Famous Hymns of the World Series
Lead Kindly Light
ITS ORIGIN AND ITS ROMANCE
BY
ALLAN SUTHERLAND
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY
THE REV. HENRY C. McCOOK
D.D., LL.D., Sc.D.
Illustrated
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1905
By The Butterick Publishing Co., Ltd.
Copyright, 1906
By Frederick A. Stokes Company
INTRODUCTORY
BY THE
REV. HENRY C. McCOOK, D.D., LL.D., Sc.D.[1]
rom the earliest eras ofhistory, religion has beenwedded to song. In everystage of civilisation and inwell-nigh every form ofworship this has been true. From therude ululations of savage medicine-men,with the monotonous beat of tum-tums,to the splendid Levitical choir of theHebrew temple that rendered the psalmsto the accompaniment of stringed andivbrazen instruments, the record does notvary.
How rhythm and melody react uponthe religious sentiment, and why religiousexperience naturally flows in rhythmicutterance, one need not here inquire.Such inquiries belong to the natural historyof sacred psalmody. But there areour sacred books to attest the facts. Alarge part of them are poems. Thepoets of ancient Israel were true prophets.The core of the Hebrew religion andworship lay within its religious songs;and these are the portions of its ritualthat have lived; and one may safelypredict that they shall run the wholecycle of being with our race.
As far back as the days of Moses, weread of Miriam under a prophetic impulsebreaking forth into song to commemoratethe deliverance of Israel fromthe Egyptians on the peninsular shore ofvthe Red Sea. A refrain of that hymnhas come down to us:
“Sing unto the Lord for He hath triumphed gloriously;
The horse and his rider He hath whelmed within the sea.”
That such religious songs were notrare and that their musical utterancewas even then organized as a part ofworship, appears from the fact thatMiriam’s countrywomen accompaniedher with their guitars, and joined in thechorus.
The Songs of Deborah illumined theperiod of the Judges. They have beengiven a place by competent criticsamong the noblest lyrics of antiquity.One of these, Heinrich Ewald, speaksof them as so artistic, with all their