Notice of New Publications.
Hymn Book for the use of Evangelical Lutheran schools and Congregations. Decorah, Iowa. Lutheran Publishing House. 1879.
It is with great pleasure that we hasten to announce to our readers the appearance of a booklet with the above title. It is the same a pure, though small, but complete English Lutheran school and church hymnal. On 179 pages in duodec it contains 130 hymns together with 10 so-called doxologies, that is, one: Praise of the triune God containing final verses. We call it a pure hymnal because it contains only those English hymns which not only do not contain false doctrines, but also breathe a truly Evangelical spirit. More than half of them (72) are, as far as we can judge, excellent English translations of the best German hymns of our Lutheran Church in form and content. We call the booklet a complete hymnal not because it contains the entire English, let alone German Lutheran hymnal, but because it contains the necessary selection for all relevant cases. The ever-increasing number of hymns in our church hymnals has become more of a hindrance than an encouragement to hymn singing. In the beginning, almost every Lutheran Christian knew all the hymns in use in the church by heart and thus carried with him an extremely precious spiritual treasure. Caspar Neumann still writes in his Silesian hymnal of 1737: “My people would be ashamed if they should look into the book while singing.”
After one was anxious to look for their own hymns for every doctrine and occasion, not only do we find even in otherwise good hymnals many, so to speak, hymns made to order, especially of little poetic value, but also through the quantity and the “great” change caused by it, the acquaintance of the Christians with their best church hymns has become less and less. Our “Hymn Book” is therefore perfectly adequate to serve as a school and church hymnal. To Professor A. Crull in Fort Wayne, as the translator and collector, and to our Norwegian Lutheran brethren, as the publishers, the English Lutheran Church of this country owes a great debt of gratitude. As far as we know, the booklet is available at the address: Lutheran Publishing House, Decorah, Iowa. In the next number we hope to be able to give the undoubtedly inexpensive price of the same. May the Lord take upon this hymnal the richest blessing for the building of His English Lutheran Zion in America. W. [Walther]
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments only accepted when directly related to the post.