American Unitarian Hymn Writers and Hymns

Compiled by Henry Wilder Foote for the Hymn Society of America for publication in the Society’s proposed Dictionary of American Hymnology

Contents:

(1) Historical Sketch of American Unitarian Hymnody. (Pages 1-11)

(2) Catalogue of American Unitarian Hymn Books. (Pages 12-36)

(3) Alphabetical List of Writers. (Pages 37-39)

(4) Biographical Sketches, with Notes on Hymns. (Pages 40-247)

(5) Index of First Lines of Published Hymns. (Pages 248-270)

Cambridge, Massachusetts January, 1959

I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Misses Ruth and Orlo McCormack in the preparation of this compilation.

H.W.F.

AMERICAN UNITARIAN HYMNODY

In the first edition of Julian’s Dictionary of Hymnology (1891) F. M. Bird[1] wrote, “The Unitarians—possessing a large share of the best blood and brain of the most cultivated section of America—exhibit a long array of respectable hymnists whose effusions have often won the acceptance of other bodies,” (pp. 58-59). And in this century Louis F. Benson[2] in his classic book The English Hymn (p. 460) wrote, “It is not surprizing that a body including the best blood and highest culture of Massachusetts shared in the Literary Movement [of the 19^th century] and succeeded in imparting to its hymn books a freshness of interest in great contrast to those of the orthodox churches” and that “from their [the compilers’] hands there proceeded —— a series of hymn books whose literary interest was very notable” (p. 462).

This succession of Unitarian hymn writers over a period of approximately 150 years can best be traced in the nearly 50 hymn books compiled by individuals or committees for use in Unitarian churches.[3] The editors of these books were among the best educated men of their time, who knew where to look for fresh lyrical utterances of a living faith. The earliest of them lived in the period when the traditional metrical psalms which, for more than two centuries, had been almost the only worship-song of the English speaking world, were being slowly superseded by the songs of a new age. These songs they chiefly found in the various hymn-books published for use in English Non-conformist chapels when the Church of England still generally adhered to the Old or New Versions of the Psalms. It was from these sources that Jeremy Belknap first introduced to Americans the hymns of Anne Steele, and included in his Sacred Poetry (1795) hymns by Addison, Cowper, Newton, Doddridge and other English contemporaries. When, in 1808, the vestry of Trinity Church, Boston, impatient at the delay of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in getting out a hymnal, issued one for their own use, they drew heavily upon Belknap’s collection, saying in their preface “In this selection we are chiefly indebted to Dr. Belknap, whose book unquestionably contains the best expressions of sacred poetry extant.”

Many of the later collections in this series of Unitarian hymn books have been no less notable for their introduction to use in this country of new English hymns, such as Pope’s “Father of all, in every age;” Sir Walter Scott’s “When Israel of the Lord beloved;” translations of hymns in the Roman Breviary; Sarah Flower Adams’ “Nearer, my God, to Thee” (only three years after its publication in England); and Newman’s “Lead, kindly Light;” and for the ability of their compilers to discover fresh materials near at hand, as when Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson were the first to notice the hymnic possibilities of Whittier’s poems.

The story of American Unitarian hymnody begins with the publication in 1783 of the Collection of Hymns—designed for the use of the West Society of Boston. This church belonged to the liberal wing of New England Congregationalism, destined to become known as Unitarian a generation later. The book contained a small selection of traditional psalms and hymns by British authors and a number of quaintly didactic moral ditties in doggerel, presumably contributed by Boston versifiers who cannot now be identified.

The first group of Unitarian hymn-writers whose names are known and whose productions have survived did not begin to write until the opening decades of the 19^th century. Of this group the earliest born was John Quincy Adams, (1767-1848), best remembered as the sixth President of the United States. That he was also a hymn writer, and the only president of the country who was one, has generally been forgotten. Two or three hymns by him were written earlier but most of them came from the period following his retirement from the presidency in 1829. Soon after that event he wrote one for the 200^th anniversary of the First Church in Quincy, of which he was a member, and later in life he composed a metrical paraphrase of the whole Book of Psalms. When Dr. Lunt, minister of the Quincy church, was preparing his Christian Psalter, 1841, Mrs. Adams put into his hands the mss. of her husband’s poems, and Lunt included in his book five hymns and seventeen psalms by his distinguished parishioner. None of them rose above the level of respectable verse but his version of Psalm 43 survived in one or more hymn books 100 years later.

Rev. John Pierpont (1785-1866) was a poet of considerable abilities whose verses were in demand for special occasions and whose hymns were the best lyrical expressions of the developing new thought in religion. W. Garrett Horder, the English hymnologist, wrote that Pierpont’s hymn of universal praise was “the earliest really great hymn I have found by an American author.” It is still in use, as are two others by him.

Prof. Andrews Norton (1786-1853) of the Harvard Divinity School, published a hymn as early as 1809 and a good deal of verse in later years, much of it in a rather sombre introspective mood, but with one fine hymn still in use. He was followed by Rev. Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham (1793-1870) who wrote a good many hymns for special occasions, one of which survives today, and by Rev. Henry Ware, Jr. (1794-1843) who wrote a number of hymns highly valued as utterances of the religious idealism of the period, but long since dropped from use, except for an excellent one for the dedication of an organ, probably the only hymn in the English language written expressly for such an occasion. William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), a lay man of letters, was another of the elder members of the famous group of New England poets of the 19^th century, and as early as 1820 he contributed 5 hymns to Sewall’s New York Collection, published in that year, and he later wrote others.

The latest born of this first group who attained memorable distinction in this field was Rev. Frederic Henry Hedge (1805-1890), whose earliest hymn, still in use, was written in 1829, but who is best known for his great translation of Luther’s “Ein’ feste Burg,” and for a fine Good Friday hymn. He collaborated with Rev. Frederic Dan Huntington[4] (1819-1904) then the college preacher at Harvard, in compiling Hymns for the Church of Christ, (1853), to which Huntington contributed five hymns, none now in use. Their book was the last and best of the various Collections published up to the middle of the century by editors who belonged to what was becoming the conservative wing of the denomination, to whom Emerson’s Divinity School Address of 1838 seemed dangerously radical.

But meantime a new era in Unitarian hymnody was opening with the publication in 1846 of the Book of Hymns edited by Samuel Longfellow (1819-1891) and Samuel Johnson (1822-1882), while they were still studying in the Harvard Divinity School. Both had come under the influence of the Transcendentalist movement which was liberalizing Unitarian thought and they eagerly sought out hymns which were fresh expressions of their youthful outlook on religion. The book was notable for the new sources of hymns which they discovered, among them the poems of John Greenleaf Whittier, which they were the first to introduce into a hymn book.

Their Book of Hymns was followed in 1864 by their larger and even more influential Hymns of the Spirit, which includes most of their own hymns and many by other Unitarian writers of the period, too numerous to name here, but whose hymns are listed in the catalogue of writers appended to this introductory sketch. Samuel Johnson wrote only half a dozen hymns, but they are among the finest in the language. Samuel Longfellow wrote many more, the best of which are quite equal to Johnson’s, and together they made a more important contribution to American Unitarian hymnody than that of any other writers in the middle of the 19^th century.

This was the period of “the flowering of New England literature” and two of its poets, besides those already named, made their contribution to hymnody. The more important of the two was Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, (1809-1894) with half a dozen fine and widely used hymns, and Prof. James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) who, strictly speaking, was hardly a hymn writer at all, but from whose poems two or three have been quarried. Two other writers of this period were Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears (1810-1876) and his niece, Miss Eliza Scudder (1819-1896). Sears wrote two Christmas hymns widely used throughout the English speaking world. Miss Scudder wrote half a dozen hymns in a mystical vein of the highest quality, but in temperament and outlook both writers belong more to the earlier period of Unitarian thought than to that prevalent in their later lifetime.

In this mid-century period should also be included the famous war-time hymn by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,” written in 1861 to provide worthier words than “John Brown’s body” for the popular tune “Glory, Hallelujah”, which had been composed a few years earlier for a Sunday School in Charleston, South Carolina.

