Hymnbooks of the Disciples

Disciples History Moment for March 30, 2025

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The Chalice Hymnbook we have at our pews was published in 1998. However, hymnbooks, or hymnals, have been important to our Stone-Campbell and Disciples churches since the beginning of our denomination, starting with Alexander Campbell’s "Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs" that he published for his followers in 1828. This was his first major hymnbook within the movement that he led.

After 1832, and in 1834 when Campbell's followers merged with those of Barton W. Stone, Campbell proposed combining his hymnal with Stone's "Christian Hymn Book" as a step toward greater unity. Campbell included five original hymn texts of his own composition in the 1834 edition.

According to Campbell’s second wife, Selina, “He was a man who cared deeply about heartfelt, spiritual worship. . . [She] remembered that his singing was more of a ‘joyful noise’ than a tune, which was often heard as he went about his daily work or rode across the fields of his property.”

Campbell wrote in his first Hymnbook: “The psalmody and the public prayers of a Christian community are the most unequivocal and infallible exponents of its piety and spiritual intelligence. Indeed, the sacred song and the social prayer are but the express image and living form of the pious emotions, religious taste, spiritual discernment, and holy affections of those who unite in them. If the Christian can best exhibit his faith by his works, he can also most satisfactorily verbally demonstrate his piety and humanity in the praises which he sings, and in the prayers and thanksgivings which he offers. . . The Christian Hymn Book, next to the Bible, moreover, wields the largest and mightiest formative influence upon the young and old, upon saint and sinner, and of any other book in the world.”

Interestingly, Campbell's early hymnal contained only texts, without music. This was due to his firm conviction that nothing should distract the worshiper from the meaning of the words.

Rev. Kevin K. Adams

References: Campbell, Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1851; Mankin, Jim. "Alexander Campbell's contributions to hymnody." The Hymn, vol. 49, no. 1 (January 1998), pp. 10-14; and The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement.