HYMNS DIVINE WORSHIP. COMPILED FOR THE USE OF THE METHODIST NEW CONNEXION, FOUNDED A.D. 1797. Sing praises to GoD, sing praises: PSALM xlvii. 6, 7. LONDON: WILLIAM COOKE, METHODIST NEW CONNEXION BOOK ROOM, 42, PATERNOSTER BOW, E.C. PREFACE. THIS Hymn Book has been compiled under the direction of the Annual Conference of the Methodist New Connexion, for the use of its various churches and members in public and private devotion. It takes the place of another similar Book, which, though for many years the companion and guide of multitudes" in the service of song in the house of the Lord," has long been felt to be defective, not only as containing too small a number of hymns for the purpose intended, with occasional alterations of these from the original compositions which time has shown to be not always for the better, but also as including in this number some which might well be dispensed with for others of higher character and greater utility. The present collection is larger than was first contemplated, and larger also than can soon be exhausted in any series of services connected with one congregation. But, then, in the first place, it was quickly found that the stores at command were so rich as to offer great temptations to exceed the limits originally prescribed. Again, it was remembered that the collection was not designed for a single congregation or society, but for many such united in one Denomination; nor therefore for a single minister, whose ordinary selection of hymns might be limited to his own individual taste or type of ministry, but for a considerable number discharging the .same religious functions each Lord's day, in whom varieties of taste and modes of handling the Word of God might reasonably be supposed to exist great enough to turn to profitable account even a larger collection than is here brought together. Moreover, the wish was to Cover with "the service of song" as much of the whole "eld of Christian experience as possible,-to furnish a ook of devotion for the closet, as well as a selection of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" for the sancdary; and to do both with as much fulness and completeness as would minister to almost every variety of religious sentiment, either by first suggesting and ex |