A third period in Unitarian hymnody began with the appearance of hymns by three good friends, Rev. John White Chadwick (1840-1906), Rev. Frederic Lucian Hosmer (1840-1929) and Rev. William Channing Gannett (1840-1923), who carried forward in the last third of the century the broadly theistic interpretation of a universal religion to which Longfellow and Johnson had given utterance. Chadwick’s first hymn was written in 1864 for the graduation of his class from the Harvard Divinity School, a great hymn of brotherhood, widely used in England as well as here. A half-dozen others of fine quality have survived. Hosmer and Gannett worked together in bringing out their book The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems, 1885, 1894, and Unity Hymns and Chorals, 1880, 1911. Neither wrote any hymns while in the Divinity School, but both began to do so soon after. In 1873 Gannett wrote a fine one which is probably the earliest in the language to give a religious interpretation to the then controversial doctrine of evolution, and later a half dozen others to which deep feeling is expressed in beautiful lyrical verse. Hosmer, however, was a much more prolific writer, producing more than 40 hymns which have had some use. He was a meticulous craftsman who studied the technique of hymn-writing, and several of his hymns are among the finest in the language. Canon Dearmer, a leading authority on hymnody in the Church of England, included seven of them in his Songs of Praise and calls one of them “this flawless poem, one of the completest expressions of religious faith,” and says another is “one of the noblest hymns in the language.” For approximately 40 years, c. 1880-1920, Hosmer was the outstanding hymn writer in the English speaking world, and he left no successor who was his equal in the perfection of his finest hymns.

A smaller but important contribution to the Unitarian hymnody of this period was made by Rev. Theodore Chickering Williams (1855-1915) who, while still a student in the Harvard Divinity School wrote one of the best ordination hymns in the language, and, in later years, eight others, still in use, which are religious poetry of a high order.

The latest period in Unitarian hymnody, covering the last half-century, is notable for the productions of two writers, Rev. Marion Franklin Ham (1867-1957) and Rev. John Haynes Holmes, (1879-still living). Although he had published a volume of poems in 1896 Dr. Ham did not begin to write hymns until 1911, but thereafter he produced a succession of beautiful religious lyrics, eight or ten of which have come into use. Some of them are utterances of a profound mystical insight akin to that of Eliza Scudder, but others are expressions of a world-wide theism, and one has been translated into Japanese.

Rev. John Haynes Holmes has been a more prolific writer, author of about 45 hymns, many written for special occasions, but 10 or 15 others have come into general and widespread use. His hymns are in a quite different key from those of Dr. Ham’s quiet mysticism, generally being stirring calls to social justice and the service of mankind, though a few are hymns of gratitude for the simple joys of life. While he has infrequently attained the felicity of phrasing which results in a memorable line his hymns are cast in vigorous and often stirring verse, expressing a noble altruism and a wholesome attitude towards life.

M. F. Ham and J. H. Holmes are the latest notable figures in this era of 150 years since the beginning of American Unitarian hymnody, throughout which scores of lesser writers have also contributed their offerings to the main stream. These writers are far too numerous to name in this outline sketch but their thumbnail biographies and notations as to their hymns will be found in the following catalogue. A survey of this whole era discloses the evolution in liberal religious thought from the period when the emphasis was on the sinfulness of man and the redemptive function of the Christian Church, to the vision of a world wide religion taking in many forms, and manifested in that service of mankind which found expression in the “social gospel” in the first half of this century.

The production of so great a number of fine hymns (and of a long series of hymn books of a superior type) over so long a period, by persons belonging to one of the smallest Protestant denominations, commonly considered coldly intellectual rather than emotional in its approach to religion, is a phenomenon unique in the history of hymnody. When the first edition of the Pilgrim Hymnal was published in 1910 it listed both the nationality and the church membership of the authors included, which led to the disclosure that nearly half the American authors were Unitarians who had contributed considerably more than half the hymns of American authorship. In answer to critics Dr. Washington Gladden replied that this was due to the simple fact that the Unitarians had written a larger number of the best hymns than had the American writers in other denominations.

Canon Dearmer in England observed the same fact and was puzzled to explain it. The explanation, however, is a simple one. With the exception of a relatively small number of writers born in other parts of the country and with different backgrounds, these Unitarian authors were men brought up in the atmosphere of the so-called “New England Renaissance,” that literary revival of which Boston, Cambridge and Concord were the chief centres in the 19^th century, and they belonged by blood, by education and by social ties to the New England literary group. The majority were also graduates of Harvard College or Harvard Divinity School, or both, in a period when the spirit of the time was most favorable to the stimulation of poetic gifts, and in a place where the intellectual level was high and there was freedom from any dogmatic control.[5] Thus they had the culture and the warmth of atmosphere needed, and the Divinity School had the admirable custom of encouraging students to write a hymn for the annual graduation exercises or for the School’s Christmas service, and so stimulated their poetic gifts.

