THE The present number of this Magazine commences its twenty-second year, and thirty-third volume. The Proprietor would take this opportunity of thanking those subscribers who have continued their subscription from year to year, many of them during the whole of this long period. Such patronage assures him that the work has generally been acceptable to its readers, and has sustained the object for which it was established, that of furnish- ing a Religious Periodical, of a useful and practical character, for Family Reading. The Proprietor hopes that the Magazine will receive, the present year, an increase of subscribers, so much needed at the present time; especially as the cost of paper Shakspeare's Sonnets. A Tribute to Thomas Starr King. THE MONTHLY RELIGIOUS MAGAZINE. VOL. XXXIII. JANUARY, 1865. No. 1. "HYMNS OF THE AGES."* HYMNS which commit themselves to our inmost memory, and cleave to it through all changes in joy and in sorrow, bearing in upon the soul truths deeper and more universal than those spoken in the creeds of the hour, furnishing it with the imagery which unrolls the scenery of heaven, and with the melodies which make audible to us beforehand its angelic harmonies, these are the hymns of the ages. Not many such have ever been sung. Such as have been sung become more important to us than any other literature of human origin and composition in our own spiritual nurture, and the religious education of our children. The articles of a man's faith are comparatively external, made by the intellect for convenient handling, lying on the surface of his mind, or perhaps laid away in church-records to be used mainly by ministers and ecclesiastical councils. The very word, “articles," suggests something articulated, or cut up into convenient parcels by a process of the intellect. These are all very well; for believers and churches ought to put their con- . victions into as clear and definite forms as possible, always mindful that they do not become so fixed and frigid as to bar all growth, progress, and enlargement. But hymns touch the deeper fountains of our spiritual being. They reveal wellsprings of emotion to the consciousness, and give open Hymns of the Ages. Third series. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1865. ings of higher and grander prospects than any sermons and liturgies, or any dogmas of theology. They suggest a great deal more than the bare words would convey in any other form, often a great deal more than dawned upon the intelligence of the singer himself, especially if he sings from a genuine inspiration. Indeed, the first gleams of a newly opening truth often come in this way. They rise seer-like upon the inward vision, or flow down through the soul in liquid melodies long before the creeds have received and fixed them in tangible form. Domestic worship is the duty of every family; and every member of the family ought to have an active part in it. What right have we to be parents, unless we accept all the parental responsibilities and duties? But every parent is the high priest at his own domestic altar; and he is false to a most solemn trust, if there be no altar in his house, or if he suffer it to be deserted. There they are, a group of immortal beings, some of them young, tempted, and beset with snares, liable all of them to be invaded and whelmed by the tide of worldliness that sweeps over society. Every morning it is their duty, because it is their safety, to draw together, with mind and heart open to the influence that brings God near them, and his angels around them, as a camp of fire. A renewing, refining, and hallowing spirit, the spirit of prayer, begetting a sense of dependence, and of the divine omnipresence, will surely, though it may be gradually and silently, pervade the whole house, and abide in it, and be breathed into all the duties of the day. Coarseness of mind, vulgar manners, profane living, hard-eyed scheming, are evils always liable to come in and take possession of the house, and infest more or less all its members, unless the family is thus organized as a divine institution, that makes marriage and birth to be sweet and holy; unless the parents or the elder members regard the family as "the church in the house," and accept the beautiful office of priesthood at its altar. Why, then, are these duties so often neglected and disregarded even by Christians, who acknowledge them in theory? It is not always from sheer worldliness. It is very often from a feeling of reserve and incompetency. We are not qualified, parents will say, to lead the devotions of the family, and make them edifying and delightful. Perhaps the memory goes back to an experience very unedifying and undelightful; of prayers mumbled as lip-service; of the Bible awfully droned out, and its grand old litanies (for such many of its chapters are) linked with degrading associations. This may be, though it is a very undevout spirit that will not find in any exercise, serious as all domestic worship must be, something good and true under its rudest forms. But there is no necessity even of these. Extemporaneous prayer should be only a part of the ritual of family worship. It should always be very short and comprehensive; and, if we lack words, there are the words in which Jesus taught his disciples to pray, which express every want we ever had or ever can have, and which are always at hand, as "vials full of odors sweet," to bear our thoughts and feelings to the Father's ear. Then the whole family, old and young, can read together, in alternation, from the Bible, using not all the same version, but different ones, for instance, those of Noyes, Campbell, Norton, and Conybeare and Howson,—thus bringing forth ever fresh shades of meaning, approximating ever the mind of inspiration, and preventing the reading from becoming a matter of mere rote and custom. Questions and answers will occur, self-applications may be made, and not the words. merely, but the facts and the imagery of the Bible, will be continually stored up in the memory; and its truths will be sure to come up, and utter themselves in days of temptation and trial. But what we have specially in hand to say now is, domestic worship is the time and occasion for the hymn and the sacred song. It is all the better if they can be sung; but, whether sung or not, they should be read; and they will impart to the devotions of the family a marvellous richness, and will be a beauty and a joy for ever. Some book of devotional poetry, collected from the best sources, and wherever the Holy Spirit has struck the chords of the human lyre, should be ever at hand, should always accompany the Bible and the liturgy in the delightful ritual of the family altar. Some will bear to be read over and over, and have their imagery imprinted on the young mind, and glow in the imagination, and form ever afterwards the divine scenery of the soul, and attune it to heavenly music. In our opinion, words can hardly exaggerate the importance of this as a means of spiritual culture, and intellectual and moral refinement. To elevate and purify the taste, and unfold and sanctify the young imagination, is of vast consequence in this dusty and moneychanging world. Nursery rhymes are well for very young children to commit to memory. But what we now recommend does vastly more than these. It furnishes the soul with its choicest and grandest imagery, - that which will be necessary to give power and vividness to the doctrines of faith, and bathe them in the emotions of the heart. Where there is no vision, the people perish; for, when faith has no imagery to give to it the substance of things not seen by the eye of flesh, it fades out from the mind, and we are in danger of sinking into unbelief and sensuality. We want good devotional poetry, then, for other use than to sing in churches. We want it in our families; and we want it, above all, at the hour of domestic worship. Hymns for choirs do not supply this want. They are too limited in their range, and, for the most part, are selections and fragments. from utterances which could not be given entire. Strains in which the poet's whole heart has flowed out of him, and which have not been cut up and altered for a special purpose, are what we need for private and family reading. There has been a dearth of such poetry, at least in any accessible form. Watts we could never leave out; but he has only two strings to his lyre, and one of these only vibrates to the divine anger. He never quite emerged from the old pagan conceptions about death and the grave; never "climbed where Moses stood, and viewed the landscape o'er." Montgomery is tender and sweet, and the Wesleys are fervid with Christian love; but there are chords which they never strike. It is very interesting to observe, that, in the devotional songs which have sung themselves within the last twenty-five years, we |