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ADVERTISEMENT.

THE publishers would state, that the Rev. Rufus Babcock, Jr., formerly pastor of the First Baptist Church in Salem, and now president of the Waterville College, has labored jointly with Messrs. Mason and Greene, the compilers of the CHURCH PSALMODY, in preparing the collection of hymns here presented to the Christian public. It was also by the labors of Mr. Babcock that the Church Psalmody was revised; some hymns being omitted, and others substituted or added, for the purpose of adapting that work for use in the Baptist Churches in the United States; which revised edition has been published under the title of MANUAL OF CHRISTIAN PSALMODY. In preparing the present work, the gentlemen engaged in it have coincided entirely in opinion respecting the classes of hymns from which the selection should be made, and the character which the several pieces should sustain and the publishers believe that it contains nothing in sentiment or expression that will displease any portion of the Christian community, usually denominated evangelical, while it will be found to embrace nearly every thing important for the purposes of social and family worship.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1834, by PERKINS, MARVIN, & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

STEREOTYPED AT THE

BOSTON TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.

BV 459 ·M38

PREFACE.

THE Compilers of CHURCH PSALMODY, and the MANUAL OF CHRISTIAN PSALMODY, have frequently been solicited to prepare such an abridgment of those works as should be more especially adapted to use in smaller assemblies of Christian worshippers. With these solicitations they have now undertaken to comply, hoping that by such an attempt they might do something promotive of a purer taste, and of a more elevated, ardent, and consistent devotion in those assemblies where social praise constitutes a very important and interesting part of the services.

The design of the compilers has been to furnish a collection of hymns suitable for use in social religious meetings of all descriptions, and in family and private worship; which should, at the same time, embrace hymns on such a variety of topics, and of so elevated a character, that it might be used, where circumstances should require it, in the public worship of the sanctuary. In selecting the materials, those psalms and hymns, in the larger collections just named, which seemed well adapted to the purposes of this, have been inserted, constituting about three fourths of the whole of this work. The remainder have been gathered from a great number of other collections and authors. About twenty of the pieces are original-written expressly for this work, and for the SPIRITUAL SONGS, from which they were taken by permission. As this book is not designed to be supplementary to any other, the hymns of Dr. Watts and other standard authors of lyric poetry, which seemed best adapted to its object, have been inserted. This, while it will gratify those who admire these authors, will present all the hymns of the desired character

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