Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul

Excerpt

PREFACE

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 wholly 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 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....