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of the committee in distant and diverse places, it was found necessary to devolve the work chiefly upon the two residing at and near New York, Messrs. Floy and West. And as Mr. West was very fully occupied with other duties, the work was actually performed by Dr. Floy, not, however, without valuable assistance from his associates.

The duty assigned to the committee by the General Conference was to revise the old hymn book, but they proceeded in fact to make a new one. The plan of arrangement was entirely recast, and the matter of the old book thrown into the common stock of available material. The whole range of sacred poetry in the language was laid under contribution, and whatever was deemed of sufficient excellence and adapted to the design was freely used. And yet the new book is, scarcely less than its predecessor, of Wesleyan paternity. Of its eleven hundred and forty-eight hymns, more than half (six hundred and four) are by the Wesleys. Watts, the next largest contributor, has seventy-two, many of which have been largely Wesleyanized. Montgomery gives fifty-seven; Steele thirty; Doddridge twenty-three; Newton fourteen; Cowper thirteen; and Heber and Hart each ten. One hundred and twenty

six others contribute each from nine to one; and thirty hymns are of unascertained authorship.*

To make a hymn book is something more than the selection and arrangement of a given amount of sacred poetry in a volume. A hymn book editor may be less than a poet in metrical compositions; but he must also be something more than a poet. His range for action is necessarily a cramped and narrow one. His pieces must be short-four lines will suffice as a minimum, and eight times that number should be accounted the maximum, and that seldom to be reached. Each hymn must be at once a unit and complete in itself. The language of these sacred songs should be always plain and easily understood, yet pure, chaste, and somewhat elevated. Their doctrinal statements should be direct, but never polemical, avoiding all intricacies and obscurities; they must nevertheless discriminate accurately, and everywhere preserve the "analogy of faith."

*In the list of authors of hymns given in the table of contents we have detected but one mistake. Hymn 751 is credited to Walter Scott. It was written before he was born by John Scott, the Quaker poet of Amwell, England. Other annotators have fallen into the same error.

A hymn is more than a sacred lyric; it is a form of worship; the expression not of some special and unusual exercise of the soul, but the common aspirations of the great congregation. Its religious tone should be higher than the ordinary level of Christian experience, that those using it may be elevated by it, yet not so far removed as to fail of proper sympathy with the hearts of the worshipers. To adjust all these things requires rare qualifications of both heart and mind; only an experienced Christian and a ripe scholar, in a single individual, should engage in such a work. It is evident that in this case the work produced, both in its excellencies and its defects, bears the impress alike of the mind and the heart of its chief compiler.

In this work Dr. Floy's critical acumen was largely called into exercise. Many of the most celebrated sacred poets have not been remarkable for the accuracy of their language nor the faultlessness of their prosody, and the compilers of hymn books have universally claimed the right to correct and improve their compositions. Of this practice John Wesley was an eminent example as to both the freedom and the excellence of his emendations; but he strongly protested against any such liberty being taken with his own or his brother's hymns. But the protest has been little heeded; sometimes for the worse, often for the better. He himself very freely corrected his brother's poetry, not only in its form but also in its substance, seeking to free it of the mysticisms with which the writer impregnated much of it, and especially to expunge from it certain exceptional doctrinal notions into which his brother at one time fell. Our compilers have carried this work still further, and some otherwise valuable hymns have been wholly omitted on that account. The productions of others were treated with. like freedom, and as the result, not only is the Church enriched in her hymnology, but many bardlings, dead or living, have been brought into debt to their critical emendators. And yet there may be great danger that a severe but unpoetical taste will sacrifice genuine inspiration at the demands of grammatical and rhetorical correctness. Probably at this point, more than at any other, Dr. Floy lacked adaptation to his work. He was not a poet, in the fullest sense of that word; and though not destitute of poetical susceptibility, yet his tastes FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XVI.-9

led him in another direction. He demanded purity and correctness, and often, no doubt, he was tempted to dash the flower because of the imperfection of the vase that contained it. Hence came the exclusion of some really good hymns, excepting only certain infelicities of verbiage; while others were emendated in their rhetoric at the expense of their poetry. And as the result, we have among our hymns a number of rhetorically faultless, but poetically lifeless so-called hymns.

