Methodist revival, both Calvinist and
Wesleyan, of the Evangelical revival, and now at last of the Oxford
revival, with its affluence of translations from the ancient hymnists,
as well as of original hymns. It is doubtless owing to this abundant
intermittent inflow from England that the production of American hymns
has been so scanty. Only a few writers, among them Thomas Hastings and
Ray Palmer, have written each a considerable number of hymns that have
taken root in the common use of the church. Not a few names besides are
associated each with some one or two or three lyrics that have won an
enduring place in the affections of Christian worshipers. The "gospel
hymns" which have flowed from many pens in increasing volume since the
revival of 1857 have proved their great usefulness, especially in
connection with the ministry of Messrs. Moody and Sankey; but they are,
even the best of them, short-lived. After their season the church seems
not unwilling to let them die.

Soon after the mid-point of the nineteenth century, began a serious
study of the subject of the conduct of public worship, which continues
to this day, with good promise of sometime reaching useful and stable
results. In 1855 was published "Eutaxia, or the Presbyterian Liturgies:
Historical Sketches. By a Minister of the Presbyterian Church." The
author, Charles W. Baird, was a man peculiarly fitted to render the
church important service, such as indeed he did render in this volume,
and in the field of Huguenot history which he divided with his brother,
Henry M. Baird. How great the loss to historical theology through his
protracted feebleness of body and his death may be conjectured, not
measured. This brief volume awakened an interest in the subject of it in
America, and in Scotland, and among the nonconformists of England. To
American Presbyterians in general it was something like a surprise to be
reminded that the sisterhood of the "Reformed" sects were committed by
their earliest and best traditions in favor of liturgic uses in public
worship. At about the same time the fruitful discussions of the
Mercersburg controversy were in progress in the German Reformed Church.
"Mercersburg found fault with the common style of extemporaneous public
prayer, and advocated a revival of the liturgical church service of the
Reformation period, but so modified and reproduced as to be adapted to
the existing wants of Protestant congregations."[388:1] Each of these
di