THE METRICAL HYMNS AND PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE JACKSON, WALFORD, & HODDER, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW; P R E F A СЕ. THE rapid sale of fifty-two thousand copies of the "Congregational Psalmist" is a gratifying indication of the interest felt in popular Psalmody, as well as of the adaptation of this work to meet the want which occasioned its compilation. The object of the Editor was to render available for worshipping use the finest chorals of every age and of every section of the Church. Gifts of poetry and of song have been bestowed upon every generation, and upon none, perhaps, more richly than our own. Hence the canon of Church song can never be completed; additions will continuously be made to the richness of the worship of the Church, and to the joy of its spiritual life. It were, therefore, an egregious folly and loss, either to refuse the precious inheritance of the past, or to exclude ourselves from the fresh contributions to it that from time to time are proffered. The past is commended to us by the test of successive generations, the present by contemporary form and feeling; the old that remains to us has filtered out of much that has perished, and the new that is proffered to us is doubtless destined to undergo the same process. It is simple pedantry to restrict the music of the Church to either any particular age or any particular school. Like a hymn-book, a tune-book should provide for various tastes and degrees of capacity; the ruling canon of its compilation should be, not conformity to dogmatic rules, but practical fitness for devotional use. Whatever contributes to worshipping reverence and joy-so long as it is free from incongruous associations-is both legitimate and desirable. In the "Congregational Psalmist," both tunes and harmonies of various periods, and of various schools, will be found; of the chorals of the Latin Church, from Ambrose to Luther, it contains twenty-five; from the rich choral treasures of the German Protestant Churches, ninety-five have been selected; the limited Psalmody of the French Protestant Church has furnished seven; from the English and Scottish Psalters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thirty-four have been taken; living composers of various churches and schools have contributed seventy-six; the rest have been gathered from various writers of the last two centuries. It is scarcely too much to say that no existing English compilation contains so large and so Catholic a representation of the worship-song of " the Holy Church throughout the world." The varying capacities of congregations have also been considered; while the great bulk of the tunes are such as the least advanced may use, some tunes are inserted which only the cultured can sing. To the Catholic character of the book, to the imperishable qualities of the grand chorals which have come down to us from past generations, and to the variety of taste and capacity for which it provides, its large success is doubtless owing. The present Edition contains fifty-three additional tunes. These are added, partly, to supply such deficiencies as the practical use of the book had revealed, partly, to add some tunes of unquestionable excellence which had been overlooked, and partly, to enable the use of tunes which have appeared since this work was published, and which, from various causes, have become popular. Permission to use the latter has in every instance been most readily and generously given, and is hereby most gratefully acknowledged. Canonbury, April, 1867. HENRY ALLON. ALPHABETICAL INDEX. * Indicates Tunes inserted by permission from the Rev. W. J. Blew's "Church Hymn and + Words inserted by permission from Mendelssohn's "St. Paul." Words inserted by permission from Mendelssohn's "Lobgesang." § Inserted by permission from "Twelve Chorales, arranged by Sir H. R. Bishop." || Adaptation of a German Melody by permission, from Rev. Wm. Mercer's "Church Psalter." ARNO Dr. Gauntlett, 1857 69 Dr. Orlando Gibbons, 1623 85 . Adam Krieger, 1666 343 76.76.76.76. (pec. acc.) or 8 lines 7s, Old Latin Melody, "Patris sapientia" 148 b |