get views of the divine providence, of the work of Christ, of the divine paternity and immanence, of immortality as present and here, and not prospective, and over the river, given in tints which are more rich and varied, indicating the blushes of the new morning which is breaking upon the world.

During the last year, three new collections have appeared, each with its peculiar merits. Messrs. Longfellow and Johnson have revised their "Book of Hymns," or rather made a new one, which contains very delicious poetry. But they leave out the distinctive Christian element, though Christianity shines through their poetry in a reflected light, beautiful and pale. Sir Roundell Palmer's "Book of Praise" brings things out of his treasury which are new and old, and rich and rare. But much the best book, in our judgment, for the use which we recommend, is the third series of the "Hymns of the Ages," which has just been issued. It is the best of the three volumes which the compilers have given us. The second volume drew largely upon the quaint old English poets; and their verse was too hard and jagged to be wrought into our familiar trains of thought and feeling.

It is very evident that a different principle of selection and adaptation must govern in a compilation for choirs and churches from one which governs in a book for private devotion. Hymns to be sung, must needs be altered sometimes, a part must be left out, and perhaps verbal alterations must be made, in order that the musical feet and pauses may be preserved. This, however, is delicate business, and often done without any show of necessity, and results in botching, and nearly spoiling some of our best hymns. But, in compilations for private use, the ipsissima verba ought to be given; and there is no excuse here for interpolating words and ideas into a writer's verses, and sending them forth again under his Sir Roundell Palmer has been careful to restore pieces which had been mutilated, to their first integrity; or, when this was not practicable, to point out where the seams and gaps had been made. The compilers of the "Hymns of the Ages," we believe, have never tampered with their authors,

though they sometimes give us part of a strain, when the whole would have been better; and hymns which had fallen into barbarous hands, they have not always rescued, and restored to their pristine beauty. Why should they not have given us the whole of that first-class hymn of Gisborne, commencing with the line, "A soldier's course from battles won," especially as it had suffered grievous mutilation, and its richest and noblest stanzas been excluded from our church-collections? The Apocalypse describes the River of Life with waters clear as crystal, and on either side the trees growing in mystic rows, bending with fruit, and clothed with healing leaves, reflecting the sunshine that streams down from the throne. Gisborne uses these types to foreshow the peace of Paradise; but the compilers leave out the two stanzas best fitted to haunt the imagination. And why should we not have the whole of Cowper's aspiration for a closer walk with God, and for similar reasons; especially as all the stanzas are connected by the finest threads, and not one of them can be displaced, and not a word altered, without marring their perfect unity? We cannot make out that Sir Roundell has entirely restored this hymn, and effaced the marks of tinkering and botching. In Dwight's old collection, made sixtyfive years ago, and soon after the hymn first appeared, we have, judging from internal evidence, the genuine reading,

"Oh for a closer walk with God!

A calm and heavenly frame;
And light to shine upon the road
That leads me to the Lamb.

Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord ?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and his word?

What peaceful hours I then enjoyed!

How sweet their memory still!

But now I find an aching void
The world can never fill."

By omitting the second stanza, so essential to the unity of the whole, and then altering the third line in the third stanza,

substituting the words, "they have left," for "now I find," compilers have made Cowper say, that the aching void in him was occasioned by sweet memories and peaceful hours, and not, as he really does say just after, by the "sins" that drove from his breast the Holy Dove.

But worse barbarities have been practised upon Bryant. Compilers undertake to mend the rhythm of Bryant, whose verse flows like a clear brook, without a break or a gurgle, between banks of flowers. A song of consolation by him has become familiar in all our churches. We give the original as he wrote it, both because we are glad to grace our pages with it, and because it is good to look upon the face of a friend restored safe and sound, after having fallen into barbarous hands. We Italicise where the lines had been mutilated.

"BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN."

Oh! deem not they are blest alone
Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep:
The Power who pities man has shown
A blessing for the eyes that weep.
The light of smiles shall fill again

The lids that overflow with tears;
And weary hours of woe and pain
Are promises of happier years.

There is a day of sunny rest

For every dark and troubled night;
And grief may bide an evening guest,
But joy shall come with early light.
And thou, who, o'er thy friend's low bier,
Sheddest the bitter drops like rain,
Hope that a brighter, happier sphere
Will give him to thy arms again.

Nor let the good man's trust depart,
Though life its common gifts deny, –
Though, with a pierced and bleeding heart,
And spurned of men, he goes to die.
For God hath marked each sorrowing day,
And numbered every secret tear;
And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay
For all his children suffer here.

There is just a shadow of reason for some of these alterations, to reduce the number of syllables, and adapt the lines to church-music, though the words are so liquid as to render this even unnecessary. Choirs could sing more easily of the "promises of happier years," than to hiss through the " earnests" of them, a word which perhaps was never before used in the plural, and which never ought to be again, — and they could sing of each sorrowing day" better than of "each anguished day," unless, like Demosthenes, they desire an exercise to improve their articulation by putting pebblestones into their mouths. The original should have been faithfully given in such a coliection as the "Hymns of the Ages;" and the excellent taste of the compilers should have shown them, on the slightest reading, that Bryant could never have written such lines as they have given under his

name.

The collection has hymns for a time of war, and a special department for old age. Madame Guyon's prison-notes breathe pensively out of the depths of the divine love in the soul, and show trial and suffering glorified therein. The compilers draw largely from living female writers, particularly Mrs. Stowe, Miss A. B. Waring, and Miss A. A. Procter. In these, there are indications of a broader religious experience, and of the old doctrines fusing into higher forms of faith in the warm glow and the mellowing light of the New Jerusalem. On pages 115-117 are two vesper-pieces, over the initials, "C. M. P.," published originally in the pages of this Magazine. Both are very sweet and graceful, but the second one we regard as perfect in its way; and, sung in the Spirit, and in the hush of the evening twilight, would render almost audible the chimes of heavenly bells, and "the brush of angel wings." We hope and believe that we are violating no propriety, when we credit them to Miss Charlotte Mellen Packard, whose contributions have been enough quoted and praised for her to reclaim what belongs to her.

In every collection of devotional poetry, there is more or less chaff along with the wheat. We suppose this is inevitable. Hymns are suggestive beyond the bare words, and

sometimes touch deep springs of emotion in one mind, or unlock in it some secret door that opens adown long twilight halls of memory; when, to another mind, they are commonplace and cold. About one-third of the hymns in this volume we should pass over as second or third rate; but they may speak to the condition of some one, when, with us, they touch no such trains of association. We extract the best of Miss Procter's, leaving out a stanza which we think embodies false doctrine.