Talk:Christian Science Hymnal
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When Mrs. Eddy was alive, the CS movement was prospering and expanding across the world. I knew a Journal listed practitioner who said that she remembered when one of the hymns read "It WILL go across the ocean." When we were at a CS church in 1975, the words had been revised in the hymnal to "It HAS GONE across the ocean."
There is a book available in the reading rooms giving a history of the writing of some of the hymns. However, I went to Wednesday evening testimony meetings where people from out of town would attend and heard many stories of how some of the hymns were written that are not in this book.
My personal comment on the CS hymnal is that when I first started attending services at CS churches, I dreaded it because of the music; however, as I became more educated and appreciated classical music, I realized that the 1936 revision of the hymnal was meant to include a wide range of musical pieces from around the world so that most nationalities would have some folk song or melody that they could recognize. Many new musical arrangements await Mrs. Eddy's hymns.
One of the hymns, "Shepherd Show Me How To Go", appears in a Britist published work of Negro spirituals heard in America with only one word different from Mrs. Eddy's version; and the book was published in England before Mrs. Eddy was born in the 1820's. I saw this book in my college library and was surprised that the words to this old Negro slave spiritual were mostly the same as Mrs. Eddy's hymn.
The hymns included in the Christian Science Hymnal were selected for their healing quality. Very often church trained healers will direct a patient to study the words to a hymn or even a particular verse in order to gain spiritual illumination. I have heard many accounts of healing which included a conversation with a Christian Science healer where the healer was led to spontaneously sing one of the hymns over the telephone to the patient, and the patient was healed. Historically, over many decades I have heard many stories of people seeking enlightenment and they have had one of the verses in the hymns come to them, or sometimes newer students will be at a service and look at the hymn being sung in the hymnbook, and the words of a verse will appear to float in the air off the book or appear to be in bold print, as if meant to draw their attention.
