heart the closest are for that very reason unsuited 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 would be directly on daily life and would 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 virtuous and
praiseworthy.

It is surprising to one who has not made the search how very many poets
there are whose 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 the slightest
use in this collection. They were taken up altogether with other topics.
They contained many pretty conceits, pleasant descriptions, lovely or
lively narrations--these in abundance, but words that would send the
spirit heavenward, or even earthward with any added love for humanity,
not one. On the other hand, in papers and periodicals, even in books,
are great multitudes of verses, unexceptionable in sentiment and helpful
in influence, which bear so little of the true poetic afflatus, are so
careless in construction or so faulty in diction, so imperfect in rhyme
or rhythm, so much mingled with colloquialisms or so hopelessly
commonplace in thought, as to be unworthy of a permanent place in a book
like this. They would not bear reading many times. They would offend a
properly educated taste. They would not so capture the ear as to linger
on the memory with compelling persistence, nor strike the intellect as
an exceptional presentation of important truth. The combination of fine
form and deep or inspiring thought is by no means common, but, when
found, very precious. We will not claim that this has been secured in
all the poems here presented. Not all will approve our choice in all
re