholar; Robert, Seagrave, Hymns for Christian Worship (London, 1742).Google Scholar

39. Williams, , Popular Religion in America, xii.Google Scholar

40. Sizer, , Gospel Hymns and Social Religion, 50–82.Google Scholar

41. Selma, Bishop, ed., Isaac Watts: Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1707–1748: A Study in Early Eighteenth-Century Language Changes (London: Faith, 1962), liii–liv.Google Scholar

42. Bishop, , Isaac Watts, liii.Google Scholar

43. John, Cennick, “Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone;”Google ScholarRobert, Robinson, “Come thou fount of every blessing;”Google ScholarIsaac, Watts, “Am I a soldier of the cross?”Google Scholar and “When I can read my title clear;” and Samuel, Stennett, “On Jordan's stormy banks I stand.”Google Scholar