The Hymn Book

I collect old hymn books - really old hymn books - circuit riders’ hymn books. When I hold them in my hands, I imagine the hands that held them when they were new, back in the 1840s or 1860s or 1880s. I pretend that I am at the 1840’s camp meeting summer evening service:

“See my utter helplessness

And leave me not alone;

Oh, preserve in perfect peace,

And seal me for thine own.”

Or, I stand with family members in an 1860’s funeral service and sing:

“And must this body die,

This well-wrought frame decay?

And must these active limbs of mine

Lie mould’ring in the clay?”

(Those two pages were “dog-eared” in an 1840 Methodist Hymn Book.)

I can’t help but wonder what occasioned the writing these old hymns. Was it war or peace, fear or assurance, calm or chaos, new life or fresh death that brought them into being. I wonder who hummed them as they worked, or softly sang them as prayers at the end of the day. I wonder whose eyes filled with tears of special memories as they sang in worship. I wonder who remembered that this was grandmother’s favorite.

This summer, we’ve been reading a much older hymn book, The Psalms. Like many of the old Methodist hymns, we don’t have the tunes anymore, but we do have the faith that they sing. - Dr. Steve Winter, Executive Pastor