Hymns and Meditations

The reasons that induce me to recommend the republication of this little volume are easily stated. It belongs to a class of devotional writings having a peculiar ministry and a peculiar value, -- a value not the less real because it is not the fashion of the age to magnify it. The class is not large; but within it this work takes a high place. The tone of spiritual thought and feeling in most of the pieces is very lofty and very pure. The ideas of a Christian life which are wrought into the poetry are always both strong and tender, vigorous and gentle, brave and trustful. We find few traces of that refined religious selfishness on the one hand, and that feeble sentimentalism on the other, which vitiate so much of the pious literature, and especially the metrical pious literature, of modern times.