Preface

THIS Hymnal is the result of the labors of a joint Commission of twentytwo ministers and laymen appointed in equal numbers by the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; the double purpose being to provide a worthy manual of song for use in the public and private worship of Almighty God, and to testify to the world the essential unity of the two great branches of Episcopal Methodism.

The fruit of their toil we now lay before the churches with confidence and joy: with confidence because we feel warranted in saying that the book is an admirable compilation of sacred lyrics; and with joy because we trust that for many long years it will prove to be a visible and potent bond of union among all our people.

We gladly note that the hymns of the Wesleys are given the prominence which justly belongs to them in any collection to be used by Methodists. But the book will be found to contain also the choicest work of the other hymn writers of the eighteenth century, namely, Doddridge, Watts, Cowper, Newton, Montgomery, and a very considerable number of new hymns selected after a wide examination of the body of religious verse produced during the last seventy-five years. The hymns admitted have been selected from the ancient and modern treasuries of religious poetry. They are the expression of sound doctrine and healthful Christian experience, and it is believed will greatly enrich our worship and bring us into closer fellowship with believers in all lands and in all ages.

Such verbal changes as have been made in the hymns are in most cases a return to the original and preferable forms. Some stanzas have been wholly excluded on the ground that they contain imagery offensive to modern taste, and others have been omitted to secure desirable brevity. The Commission did not venture to make arbitrary or capricious alterations.

In only a very few cases have hymns been divorced from the tunes to which long use has wedded them. For some familiar hymns alternate tunes have been provided, either with a view to please both branches of the church or to secure a better musical expression for the words than is given by the tune now familiar. Many new tunes by the more eminent modern composers of church music have been introduced. Much care has been given to the selection of these tunes, which we are assured will be found to be devotional in spirit, well fitted to the hymns to which they are set, and adapted to use by the great congregation.

And now, praying that this Hymnal, prepared by a joint Commission whose brotherly harmony was never once broken and whose final meeting was a Pentecost, may be abundantly blessed of God to the edification of believing souls and to the glory of his name, we commend it to our churches, and we earnestly hope that it may everywhere supplant those unauthorized publications which often teach what organized Methodism does not hold, and which, by excluding the nobler music of the earlier and later days, prevent the growth of a true musical taste.