day,' "* or Bishop Jeremy Taylor's on Christ entering into Jerusalem, or some of Miss Waring's delightful compositions. If hymns like these are to be used in public

*I append an admirable rendering of this hymn for use in worship, kindly prepared for me by Dr. George MacDonald, which shows how exceedingly slight are the alterations which often need to be made. I regret that this version did not come into my hands before the publication of my "Congregational Hymns." If it had, I should certainly have inserted it instead of the version there adopted. My readers should compare this rendering with the original as printed on p. 77.

The night is come: like to the day
Depart not Thou, great God, away.
Let not my sins, black as the night,
Eclipse the lustre of Thy light.
*Keep my horizon, for to me,

The sun makes not the day, but Thee
O Thou, whose nature cannot sleep,
Upon my temples sentry keep;
Guard me against those watchful foes
Whose eyes are open while mine close;
And let no dreams my head infest
But such as Jacob's temples blest.
While I do rest, my soul advance,
And make my sleep a holy trance,
†That I may, when my rest is wrought,
Awake into some holy thought;
And with as active vigour run
My course as doth the nimble sun.
Sleep is a death, Oh make me try
By sleeping what it is to die;
And down as gently lay my head
Upon my grave as now my bed.
Howe'er I rest, great God, let me
Awake again at least with Thee.
And thus assured, behold I lie
Securely, or to wake or die.

These are my drowsy days-in vain
I do now wake to sleep again.

0 come that hour when sleep is o'er,

And I shall wake for evermore.

O come that hour when I shall never
Sleep again, but wake for ever.

The rhyme, being a feminine one, is awkward for singers.

worship such revision must be undertaken. Even then, however, the alterations should be the least that are necessary.

Beyond these, however, there are verses where the thoughts are beautiful, and eminently adapted to quicken devotional feeling, but cast in a form unsuited for use in worship. It is a perfectly justifiable thing to recast such, and if it be done skilfully, as in the case of Francis Quarles's hymn, by that eminent hymnist, Henry Francis Lyte, "Long did I toil, and knew no earthly rest," the result may be gratefully accepted. Such a work, however, needs both poetic feeling and skilful manipulation.

Akin to the question of alteration is the justifiableness of the omission of verses. This must be conceded on three grounds: first, that many hymns are far too long for use in public worship; second, that in most long hymns there are inferior verses, which mar rather than improve their effect; third, that some of the finest hymns in the language, such as Father Faber's, contain verses whose sentiment would exclude them from all Protestant worship. But whilst this exclusion be allowed, care must be taken (which, alas! has often been wanting), to preserve the symmetry and course of thought of the hymn. Too many editors have only cared to reduce hymns to the required length, careless altogether whether they preserved their structural unity or not. In many a case, the very verse on which the whole meaning of the hymn turned has been carelessly omitted, as in Montgomery's fine hymn, "Songs of praise the angels sang, the two parts of which are brought into unity by the verse which asks:

And shall man alone be dumb
Till that glorious kingdom come?

And then answers:

No! the Church delights to raise

Psalms and hymns and songs of praise.

or in Keble's "There is a book who runs may read,"
where the visible Book of Nature is made to suggest the
invisible one of Grace, and the reason why the soul does
not at once pass from the one to the other is indicated in
the following verse, too often omitted by editors :-
Two worlds are ours: 'tis only sin
Forbids us to descry

The mystic heaven and earth within,
Plain as the sea and sky.

To omit such verses is like building a house and leaving out the passage which connects the various rooms.

As to the question whether additions to already existing hymns are justifiable, I will not pronounce a definite opinion. I will only say this, that if a hymn be worth retaining, it is very improbable that the writer can be found who will add to it without something like a patchwork effect. In the case of hymns by writers of an earlier time, it is almost impossible to avoid this, since every age has its own undefinable manner, which can scarcely be caught by writers of a later day. "Hymns Ancient and Modern" furnish many illustrations of the futility of such attempts. The critical ear is offended by passing from verses by Dr. Watts to additions in the same metre, but in a more modern style, from the pen of the compilers of that popular work; whilst Bishop Bickersteth, in attempting to add to Cardinal Newman's incomparable hymn, "Lead, kindly light," and perhaps render it a little more definitely orthodox, has, by the comparison of styles, only revealed more fully the glory

of the original verses and the poverty of the added one. An editor might as well attempt to add a book to the "Iliad," or a scene to "Hamlet!"

A man should not enter on the work of editing a Hymnal unless he is prepared to touch with reverent hand the treasures of thought and feeling with which he has to deal; only absolute necessity should lead him to alter, omit, or add to hymns-in many cases, offspring of the holiest moments of saintly lives.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE NEW ERA IN HYMNODY.

THE late Dean Stanley, in a brief estimate of the poetry of John and Charles Wesley, relates the following significant incident: "A distinguished critic of our times, in his professorial chair at Oxford, is reported to have held out in one hand 'The Golden Treasury of English Lyrics,' collected by Francis Turner Palgrave, and in the other The Book of Praise,' collected from all English hymnody by Lord Selborne, and to have asked Why is it that "The Golden Treasury" contains almost nothing that is bad, and why is it that the "Book of Praise " contains almost nothing that is good?'" And the Dean then proceeded to give this three-fold answer to the question :-(1) that the moment poetry is made a vehicle of theological argument it becomes essentially prosaic, as much or almost as much as if it were employed for arguments on political or philosophical problems; (2) that the very greatness of the words which, either from Biblical or ecclesiastical usage, have been consecrated to the sublime thoughts of religion, misleads the writer into the belief that they are of themselves sufficient to carry on the poetical afflatus; and (3) the temptation which Biblical metaphors have afforded of pursuing into detail, and especially