have been provided, either with a view to please both branches of the church or to secure a better musical expression for the words than is given by the tune now familiar. Many new tunes by the more eminent modern composers of church music have been introduced. Much care has been given to the selection of these tunes, which we are assured will be found to be devotional in spirit, well fitted to the hymns to which they are set, and adapted to use by the great congregation. And now, praying that this Hymnal, prepared by a joint Commission whose brotherly harmony was never once broken and whose final meeting was a Pentecost, may be abundantly blessed of God to the edification of believing souls and to the glory of his name, we commend it to our churches, and we earnestly hope that it may everywhere supplant those unauthorized publications which often teach what organized Methodism does not hold, and which, by excluding the nobler music of the earlier and later days, prevent the growth of a true musical taste. |