The Golden Chain of Praise. Hymns by Thomas Hornblower Gill Author of the `Papal Drama', `The Anniversaries,' etc. Second Edition, Greatly Enlarged, London, Hodder & Stoughton 1894.
Title-page and Preface, transcribed from a Library copy (? British Library, via Inter-Library Loans).
[ Title-page ]
The wellnigh ninety hymns which appear for the first time in this edition are not introduced together or set in chronological order, but are arranged among the others according to the theme, in comformity with the character and title of the book, so as to fit in as links of one unbroken Chain of Praise. While no chronological order is observed, I have affixed the date of composition to each hymn for the sake of friends in England and America interested in such matters. The half-century (1845-1894) which separates the last born from the first born of these strains, a period so fruitful in religious change, has but the more commended to me that conception of Religion as an inward principle, as a moral and spiritual power manifesting its work on the heart by its workings on the life which pervades the latest as it inspired the earliest of these divine songs. I have sought to combine the depth of the seventeenth with the width of the nineteenth century, to blend the spirit of the ancestral Puritans with the loftiest aspirations of our own time.
Seven of the hymns put forth in the First Edition have been withdrawn on account of imperfection of form or repetition of theme: the others, with a very few exceptions, are reproduced just as they first appeared. Here and there a word has been altered, a line has been recast, a couplet or a stanza has been recomposed. In one hymn (No.216) the alterations are restorations; it reappears as it was originally written, not as it appeared in the First Edition. My aversion from hymn-mangling, always strong, has been strengthened by observation, reflection and experience. A hymn worth anything is the exact and vivid expression of one creative thought, is a living, harmonious whole. Such a living whole cannot be tampered with but to its hurt. A strain inspired by one thought is harmed by the intrusion of another, even if that thought be deep and high. A hymn devoted to the Incarnation is not bettered by the interpolation of the Cross. A song consecrated to the general relations of the soul with God is impaired by the subsequent introduction of some particular doctrine. The life of a hymn lies in its inspiring thought: to complicate and disturb that thought is to enfeeble and spoil the hymn.
If a man cannot deal thus with his own productions, except to their detriment, how grievously must they suffer from the handling of others! The reckless hymn-mangling so widely prevalent is a wrong to the author, to the hymn, and to those who use it.
Resolved as far as in me lies to abate this pernicious practice, I require all collectors who wish for hymns of mine to take them unaltered directly from this book, not from other collections; and I withold their use from those unwilling to accept this condition, conceding, hwever, a moderate liberty of omission.
I conclude this Preface on my seventy-fifth birthday with the earnest hope and prayer that these divine songs, the outcome of the aspiration and inspiration of half a century, will minister to the maintenance and furtherance of that deep, broad, pure spiritual Christianity, the unfolding and upholding whereof are the loftiest business of the Teutonic race, the utterance whereof is a glorious office of the English tongue.
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