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ridge, Wesley, Toplady, Cowper, Newton, Lyte, and Heber, their names and the dates being attached to their compositions. An Index of Authors, comprising over one hundred and sixty names, from Ambrose and Anatolius, in the fourth and fifth centuries, down to the writers of our own day is added, affording evidence of research, and that the committee have gathered beside all waters in a truly catholic spirit. A Prayer, affording a good index to the state of heart with which the sacrifice of praise should be offered, precedes the Hymns. The restoration of the glowing language of the original text, together with more than one hundred lyrics not common in any American collection, and the introduction of much valuable information in the notes regarding the origin of hymns give a freshness to the book, and must cause it to be highly prized wherever used. It is admirably adapted for private use.

We have no space left to illustrate the great improvement made in the restoration of hymns, but must content ourselves by quoting No. 165, as a fair average of the newer lyrics taken by the committee:

"Not yet ye people of His grace,
Ye see your Saviour face to face;
Not yet enamored eyes ye bring
Unto the glory of your King.

"Ye follow in His steps below,
Along His thorny way ye go,
Ye stand His bitter cross beside,
Ye cling to Him, the crucified.

"Upon His grace ye banquet here:

Ye know Him true, ye feel Him near;
The balm of His dear blood ye bless;
Ye wear His robe of righteousness,

"But greater shall the wonder grow,

But mightier shall the joy o'erflow;
Upon your Lord, ye yet shall gaze
And look your love and sweet amaze.

"O make me meet for joy like this!
O! grant me grace to bear the blow,

To set my heart on Thee below,
No other lord or love to know.

"Then shall I set my eyes on Thee;
The King in all His beauty see,
And gazing on forevermore,
Glow with the beauty I adore.

"THOMAS H. GILL, 1859."

DR. MURRAY'S SERMON ON CHRISTIAN HYMNOLOGY.*-This excellent Discourse was preached on the occasion of the introduction of the author's Hymn Book into the public services of the Church of which he is the Pastor. The scholarship and taste of Dr. Murray are, without pretense or ostentation, and with entire subordination to the motive of edification, illustrated on every page. We know not where to find in so brief a form, so much information, and, at the same time, so much instructive thought, on the subject of Hymns, as this Discourse presents. We have room for only a brief extract relating to Congregational Singing:

"The reasons for insisting on congregational singing are few and simple, but they are incontrovertible.

"1st. Only by such a service of song can we imitate the example of our Lord and his Apostles.

"2d. The best and largest part of our churches calls for it. If this part desires to sing the praise of God with its own lips, it is arbitrary and unjust to deprive it of the privilege, that the tastes of the few may be gratified by choir performances. Not only so, but if it is debarred the privilege, what becomes of the spirituality in the worship of song?

"8d. The evidence is abundant that spiritual life is evoked from our hymnology only so far as it is personally appropriated to the spiritual wants of the individual Christian.

"4th. In the times of highest and purest spiritual activity, the church of Christ has always demanded congregational singing. Revivals of religion tolerate nothing else. But we have great need to remember that congregational singing is not something which comes of itself and without effort, If,' said John Calvin, the singing is such as befits the reverence which we ought to feel when we sing before God and the angels, it is an ornament which bestows grace and dignity upon our worship; and it is an excellent method of kindling the heart, and making it burn with great ardor in prayer. But we must at all times take heed lest the ear should be more attentive to the harmony of the sound than the soul to the hidden meaning of the words.'

"So profoundly was he convinced that special pains must be taken in order to secure an effective congregational siaging, that a music teacher was secured, paid

* Christian Hymnology.-A Sermon preached in the Brick Church, New York, December 12th, 1869. By JAMES O. MURRAY, D. D., Associate Pastor. Published by request of the Session. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.

1870.

+ Institutes, Ch. xx.

by the State, who gave lessons three times a week to several choirs of children. They seem to have led the congregation in its service of song after a careful training for the purpose. Calvin's idea of Church music was exactly that of Israel's psalmist: Both young men and maidens, old men and children, let them praise the name of the Lord. We have need to follow closely the example of our great leader, in the cultivation of sacred song, as well as in his theology. First, the service of praise must be exalted as a part of worship. Then the fittest mediums of song-worship, in the choicest chants and hymns, should be furnished the people of God, and the tame, mediocre, insipid, prosaic rhymes on spiritual themes, falsely called psalms or hymns or spiritual songs, discarded. And then by a direct education of the people in singing these hymns to suitable tunes, the latent capacities for congregational singing in our churches should be called out. This will take time and pains, but it is well worth all it will cost. In no dim or doubtful sense will it prove true, that a revival of the spirit of Christian song is a revival of religion." pp. 39, 40, 41.

