Poems With Power to Strengthen the Soul (Classic Reprint)

This is not like other collections of religious verse; still less is it a hymnal. The present volume is directed to a very specific and wholl practical end, the production of high personal character; and only those poems which have an immediate bearing in this direction have been admitted. We know of no other book published which has followed this special line. There are fine hymnals, deservedly dear to the Church, but they are necessarily devoted in large measure to institutional and theological subjects, are adapted to the wants of the general congregation and to purposes of song; while many poetical productions that touch the heart the closest are for that very reason unstiited to the hymnal. There are many anthologies and plentiful volumes of religious poetry, but not one coming within our ken has been made up as this has been. We have sought far and wide, through many libraries, carefully conning hundreds of books and glancing through hundreds more, to find just those lines which would have the most tonic and stimulating effect in the direction of holier, nobler living. We have coveted verses whose influence woiild be directly on daily life and wotild help to form the very best habits of thought and conduct, which would have intrinsic spiritual value and elevating power; those whose immediate tendency would be to make people better, toughening their moral fibre and helping them heavenward; those which they could hardly read attentively without feeling an impulse toward the things which are pure and true and honorable and lovely and of good report, things A irtuous and praiseworthy. It is surprising to one who has not made the search how very many poets there are A vhose voluminous and popular works yield nothing, or scarcely anything, of this sort. We have looked carefully through many scores of volumes of poetry without finding a line that could be of
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)