Those of you who have followed Ezra’s Essays know that during my childhood I was forced to attend religious services of the Protestant faith. There were the Southern Baptists, the Nazarenes, the Pentecostals, and, finally, the Free Will Baptists. In the last case, the Free Willers banned musical accompaniment to their hymn singing on the grounds that pianos and organs were not invented at the time of Jesus. When I pointed out that the church members who attended that church came to it in buses, automobiles, and street cars which also did not exist at the time of Jesus, that more or less made me an instant pariah which was a situation that I happily endured.
But in point of fact, I managed to retire from church-going in my 13th year, which would have been around 1935. 1935 is a long time ago and I thought that by this time the memories of those church services would have long disappeared. But the fact is that on many occasions, I find myself singing Protestant hymns. Recently I have been singing or humming, “Leaning on the Everlasting Arm.” [Publisher’s note — the linked song is a version covered by David Crowder, an artist I enjoy — not the original] The words go: “Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arm, safe and secure from all alarm…” It is a simple melody that has existed in my alleged brain for more than 75 years.
On other occasions I am humming or singing or thinking about words to a song whose name I have forgotten. But the song goes: “I go to the garden alone, when the dew is still on the roses, and the voice I hear… is the voice of God and God alone.” When it comes down to actual cases, I don’t claim that I have ever been in communication with God. There are plenty of preachers who claim that they are in regular dialogue with God. They are the sort of preachers that I detested as a child.
Another song that I sing is “In the sweet by and by”. The words that follow are, “We shall meet on that beautiful shore.” I assume that the songwriter meant the shores of the river Jordan. However, the river Jordan is in Israel, and this song is about heaven. But this is a small detail for hymn singers such as myself.
Then there is a hymn called, “Revive us Again.” Among its lines are, “ Hallelujah! Thine the glory. Hallelujah! Amen. Hallelujah! Thine the glory. Revive us again.” For many years, I thought that hymn said, “Grind the Glory” rather than “Thine the Glory.” I was the son of farmers and grinding the glory sounded better to me than “Thine the glory.” Today when I hum that song, I still say, “Grind the glory.”
Perhaps the most famous Protestant hymn is “Amazing Grace.” It was written by a sea captain who was involved in the slave trade business and regularly called at a place called Takoradi in Ghana, which used to be called the Gold Coast. He picked up his slaves and took them to this country or to the Arab nations for auctioning. It was his contention that there was a terrible storm at sea in which he almost drowned.
I have no idea what happened to the slaves he had aboard his ship. But at any rate he retired; he went back to England and became a full-fledged Christian and eventually a Bishop in the Anglican church. His name was John Newton. I have always had a suspicion about Mr. Newton and his story of being hit by a storm at sea that almost drowned him. In any case, he wrote the lyrics to a Scottish tune that he called “Amazing Grace.” One of the lines is: “Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me.” I believe that the use of the word “wretch” is an inspiration that I cannot erase from my memory. Is there a more expressive line in Protestant hymns? I doubt it. I know all of the words to “Amazing Grace,” which do not need to be repeated here. But the line about the wretch is a total king maker for me, a non-believer. I believe that I am the “wretch” that Newton had in mind. I am completely fulfilled.
There are several other hymns that bounce around in my brain, which I will not trouble you with here because they might convert you into Southern Baptists or Pentecostals or Nazarenes or Free-Will Baptists. I will save you from that terrible fate. But I thought it was an essay to let the world know that while I enjoy my position as a non-believer in religious matters, the fact is that those hymns have stuck with me for more than 75 years or thereabouts. Why this is true, I have no idea. My next door neighbor who is a harpist of great renown. She is now studying the association between music and memory at Cambridge.
So you see there is some social underpinning for the matter of music and memory. I will leave you with the thought of “Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me.” I take that personally as a full-fledged wretch, but I also doubt whether John Newton really endured the storm at sea which he said had saved him. But who am I to say? I enjoy the music and I enjoy the memories. So I will go on humming or singing to myself hymns like “Leaning on the everlasting arm” and “Grind the glory.”
E. E. CARR
May 27, 2010
Essay 456
~~~
Kevin’s commentary:
The song that escaped Pop’s memory was called “In the Garden,” and is indeed quite pretty. Thanks to the magic of Google, I just spent the last hour or so listening to various hymns. So I suppose now they’re a part of my memory as well, though they haven’t been drilled in there to the same extent that they have lodged in Pop’s mind. For the sake of full disclosure, the hymns which I’ve been listening to have primarily been covers as these tend to be of a substantially higher audio quality.
Still, though, there is certainly something to be appreciated.