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HOW
THIS HYMNAL
CAME TO BE
W
hen I was holding the meetings in a one-room country
schoolhouse eight miles west of Eugene, Oregon, in July
and August, 1933, which resulted in the start of the Phila–
delphia era of the Church of God, a local 80-year-old Bible student
refused to join in singing the hymns.
Having no hymnal of our own I was forced to use one of the
somewhat thin paperback Protestant song books. The elderly Bible
scholar said, "It is just as sinful to sing a lie as to tell one." I had to
agree. For some time I had realized that many of the standard hym–
nals contained songs that were unscriptural.
It is, however, scriptural to sing hymns. Jesus sang hymns. After
His last Passover, it is recorded, "And when they had sung an hymn,
they went out into the Mount of Olives" (Matthew 26:30). I knew
that the Psalms were, in fact, songs-or hymns.
It
was clear in my
mind that God's people should sing God's inspired words, not man's
uninspired and often unscripturahvords. But the Bible has not pre–
served nor revealed to us the music. God has left it to us to compose
the music.
This was very much on my mind. One day I heard my youngest
brother, Dwight, play on the piano a piece he had composed. It was
not four-part harmony, but was in the style of a four-part harmony
hymn. I was intrigued.
It
had quality and character. I had known
from the time my brother was a small child that he had a special