2l6 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE [l/^S 



Psalter can be more beautiful or appropriate, is, in my own opinion, 

 the better plan ; if our clergy zuoiild only use the selections. But 

 unless they purpose to deliver a longer sermon than usual, or 

 happen to be pressed for time, when they sometimes give us the 

 Sixth Selection — a very short one — they rarely do use the selec- 

 tions ; and we arc left by the present book exactly where we were 

 by the Church of England, whose use of the whole Psalter, we 

 meant to decline as, in parts, inappropriate for public worship. 



To Dr. Smith, exclusively or nearly so, I assume, that we owe 

 the hymns in the Proposed Book, fifty-one in number, which are 

 the basis of the great variety of hymns now in use ; and he proposed 

 to add more. In fact, as will be seen by his letter to Dr. White, 

 he had anticipated the Hymnal of the Christian year and of our 

 modern service, and adds that : 



On the great festivals of the Church there should be some variety ; 

 at least three or four and of different metres, to complete the Psalmody 

 of the day.* 



He sought, it is evident, through the hymns, to make the 

 Church a Holy Catholic Church — a holy Church universal — and 

 to make its liturgy a book of prayer for all people, as its temples 

 were houses of prayer for them also. He writes to Dr. W'hite in 

 April, 1786: 



My congregations were exceedingly pleased with the two Good Fri- 

 day Hymns, and also the two Easter Hymns, but what above all seemed 

 to make the greatest impression was the two Communion Hymns, No. 



XVII beginning, 



My Ciod, and is thy table spread? 



sung after the sermon as an invitation to the Sacrament, and No. XVIII 

 beginning, 



And are we now brought near to God ? 



as sung after the Communion. It adds a solemnity which they confessed 

 they had not experienced before. The hymns are indeed beautiful, 

 and every line of them applicable to the blessed occasion. Have you 

 yet introduced them in this way?f .... Every communicant will, 

 before another day, have them by heart. 



* Supra, page 16S. 



■j- Of course the Proposed Book did not contain a rubric, such as is found in the 

 Book of Common Prayer, which introduces a hymn, or a part of a hymn as a portion 

 of the Eucharistic service. And as a matter of taste I think that the hymns had l^etter 

 have been left as the Proposed Book left them. 



