Among us we need some who not only know the truth but who can also compose and sing hymns. If we desire to work for the Lord, we need to study and speak the Lord’s word. To speak for the Lord, we must first know the Lord’s word; that is, we must know the truth. Next, our spirit must be a strong, praying spirit, and we need to practice praying unceasingly. Third, we must develop our speaking ability. Fourth, we must also be able to sing. Both Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 tell us that God’s word is not only for us to speak to others but also for us to sing to others (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16). In the past singing has been our weakest area. I hope that from now on singing would be more prevailing both in the small group meetings and in the big meetings.
Of course, some are born without a talent for singing. However, in our singing we should not focus on how beautiful the music is but on the release of our spirit. There are many of us who can sing well and who have been trained in vocal music. However, when we sing in the meetings, instead of paying too much attention to the music and the sound of others’ voices, we should pay attention to life and spirit. The singing of the hymns should be an overflow of life and spirit. If we touch life and spirit in our enjoyment of the Lord, spontaneously we will be filled with singing. Sometimes during a meeting a saint will choose a hymn from the hymnal and ask everyone to sing it in order to fill up the time. This makes our singing regulated and formal. Instead, we should enjoy the Lord to such an extent that we spontaneously overflow with singing. This may have been the way the early saints sang in their meetings. We do not, however, have this kind of situation among us.
The saints’ singing of hymns began with David in the Old Testament. The tunes from these hymns were then passed down from David all the way to the Catholic Church and then from the Catholic Church to the Protestant churches. Those who study music know that these “sacred melodies” have a distinct style that is grave and solemn. After World War II the Americans, who like new things, called these sacred tunes the “Old Timers,” so they discarded them and composed many new tunes. Most of the new tunes, however, did not stand the test of time because they were not dignified enough. Hence, most of them are of little value. Nevertheless, we selected some of the new tunes that have some value and included them in our hymnal. One example is the tune to the hymn “In the Garden.” The content of this hymn is a description of how Mary the Magdalene met the Lord Jesus in the garden on the morning of His resurrection and how the two of them conversed and fellowshipped with one another. Over twenty years ago when I heard the tune of this hymn, I used it to compose Hymns, #501, “O Glorious Christ, Savior Mine.” This is also the tune that we have used for the newly written gospel hymn. It is a dignified, sacred tune. Another hymn that uses one of the new tunes is Hymns,#608, “What Mystery, the Father, Son, and Spirit.” The tune of this hymn is also very dignified. All good hymns have solemn tunes.
In this gospel campaign we will also use Hymns,#987, which is an excellent gospel hymn written by the American evangelist J. Wilbur Chapman. In Chapman’s days, the prevailing theology was the theology taught by the modernists. The modernists said that the Lord Jesus was not God, that His death had not been for redemption, and that He had not been resurrected. Therefore, Chapman purposely wrote this hymn of five verses. The first verse is on the birth of the Lord Jesus, the second verse is on His death, the third verse is on His burial, the fourth verse is on His resurrection, and the fifth verse is on His coming back. This hymn not only has a dignified tune, but its chorus is also particularly well written, pointing out the subject matter of all five verses. The chorus says, “Living, He loved me; dying, He saved me; / Buried, He carried my sins far away; / Rising, He justified freely forever: / One day He’s coming—O glorious day!” The content of this hymn is proper and rich, and the tune is dignified.
We all know that poetry is the crystallization or the cream of literature. A person who is able to produce poetry in various forms has reached the peak of his literary training. Furthermore, poetry is also based upon the experience of human life. It is the product of the expression of human sentiments. Little children cannot write good poetry because they lack the experiences of human life. To learn how to write hymns, we need three things—the knowledge of the truth, the experience of life, and some attainment in literature. It is not necessary for us to be highly educated in literature, but we should at least have a certain measure of literary attainment. By also having the knowledge of the truth and the experience of life, we will be able to write good hymns.