The only other hymnal authorized by The Brethren Church was published in 1909.  The previous year the General Conference of The Brethren Church had authorized a committee of three “to take steps for the adoption of a hymn book for use in the Brethren Church.”  Composed of H. L. Goughnour, W. Z. Replogle, and A. D. Gnagey, the committee had basically finished its work by the 1909 General Conference.  However, this conference asked the committee to add “fifty additional hymns which shall form the supplement to the book.”  The resulting hymnbook, Hymns of Worship and Songs of the Gospel, contained 335 hymns and gospel songs, 11 responsive readings (a novelty for Brethren hymnals), and the supplement of 55 songs of the newer revival and gospel style.  Of these 390 hymns, 314 had not appeared in Ewing’s 1884 hymnal.  Most of these new hymns were revival and gospel songs, revealing how popular these songs had become in the church.

In the preface to the hymnal, the committee rather pretentiously stated, “Probably no gospel song book ever received greater care in the selection of its contents, words and music, than Hymns of Worship and Songs of Gospel.”  Unlike previous Brethren hymnals that matched a single tune with several hymns of the same metric notation, this hymnal matched the hymn text with the “standard tune” used for that hymn in other denominational hymnals.  The hymnal followed the lead of Ewing in using standard round musical notation rather than the shaped notes used in the earlier Brethren hymnals.  The hymnal also followed the lead of Ewing of identifying the authors of both the texts and the tunes, when these were known.

Clearly, the hymnal was intended to be bought in quantity by Brethren congregations for placement in their pews.  On the title page, the price is listed as: “in boards,” $25.00 per hundred, or “in full cloth,” $30.00 per hundred. It is not known how popular this hymnal was in the Brethren Church.

As noted above, this was the last hymnal to be published by the Brethren Church.  In time local Brethren congregations relied on hymnals printed by non-denominational publishers that shared the church’s evangelical character.   Some Brethren Church congregations also used hymnals published by the Church of the Brethren.

by Dale Stoffer, Brethren Archives