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A

SELECTION

OF

HYMNS:

DESIGNED AS A SUPPLEMENT TO THE "PSALMS AND HYMNS"
OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

PHILADELPHIA:

WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN

BV

430 B600

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

PREFACE.

NEARLY twenty years have elapsed since the publication of the Book of "Psalms and Hymns," now in general use in our Church. Within this period, the Hymnology of the Church has been enriched by numerous original contributions of great merit, and by copious translations from the devotional poetry of other languages. Many of the old Greek and Latin Hymns are now for the first time made accessible to the English reader; and he is admitted into that great store-house of German Hymnology, the wealth of which is, perhaps, without a parallel.

The feeling has come to be very prevalent, that these treasures should be brought within the reach of the American Churches. Of this we have decisive evidence in the new Collections of Hymns prepared for the Congregational, the Protestant Episcopal, the Lutheran, and other denominations. The same demand exists in our own Communion; and is more likely to increase than diminish, since it has the sympathy of many prominent Pastors and laymen in various parts of the Church.

In the feeling here referred to, the present volume had its origin. It is not a thought of yesterday with the Compiler. A member of his family, his co-worker in this pleasant service, has been for several years engaged in collecting Hymns with a view to this object. After much deliberation, it was decided to arrange the work as a "SUPPLEMENT" to our "Church Book." The Hymns in (3)

our Book, therefore, are excluded-with a single exception. Of the beautiful Hymn attributed to different authors, but really from the pen of the late Rev. Henry F. Lyte of the Church of England, "Jesus, I my cross have taken," only two stanzas are given in our book, and both of these altered from the original. The Hymn will be found complete in the following pages.

The principles by which the Editor has been guided in the selection of the Hymns, will be best understood by an examination of the work itself. Let it suffice to say here, that the fundamental idea which underlies this Collection, is, that the singing of Hymns is an office of WORSHIP. This does not import that every Hymn must be throughout a direct address to the Deity. For there are songs of Zion eminently fitted to nourish devotional feeling, and breathing the very spirit of praise, which could not bear this test. We should even have to give up the 23d and the 122d Psalms. Still, the principle is a sound one: and the neglect of it has turned many Hymn-Books into repositories of mere descriptive and hortatory poems, which lack the first element of WORSHIP.

In the present volume, a large space has been allotted to Hymns suited to "FAMILY WORSHIP;" not larger, however, it is believed, than is demanded by the growing disposition to combine praise with the reading of the Scriptures and prayer, at the domestic altar. These Hymns, it will be seen on examination, are also appropriate to Boarding and Day Schools, which open or close the day with sacred song.

Under the head of "PRIVATE DEVOTION," there will be found a choice variety of Hymns adapted to the closet -many of which, as being of irregular or unusual Metres, are designed for reading only, not singing. To guard

against possible embarrassment on this point, by the inadvertent announcement of one of these Hymns from the pulpit, a note of caution is prefixed wherever necessary.

The great length of some of the Hymns may attract attention. But who would venture to obliterate a stanza of Gerhardt's exquisite Hymn, "O Sacred Head now wounded" or of Montgomery's all but inspired paraphrase of the 72d Psalm, " Hail to the Lord's Anointed?" In these and similar cases, it has been thought better to leave it to the occasion to suggest the number of stanzas to be sung, than to mutilate and thus, possibly, destroy the whole composition. For "PRIVATE DEVOTION," no one will object to the length of such Hymns as Charles Wesley's, "Come, O thou Traveller:" or Montgomery's, "Thousands, O Lord of Hosts, this day:" or that ancient carol, "O Mother dear, Jerusalem:" or the "Dies Iræ," the most celebrated, perhaps, of all the Latin Hymns, as indicated by the fact, that seventy different translations of it have appeared in our language.

Of the sources which have supplied the materials for the present collection, it is proper to say, that these Five Hundred Hymns have been winnowed out of several thousand, scattered through an indefinite variety of HymnBooks and other publications. Several of them appear now in a Hymn-Book for the first time. A considerable number have been derived from the "Sabbath HymnBook." The Compiler is under great obligations to the Editors and Proprietors of this admirable Book, for permission to use their copy-right Hymns. And it is needful to add, that being copy-right, it would not be proper for other parties to publish them without similar permission. The same cordial acknowledgment is due to Dr. Steiner of Baltimore, one of the Editors of the " Cantate Domino,” a

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