By the same Author A HISTORY OF THE PREPARATION OF THE WORLD FOR CHRIST Fourth Edition 8vo, cloth, gilt top, $2.00 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY FROM THE ESTATE OF COPYRIGHT, 1903, REVELL COMPANY CHICAGO: 63 WASHINGTON STREET NEW YORK: 158 FIFTH AVENUE TORONTO: 27 RICHMOND STREET, W. LONDON: 21 PATERNOSTER SQUARE EDINBURGH: 30 ST. MARY STREET PREFACE This book is the outgrowth of my own needs, as a teacher of practical theology. I desired a text-book from which my students might obtain a comprehensive knowledge of the history and use of sacred song, without being burdened with those technical details which a beginner has neither the time to master nor the ability to understand. I also desired a book in which the study of hymns and of tunes was combined. No such book was at hand, and for several years I was compelled to refer my classes to various authors, some in hymnology, others in church music; supplementing their studies with explanatory lectures. This, however, became more and more unsatisfactory, and I therefore determined to supply my own needs. so doing I hoped to supply also the needs of others and to furnish many besides theological students with an acceptable and useful guide to a large and increasingly interesting subject. In I have therefore included extended notice only of authors and composers of the first rank, or whose work bears some vital relation to the development of the hymn or of the hymn-tune. The volume is intended to be first of all a text-book, though I hope it may serve other useful purposes and be greatly blessed of Him whose praises we sing to those who would sing them "in a nobler, sweeter song." |