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JUN51910
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Harvard Theological
Periew:
(1652)

Copyright, 1910

BY THE A. S. BARNES COMPANY

M

2130 , сь

Preface

Each generation of Christians emphasizes a particular aspect of the everlasting Gospel. Our own lays the stress upon the Kingdom of God. We have been led to believe that, as the Kingdom was the burden of our Lord's message, it should be the burden of His Church's prayer and praise. This book is an attempt to furnish the Church with a hymnal in which Christian communion with God is viewed as fellowship with the Father and the Son in the establishment of the Kingdom.

The editors have sought to make a small collection of large hymns. We have carefully examined several thousand hymns which have found a place in the worship of English-speaking churches during the last two hundred years. We have respected the sacred canon of Christian experience. We have felt that the older and the more widely used a hymn is, the more suited is it to common worship, and the better adapted to manifest and to promote the unity of the Church of Christ. We have striven, however, to include only hymns which are poetically beautiful, which express a normal and healthy spiritual experience, contain no divisive theology, and are specifically Christian in religion.

In arranging the music we have been governed by the principle that it is better to select than to multiply tunes. The average congregation should find no difficulty in using all the tunes in this book. Most of them are already familiar. There are some new tunes, but few of these are of recent composition. The great English composers of Church music of the last century are well represented, and the book contains a large number of older tunes, -traditional German, English, French, Welsh and Dutch melodies, and tunes from the Genevan, Scottish and American psalters. We have tried to set the hymns to those tunes which have proved best fitted to bring out their meaning with effectiveness and dignity. Wherever possible we have placed hymns of the same metre upon opposite pages in order to offer a choice of music.

The text of each hymn has been traced back, as far as we were able, to its first edition. All changes have been carefully noted. If

the author has sanctioned a change, the fact is indicated by the presence of two dates following his name. We have introduced no changes into familiar hymns save in a few instances where we have restored the author's original text and substituted it for the altered form which editors have published. We have also attempted to give the correct authorship or source, and the date of the tunes.

A small selection of children's hymns has been included because, while the editors believe that children should be taught the great hymns in the Sunday School, and so trained to join in the public worship of the Church, they also believe that in the Church service a hymn should occasionally be sung, which is especially adapted to their religious experience, in order that they may feel at home in the house of God. Such hymns often help older people to turn and become as little children.

This hymnal is sent forth in the hope that it will assist the Church of to-day to praise God heartily, intelligently and sincerely, to sing with the Spirit and with the understanding hymns which utter living convictions and which consecrate those who sing them to the purpose of Jesus Christ.

Easter, 1910

HENRY S. COFFIN,

AMBROSE W. VERNON Editors.

Acknowledgments

The editors wish to record their indebtedness to Mr. Charles L. Safford, who has advised with them regarding the settings of the hymns and chants, revised the harmonies, read the proof of all the music, and contributed an original tune and several arrangements of old German melodies; to Professor Henry M. Dunham, of the New England Conservatory of Music, who has passed upon the selection of tunes and contributed an original tune and a chant; to Mr. William P. Dunn, who has composed a tune and has read the proof of the music;

To Professor Joseph D. Ibbotson, Jr. of Hamilton College, who has collaborated in the arrangement of the Psalter for responsive reading;

To the library of the Union Theological Seminary, New York City, where the hymnological collection has provided the authentic texts of nearly all the hymns;

To the compilers of previous hymnals, and especially to the editors of The Hymnal (Presbyterian), Worship-Song, (The Rev. W. Garrett Horder D. D.), The Church Hymnary (Scotch Presbyterian), The English Hymnal (Anglican), Hymns Ancient and Modern, (Anglican, ed. 1904) and Church Praise (English Presbyterian, Ed. 1907);

To Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology (2nd ed. 1908), which has been followed in almost every instance in the dating of the hymns;

To the standard histories of Psalmody for the dates of the tunes derived from various Psalm-Books, to Dr. J. Zahn's Die Melodien der deutschen evangelischen Kirchenlieder, (Gütersloh, 6 vols., 1889-1893), and Dr. W. Bäumker's Das katholische deutsche Kirchenlied in seinen Singweisen, (Freiburg, 3 vols., 1886-1891) for the German melodies, and to various hymnal companions, (among which the annotated edition of the Book of Common Praise, (Canadian Episcopal), by James Edmund Jones, deserves special mention,) for the dating of the tunes by English and American composers of the last century;

To the Rev. W. Russell Bowie and the Rev. Henry van Dyke, D. D. for hymns written for this collection;

To Dr. Felix Adler, the Rev. Ferdinand Q. Blanchard, the Rev. William H. Draper, the Rev. Canon Henry Scott Holland, D. D., who have revised their hymns for this book, and to Mr. Bradford Torrey, whose hymn, which has appeared in an altered form and accredited to another, has been restored by its author to its original text;

To Mrs. E. S. Armitage, the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, the Rev. Robert Davis, the Rev. Washington Gladden, D. D., the Rev. Frederick L. Hosmer, D. D., Mr. Rudyard Kipling, the Rev. Frank Mason North, D. D., the Rev. Edwin P. Parker, D. D., the Rev. Ernest R. Shurtleff, and the Rev. William G. Tarrant for the use of their

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