Of the amount of learned labor expended upon that work, but faint notions are entertained by ordinarily intelligent persons who use it. Every piece was examined singly, and its various versions, as found in some twenty standard hymn books collated, and every stanza and line subjected to a critical adjudication, and whenever possible the original, as written by its author, was consulted. Poems of more than the allowable length were abbreviated, and in many cases rearranged, for the sake of unity and completeness; and sometimes two, three, or even more hymns were taken from a single poem. The plan of distribution was designed to present a system of theoretical and practical theology, while especial reference was had to the demands of public worship, and specifically the wants of Methodist congregations. As compared with other books of its class, that hymn book is distinguished for the purity and perspicuity of its language, the chasteness and congruity of its figures, and the faultlessness of its rhythm and rhyme. Doctrinally it is eminently evangelic, Wesleyan, Methodistical; while its renderings of the holy Scriptures and its scriptural allusions are natural, obvious, and readily intelligible. Under the hand of the revisers some of the most impassioned utterances of Charles Wesley were softened and moderated, the better to adapt them to common use, and some of his peculiar and rather erratic doctrinal notions were quietly hidden by judicious omissions or substitutions. The stores of sacred poetry written during the present century were fully drawn upon, and no inconsiderable share of these hymns are post-Wesleyan as to their composition. The new hymn book was issued during the summer of the year 1849, and in a very short time it came into almost universal use in the churches-a practical tribute to its manifest excellence.

An important feature of Dr. Floy's life and character would

be overlooked should we omit to notice his position and influence as a member of his annual conference. The constitution of those bodies, and the work committed to them, very effectively evoke and employ the gifts and characteristics of their members; and there, more than in any other place, was his power displayed. In the work of examining candidates he was almost unequaled. To the disqualified and pretentious he was a perpetual terror, while latent worth or timid excellence were surely detected, assured, and asserted by him. Nearly the whole of the junior portion of the ministers of the New York East Conference have passed through his hands as an examiner, and it may be confidently affirmed that the standard of learning and the style of thought to which they have as a body attained are in no small degree owed to that cause. But in the open deliberations of the conference was eminently the place of his power. Always in his place, and ever watchful of the proceedings, nothing that was transacted escaped his notice; and though he often voted silently, yet he uniformly had a reason for the vote he gave. As a debater he had few equals. He was not remarkable for much speaking, either as to the frequency or the length of his harangues; but his strength lay in the appositeness of his remarks, and the evidently honest zeal with which he expressed them. Men learned unconsciously to believe in him, and to act according to his directions. A recognized leader in the cause of antislaveryism in the conference, he lived to see the great body of the younger ministers arrange themselves by his side. But he was not so exclusively occupied with that subject as to lose himself in it. He was especially interested in the protection and elevation of the character of the ministry, an active promoter of the cause of denominational education, and of all the great charities and benevolent enterprises of the Church. In all these things the conference felt and acknowledged his power, and gladly accepted his leadership.

Though Dr. Floy's career in the ministry was less protracted than that of most who have earned for themselves a reputation, it was long enough to show that his renown was not derived from qualities that do not endure the tests of time and close examination. For twenty-eight successive years he performed the ministerial labor assigned to him in the order of the

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Church, and always with fidelity and a good degree of success. As a preacher he was clear, direct, and earnest; in doctrine eminently evangelical, and in exhortation pungent and effective. Yet on account of the elevation of his thoughts, and the rigid correctness of his tastes, which led him to avoid all showy ornamentation or attempts at pompous eloquence, he was a preacher for the appreciative few rather than for the promiscuous multitude. But by those he was very highly valued. During the two years of his pastorate at Middletown, Dr. Olin was one of his constant hearers; and he afterward declared that of all the preachers he had ever known, he would choose Dr. Floy for a pastor for himself and his family-a judgment in which not a few can heartily concur. His death, so sudden and unexpected, brought sadness and sorrow to many who only then were made to realize how much he was endeared to them. But the circumstances of his demise were not comfortless. Quietly in his own house, and in the arms of a loved and dutiful son, without lingering sickness, emaciation, or senility -for "his eye was not dim, nor his natural strength abated" -he rendered up his spirit in the faith and hope in which he had lived. A life-course not entirely without its foibles and defects, yet as free from them as often falls to the lot of erring mortals, was accomplished; a character not faultless, but elevated far above the common walks of life, had been formed and exercised; and now, in the early postmeridian of such a life, it ceased on earth to recommence in heaven. Saved by grace!

ART. VIII.-FOREIGN RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

PROTESTANTISM.

GREAT BRITAIN.

CHURCH CONGRESSES.-Certain active and far-seeing churchmen of the HighChurch party have succeeded in introducing into the Church of England a new kind of religious assemblies which bid fair to become of considerable influence in the future of the English Church. They are free gatherings, or, as they are called by the originators,

"congresses" of ministers and laymen, for the purpose of giving full expression to their opinions on matters appertaining to the development of the resources of their community, and of discussing the best means for meeting the religious wants of the age. The third of these congresses was held this year at Manchester, the two former ones having taken place at Cambridge and Oxford. While the former ones had comparatively attracted but little attention, the congress of Manchester is

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