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A COLLECTION OF

PSALMS AND HYMNS,

ADAPTED TO

PUBLIC WORSHIP.

Lowell Noson and David,

SELECTED

FROM DR. WATTS AND OTHER AUTHORS.

BOSTON:

PUBLISHED BY PERKINS AND MARVIN.

PHILADELPHIA:

HENRY PERKINS.

1837.

Mus 489.1837

HARVARD

MAY 6 1895

LIBRARY

Dr. S. H. Green.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1831,

BY PERKINS AND MARVIN,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

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1837 PREFACE.

IN presenting to the public such a work as this, it is obviously proper that something should be said of the object and expectation of its compilers. These may be stated in a few words. It has been their aim and hope to make a selection of psalms and hymns of a highly lyrical character, in respect to sentiment, imagery, language, and structure; possessing sufficient elevation and dignity to render them specially adapted to public worship on the Sabbath, and possessing, at the same time, such a variety of subjects and metres, and such a degree of simplicity, warmth, and animation, as should render them suitable for use in all social religious meetings, and in families. They have aimed, also, to render the selection particularly copious in those classes of hymus which are specially adapted to this period of revivals and of religious benevolent institutions and labors, and to various important occasions.

The two things to be regarded in hymns for use in public worship, and by which their lyrical character is to be tested, are their Matter and their Structure. In both these respects they may be faulty. Some remarks on the requisites of good lyric poetry will be made under each of these heads.

As to the MATTER proper for lyric poetry.

1. The aim of all lyric poetry should be to express emotion, and the sentiments should be such as are adapted to this end. This is the original and natural office of all poetry; and it is more especially the natural office of all poetry which is designed to be used in connection with music. Poetry itself is the language of emotion; and that only is good lyric poetry, which requires the aid of music to produce its full effect. A kindred office of lyric poetry is to excite or increase emotion in the hearer or performer. Sacred lyric poetry may express every class of emotions which it is proper for man to express in acts of worship; but especially such as are implied in ascriptions of praise. It should generally be addressed directly to God, or else it should consist of rehearsals of truths and events, or exhortations and appeals to the hearts of men, which are directly adapted to turn the thoughts to God, and fill the soul with emotions towards him.

A judicious German writer, treating on the character of lyric poetry, remarks that "The church secures human sanctification by two means-teaching or preaching, and the worship of God. In both these exercises the intellect and heart are employed, and act together, but not equally. Preaching is chiefly designed to enlighten the understanding, while the principal aim of worship is to warm and purify the heart, and

much cramped in these respects. A simple, uninvolved style is the natural one for impassioned poetry as well as for oratory.

2. Every sentence should be constructed so as to express emotion. Every thing in the form of reasoning, logical statement or inference, explanation or discussion, requires a state of mind wholly inconsistent with that holy and devout excitement implied in sacred music.

3. Sentences and clauses should contain, as far as is practicable without occasioning a stiff and tedious uniformity, complete sense in themselves. A succession of clauses bound together by weak connectives, exhausts the performer, by allowing no opportunity for pausing; while, by multiplying unmeaning words, and keeping the mind too long on the same course, it also wearies the hearer. It contributes greatly to the spirit and force of the hymn, as well as to the ease of the performer, to throw off rapidly, in a concise form, one thought after another, each complete in itself, and with each beginning a new rhetorical clause.

4. The structure of each stanza should be such that the mind shall perceive the meaning immediately. All hypothetical clauses, placed at the beginning, or other clauses containing positions or arguments having reference to some conclusion which is to follow, are to be avoided. They contain no meaning in themselves, and bring nothing before the mind ex pressive or productive of feeling, till the performer reaches the important words at the close of perhaps the second or fourth line. The only method of wading through such lines, set to music, is for the performer to suspend all thought and feeling, and struggle hard and patiently, till he shall come to the light The first word should, if possible, express something in itself, and every word should a ld to it. But, from a spirited clause at the beginning, the mind may derive an impulse which shall carry it through a heavy one that may follow. Clauses, how ever, which follow the main one, to qualify it, connected by a relative, are always heavy and injurious.

5. The words should be easy of enunciation, and capable of being dwelt upon, without seeming harsh or unnatural. Difficult and unpleasant combinations of consonants; all successions of words and syllables in which the same sound frequently occurs; long words, where all thought and feeling must stand still, like spectators, while four or five syllables are drawn out to as many minims or semibreves; and all slender syllables, on which the voice cannot dwell without distorting them, especially if two or three of them occur together, or in an important part of the line,—are great defects in a hymn, if they do not entirely destroy its vigor. To express the whole thought in one syllable is, of course, much more forcible than to express it in many. The best orators and the best poets abound in monosyllables.

6. The pauses should be arranged with reference to effect. There should be a pause at the end of each line. The music is generally adapted to more or less of a cadence at that point, nd, as his own ease requires it, the performer will naturally

one there. If, therefore, the nominative comes at the

devotional feeling. A similar remark should be made respecting all hymns that wear the aspect of condoling with the sinner, tending to divert his thoughts from his guilt to his calamity, and occasioning in him a high state of agreeable, sympathetic excitement. Scarcely any thing tends more directly and powerfully to destroy a deep conviction of guilt, or erects a more formidable barrier against the exercise of true contrition and humility. A large portion of those hymns which are technically called revival hymns, are of this character; and the very reason, probably, why they are so popular, is, that the use of them makes the sinner feel comfortably, when he ought to feel condemned and undone.

3. Hymns should possess unity. Not that only one subject should come before the mind in one hymn. This would be unnatural, and would weaken the effect. The impression made by any subject is often deepened by viewing it in its connection with others. The effect of a hymn expressive of penitence would be increased by glancing at the mercy of God, the sufferings of Christ, and the free offer of pardon. Still, all the subjects brought into a hymn should be of such a character, and so connected, as to form one group, strike the mind at one view, and conspire to produce one effect.

4. Every line should be full of meaning. At every syllable, the mind should feel that it is making progress, taking some new view, or receiving some additional or deeper impression. The whole hymn should be the overflowing of a full soul, unable any longer to contain its emotions. An unmeaning line or word, thrown in to make out the rhyme or measure, is like a dead limb on a living body-a cumbrous deformity, better amputated than retained. A hymn in long metre generally possesses less vivacity, and is sung with less ease and spirit, than one in short metre, principally because the stanza in short metre expresses as much of thought and feeling in twenty-six syllables, as the stanza in long metre does in thirty-two. In many instances in this book, hymns in long metre have been changed into common or short metre, by merely disencumbering the lines of their lifeless members.

Under the head of STRUCTURE, the following characteristics are mentioned as being essential to good lyric poetry:1. Plain style. All inversions and artificial arrangement of the words, all parenthetical, involved, or otherwise intricate clauses, together with all long sentences, and ambiguous and obscure words, are to be avoided. Even those arrangements of words and clauses, and those full periods, which would be perfectly intelligible, and might give beauty and strength to a composition which is to be read or spoken, may be wearisome, unintelligible, and, of course, destitute of all lyrical effect, when sung. For the purpose of conveying his meaning, and giving force to what he utters, the speaker may avail himself freely of tones, inflections, pauses, and an otherwise varied enunciation; and a single performer, or a well-disciplined and careful choir, may accomplish something in the same way, in singing; but singers generally must, from the nature of the case, be very

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