Hymns, Original or Translated

As an old "hymn-tinker," sere if not yellow, may I presume to discuss the subject of hymns? I suppose all hymnodists begin with zeal and end with knowledge, as even I, the least, but I hope not the last, since there is still room on top. There is room chiefly for original hymns. We have too many of the wrong sort and not enough of the right sort, and the career of Father Faber is an expensive object-lesson. For every good hymn he gave us we have three bad ones, and I venture to suggest that all his hymns could well be done without except O Purest of Creatures and Faith of Our Fathers. Perhaps I speak without the book, but even on second thoughts I cannot recall any indispensable hymns of his except that on St. Benedict. Would that he had always wrought up to this standard ! But he set bad headlines for worse men and women than himself. Not only this, but he shelved Caswall and obscured Newman. Now Caswall was our best translator, of distinctly higher quality than Neale (who is not "ours"), and some of his original hymns, e.g. Joy, joy, the Mother comes, are models of what is wanted. I do not for a moment admit that he reaches the heights of Newman, but he is better than anyone else I know of, after Matthew Bridges. And only after Matthew Bridges at his best

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