THE ANTE-NICENE LIBRARY.-Messrs. Scribner, Welford, & Co., have received two new volumes of the English Translation of the Ante-Nicene theologians,-viz. a volume containing the treatises of Cyprian, both those which are known to be genuine, and those which are questionable; also the writings of Novatian, the Octavius of Minucius Felix, etc.; and a volume comprising the Writings of Methodius, of Alexander of Alexandria, the spurious Epistles of Clement of Rome concerning Virginity, and a variety of minor treatises and fragments of other ecclesiastical writers. The entire series, of which these two volumes are a part, will have the effect to bring the Fathers of the First Period to the knowledge of many who could never resort to the original works. It is to be earnestly hoped that the enterprize will receive sufficient encouragement to induce the Scottish publishers (Messrs. Clark of Edinburgh) to give us the works of Origen entire. He is the most important of the Pre-Nicene Fathers, and his voluminous writings, if presented in an English dress, would be much more valuable than are many of the documents which enter into the volumes last issued.

SMITH'S DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE.-The xxv.th number of Doctors Hackett and Abbot's edition of this work brings it down to, or rather into, the Article, "Samaritan Pentateuch." In typography and literary excellence we observe no falling off in the later numbers as compared with the earlier. The American edition, as we have before said, is a great improvement upon the Dictionary as originally published in England.

HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SERMONS.*-It is a little remarkable that till now there has not been what might be called a handsome "library edition" of the sermons of Henry Ward Beecher, the preacher who is more widely known than any other in America. For years, it has seemed as if there could hardly be anywhere a first-class religious newspaper, in New York City or out of it, unless its conductors gave weekly a full report of one of his sermons; or at least a sketch of some one of his "lecture room talks." But at last we have two handsome good sized octavo volumes, which are published by Messrs J. B. Ford & Co., from "verbatim reports by T. J. Ellingwood," to which Mr. Beecher has himself added a preface.

This preface covers but two pages, but it is by no means the least interesting part of the book. We should like to transfer the whole of it to our pages, as it shows what this great pulpit orator deems essential to success in gaining the interested attention of church going people who listen to sermons.

Mr. Beecher says that sermons will be "interesting," not so much "by the merit of their contents," as "by their skilfull adap tation to the wants of men." And again: "The master sermons of one age will fall powerless on another." "The sermons that will be read by multidudes are those which bring God's infinite truth into vital relations with the thoughts, sympathies, enterprises, habits, loves, hatreds, temptations and sins, ideals and aspirations of the times in which the preacher lives." And again: "A few sermons there are, a very few, that so grasp the heart truths in their universal forms as to be interesting and powerful alike in every age. But few good sermons can live longer than the generation for which they were made. The true preacher is to be eminently a man of his own time."

In other words, every congregation is always, and without exception, under the sway of a thousand subtle influences that are changing imperceptibly even from week to week. Each individual feels them, though no man can analyse them. There is what may be called the "spirit of the week," or the "spirit of the occasion,”—more evanescent even than the "spirit of the times." Now the "merit" of the sermons of two preachers being equal, the

*The Sermons of Henry Ward Beecher, in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. From verbatim reports by T. J. ELLINGWOOD. Plymouth Pulpit." First SeriesSeptember, 1868–March, 1869. Second Series-March-September, 1869. New York: J. B. Ford & Co. 1869. 8vo. pp. 438, 466.

clergyman who takes advantage of this subtle state of feeling in the congregation, even by the slightest allusion, finds the fuel as it were all prepared, ready to his hand; and fire is kindled at once, and no one knows how. While the preacher who does not adapt himself to this subtle spirit, will find little or no response. He works at an immense disadvantage. He has to dry his wood before he can hope to fire it.

During the war, a very popular clergyman preached a sermon on the nature of God's government over men. It was a solid, instructive sermon, and the congregation evidently followed him with interest and satisfaction as he developed his argument. But there was no special glow in the pulpit, and no warm response from the pews. At last, the preacher had sufficiently felt his way, and brought out the doctrine of his discourse in such a way as to convince the intellect, when he proceeded to remind his hearers that one of the characteristics of a good government is, that it does not make itself conspicuously seen or felt. Often under a good government men scarcely know that there is any government at all. But, said he, changing his manner, and with tones that fairly electrified the whole congregation, "if you want to find whether you are under a government, FIRE ON FORT SUMTER!" If a cannon ball had crashed through the walls of the church, it could not have produced more emotion. From that moment the orator had his audience breathless and spell-bound. Now suppose he had said those very same words five years before, they would have fallen cold and dead. Suppose they had been uttered before a a British audience, in a British church, that very Sunday morning. We repeat our quotation from Mr. Beecher's preface: "The master sermons of one age will fall powerless on another." Many a minister has found that a sermon which even one short year be fore seemed to carry all before it, had with the lapse of a twelvemonth somehow lost all its special power. To quote Mr. Beecher again, there must be a "vital relation" between the sermon and the "thoughts, sympathies, enterprises, habits, loves, hatreds, temptations and sins, ideals and aspirations" which then and there are swaying the minds of the hearers. And, as we understand it, it is by working ever on this line that Mr. Beecher has attained his success and his reputation.

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