# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1953_S1208
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

PUBLICATION MATTERS 601

sijlable and have been introduced in various churches in America
in Europe in recent years. We are happy to note that worship
dards are rapidly rising in Christian churches of America
y and that more and more people, particularly the youth of
“Sur land, object to the vulgarism and indignities to which much
“@bristian worship has been subjected in their churches. On the
, “other hand, the average American is not interested in an extreme
‘type of “high church” activities.
3: Because of the excellency and the vastness of our Lutheran
jperitage in church music, hymnody, and liturgics, others often look
“to us Lutherans for guidance and for help. Concordia Publishing
House informs us that it sells very. much of its church music to non-
Lutherans who desire good materials. The noted American hym-
nologist Henry Wilder Foote, D.D., in a recent (1952) publication
of The Hymn Society of America which bears the title Recent
‘American Hymnody, states in his opening sentence: “The last
fifteen years have seen the publication of more well-edited Amer-
jcan hymnbooks than appeared in any like period in our earlier
history. . . .” Among these hymnbooks he lists our Lutheran
Hymnal, concerning which he remarks on p. 16: “... the book has
excellent qualities. It is probably the best available collection of
translations of classic Lutheran hymns from many sources. . . .
Congregations outside the Lutheran tradition have generally been
slow to accept chorales, except a few well-known ones, but future
hymnal editors will do well to examine carefully the musical
treasures here presented.” In his recent (1952) book, Church
Music — Illusion and Reality, Archibald T. Davison, formrer dean
of the School of Music of Harvard University, sings the praises of
Lutheran chorales as ideal worship hymns; he also states (p. 114),
however, that time has to a great extent expunged hymns which
are sensuous, sentimental, and intensely emotional in character,
the very type of hymns which the editors of the best hymnals pub-
lished in America within the past fifteen years, including the Lu-
theran Hymnal, have not incorporated into their hymnals.

In compliance with Synod’s resolution of 1950, your Committee
on Hymnology and Liturgics has co-operated with the Board for
Parish Education in preparing a children’s hymnal.. Bearing in
mind that training the youth of the Church and cultivating its taste
for good hymnody is of great importance and affects the worship
attitudes of those who will one day be adult worshipers of the
Church, your Committee on Hymnology and Liturgics has been
glad to give the Board for Parish Education the benefit of much
of the experience it derived from preparing the Lutheran Hymnal,
from which the hymnal for children will derive much of its material
and to which it should be related quite intimately.

The Pastor’s Companion is the only new publication made