Excerpt from Church Psalmist, or Psalms and Hymns, Designed for the Public, Social, and Private Use of Evangelical Christians: Containing, Also, Directions for Musical Expression

And yet, notwithstanding these well-defined limits, which nature itself has fixed to Lyric Poetry, there are hundreds of Hymns, in our language, which, can never be sung to any good effect, because their. Subject-matter is foreign to this kind of writing. They can, from their very nature, Neither inspire religious emotion, nor become the channels of this emotion already, inspired. They con tribute to extinguish rather than to kindle up, the holy flame. They are good sermons, but poor songs. This fault in'the choice of subjects, is much more rarely to be met'with in secular than spiritual Odes; and the same may be said in relation to the music by which'they are aecom panied; The reasons of this may not, perhaps, be easily detected. It'cannot be for a moment admitted, that re vealed religion is, unfruitful in themes. If nature may be sung, why not nature's God? If creation can inspire the lyric bard, why not redemption, with its brighter glories, and its'more enduring interests? If earth has its rap tures, why should heaven be poor, and, powerless, and without a song? If_great and good men who have lived and 'acted and died, have, by their virtues'or heroism, called forth the finest and sweetest tones of the Lyre, why should the praises of the only Great and-good, who lives in his own immortality, and whose wondrous acts are re corded for theadmiration of all worlds, sleep in Silence and be forgotten? It may be worthy of remark in this place, that few poets of the first order have ever tried their pinions in this upper shy; but when they have, and selected an appropriate theme, they have Showed that the Waters of Zion can impart a purer inspiration than the fabled Castalian Spring.

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