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"In My Heart
There Rings A Melody?"
Your position on the song, "In My Heart There
Rings A Melody?"
Elton
M. Roth wrote the song.
ELTON
MENNO ROTH (1891-1951) was born in Berne, Indiana. At the age of 12, he "went
forward" in an old-fashioned revival meeting in his Mennonite community and was
baptized in the Wabash River. Roth attended the Fort Wayne Bible School and Moody Bible
Institute, and studied the higher forms of music with Dr. A. Verne Westlake and Solomon
Ancis from Vienna. He traveled with evangelists for a time, singing and directing the
choir, taught music at Alliance bible schools in St. Paul, Minnesota, and New York City,
the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, Baptist Theological College and City College (Los
Angeles). He organized the Ecclesia Choir in 1931, which toured the United States
extensively. He published many anthems and over 100 hymns for which he has written all the
tunes and most of the texts. "In My Heart There Rings a Melody" is his most
famous gospel song and this is still a Hope copyright which enters the Public Domain in
2020. (http://www.hopepublishing.com/html/main.isx?sub=27&search=139)
If
he were alive today, I would certainly want to question him as to his beliefs on whether
salvation can be lost, because of the Mennonite community in which he was raised.
There
is nothing scripturally wrong with the words in the song.
The song does contain a fair amount of repetition, but not as bad as much of
the contemporary works today. It does mention
the name of Jesus , and that He died on Calvary to wash our sins away. In the song he seems to have assurance that he is
saved and sure of it (“’Twill be my endless theme in glory, With the angels I
will sing…”)
The
music form seems fine (assuming the pianist gives beat one the emphasis). It is written in such a way that it is easy to
emphasize beat one, and then a little less on beat three (which is
proper to keep the song like a march, instead of making it syncopated).
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