PREFACE.
tion, the absence of the spirit of adoption, a bright hope of being in glory when we die; these are merely taken as instances, for it applies to very many points, and souls are quite angry at losing a hymn which their piety has enjoyed, but which has connected their hopes and affections with what is not scriptural. Many such have been eliminated heretofore from the collection, but there remained still something to do. Hymns should be simple, full of Christ, and the Father's love, unaffected, and in some measure elevated, so as not to be mere prose. The singer must be there, but the singer associated in his thoughts with God filled from on high; yet not individualise himself and leave the assembly behind him. Many most sweet hymns are too individual, too experimental, for an assembly. In this collection an Appendix is therefore added, where there may be as beautiful hymns, but the assembly has been less thought of. Where possible the hymns for the assembly are in the plural. There are hymns which suit prayer meetings, home devotion, even even the gospel; though there the difficulty is very great. Abstractedly you are making people sing as having certain feelings, and then preaching to them because they have not.
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V.