"And here I beg leave to mention a thought which has long been upon my mind, and which I should long ago have inserted in the public papers, had I not been unwilling to stir up a nest of hornets. Many gentlemen have done my brother and me (though without naming us) the honour to reprint many of our hymns. Now they are perfectly welcome so to do, provided they print them just as they are. But I desire they would not attempt to mend them ; for they really are not able. None of them is able to mend either the sense or the verse. Therefore, I must beg of them one of these two favours : either to let them stand just as they are, to take them for better for worse ; or to add the true reading in the margin, or at the bottom of the page ; that we may no longer be accountable either for the nonsense or for the doggerel of other men."
London Oct. 20 1779. JOHN WESLEY. From the preface to the 1780 hymn book.
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
Nice hey. Now have a look at the pressy version.
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Your sun shine turned my night to day
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, your voice I knew,
I rose, went forth, and followed you.
Pretty poor.
** I tried to find a graphic for the very awful 'rejoice' hymn book. Alas, this is what came up! AAAHHHH!
Ugh.
ReplyDeleteThanks; I added that to my similar earlier remarks.
Having just sung the very ugly Presbyterian version,
ReplyDeleteAMEN TWENTY TIMES OVER !!!!
Hear hear!! I remember having a rant to Marcel and Rebecca at JCP the first time I sung that dreadful version.
ReplyDeleteYes, but Simone (and I found this blog while doing a search related to Rejoice), what do you suggest we do when half our congregation are ESL speakers and the old words from the blue hymnal are well beyond them? I don't like a lot of the changes in Rejoice. BUT is there another alternative to dropping the hymns completely and only singing songs written in the 20thC? I look around while we are singing a very old hymn (which I dearly love) and notice the Korean, African, Indonesia and Filopino congregation members and think, "What are they getting out of this? We are asking them to sing along with words they cannot comprehend." Surely, the language of corporate worship should be accessible to most of the participants.
ReplyDelete