g, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, Mrs.
S. F. Adams, Anna Letitia Barbauld, Mrs. Charles, Frances Ridley
Havergal, Anna Letitia Waring, Jean Ingelow, Adelaide Anne Procter, Mme.
Guyon, Theodore Monod, Matthew Arnold, Edwin Arnold, William
Shakespeare, John Milton, George Gordon Byron, Robert Burns, William
Cowper, George Herbert, Robert Herrick, Francis Quarles, Frederick W.
Faber, John Keble, Charles Kingsley, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison,
John Gay, Edward Young, Thomas Moore, John Newton, John Bunyan, H. Kirke
White, Horatius Bonar, James Montgomery, Charles Wesley, Richard Baxter,
Norman Macleod, George Heber, Richard Chenevix Trench, Henry Alford,
Charles Mackay, Gerald Massey, Alfred Austin, Robert Louis Stevenson,
Arthur Hugh Clough, Henry Burton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Hartley
Coleridge, Joseph Anstice, George Macdonald, Robert Leighton, John Henry
Newman, John Sterling, Edward H. Bickersteth, Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
and many others. Of German authors there are not a few, including Johann
W. von Goethe, Johann C. F. Schiller, George A. Neumarck, Paul Gerhardt,
Benjamin Schmolke, S. C. Schoener, Scheffler, Karl Rudolf Hagenbach, S.
Rodigast, Novalis, Wolfgang C. Dessler, L. Gedicke, Martin Luther, and
Johann G. von Herder.

The number of American poets drawn upon is small compared with this
list. It is the case in all such collections. According to an analysis
of the hymns contained in the most widely used American hymnals down to
1880 the average number of hymns of purely American origin was not quite
one in seven; the proportion would be a little larger now. And the
number of Methodist poets is almost nil, in spite of the fact that the
compiler is a Methodist and the volume is issued from the official
Methodist Publishing House. But if we thought that this would be any
barrier to its wide circulation in Methodist homes we should be deeply
ashamed for our church. We are confident it will not be. For mere
denominational tenets do not at all enter into these great matters of
the soul's life. A book like this speaks loudly for the real oneness,
not only of all branches of the Christian Church, but of all religions,
in some respects. Not only do we find the various Protestant
denominations amply represented here; not only have we most inspiring
words from Roman Catholic writers like Francis Xavier, Madame Guyon,
Alexander Pope, John Henry Newman, Frederick W. Faber, and Adelaide Anne
Procter