Thanks to these favorable circumstances what has been called “the Harvard school of hymnody” has had no equal in the English speaking world, the only comparable institution being Trinity College, Cambridge, England, which, for a much briefer period (1820-1845) was the nursing mother of a notable succession of Anglican hymn writers. It was this fact which led W. Garrett Horder, an English Congregationalist who was also a highly competent hymnologist, to write, “Harvard, like our English Cambridge, has been ‘a nest of singing birds’. I was struck by this when editing The Treasury of American Sacred Songs. Harvard provided the bulk —— of the verse I included.” And other orthodox authorities, notably F. M. Bird and Louis F. Benson, already quoted, have borne witness to the high achievements of both the editors of the long succession of Unitarian hymn books and the authors of the hymns which they included.

Catalogue of American Unitarian Hymn Books.
compiled by Henry Wilder Foote and reprinted (with revisions) from the Proceedings of the Unitarian Historical Society, May, 1938, by permission.

In the 17^th century, and down to the middle of the 18^th, all churches of the Congregational order in New England used the Bay Psalm Book, first printed in Cambridge in 1640, except for the use of Ainsworth’s Psalter in the churches of the Plymouth Plantation and in the First Church in Salem for a part of the 17^th century. In the latter part of the 18^th century, the Bay Psalm Book was gradually superseded by either the New Version of the Psalms (Tate and Brady) or, more generally, by one of the editions of Watts and Select, i.e. Isaac Watts’ Psalms and Hymns, with a supplement of hymns selected from other authors.

The first steps away from the Psalm books in general use were taken by two churches which were in the vanguard of the rising liberalism of the last half of the 18^th century. In 1782 the West Church in Boston published A Collection of Hymns, more particularly designed for the Use of the West Society in Boston (1),[6] and in 1788 the East Church in Salem published A Collection of Hymns for Publick Worship, (2). These two books were of only local significance, but they clearly pointed the way which later publications were to follow. In 1795 Rev. Jeremy Belknap brought out his Sacred Poetry (3), which was an attempt to produce a book which should be acceptable to both the liberal and the orthodox wings of Congregationalism. In this purpose it failed, though it was widely used by Unitarians. The succeeding books were more definitely Unitarian in character and illustrate the changing emphasis in religious thought and practice through five generations of religious liberals. They form a notable series, for most of them attained a literary standard and spiritual outlook higher than that of other contemporary hymn books.

The earlier books in this series were very imperfectly edited, judged by modern standards. Some of them contain no preface and no indication as to the identity of the compiler. In other cases, the compiler is indicated by initials. In some cases the names of the authors of hymns are not given at all, in others only the surname, when known, and there are frequent mistaken attributions. Directions as to the music are usually lacking, the metre of each hymn alone being indicated. In some cases the names of suitable tunes are given, but only one book (18) earlier than 1868 included any music, in that case an appendix of twenty-one tunes in two parts at the back of the book. The first American Unitarian hymn book to be printed with a tune on each page was the American Unitarian Association’s Hymn and Tune Book of 1868 (34). Thereafter few books appeared without tunes, but half-a-dozen other collections with music were published in the next forty years, each of which had considerable use.

It will be noted that in the course of the 19^th century no less than thirty-six different hymn-books appeared, a far larger number than any other American denomination can show for the same period, and illustrative of the extreme individualism of the Unitarian churches. Throughout the middle third of the century Greenwood’s Collection (13), the Springfield Collection (14), and the Cheshire Collection (20), had the widest use, followed in the last third of the century by the Hymn and Tune Books (34) and (36) of the American Unitarian Association, but all the other collections had some local vogue, in some cases only for a brief period or only in those churches the ministers of which had compiled the collections in question. As late, however, as the beginning of the 20^th century, at least eight different hymn-books were in use in the Unitarian churches of the United States and Canada. This diversity of usage declined rapidly after the publication of The New Hymn and Tune Book (45) in 1914, and had practically disappeared by the time when that book’s successor, Hymns of the Spirit (48) was published in 1937.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Copies of at least one edition of each of the following books are in the Historical Library of the American Unitarian Association, 25 Beacon Street, Boston, except in the cases noted.

1. A Collection of Hymns, more particularly designed for the Use of the West Society in Boston—Boston, 1782; 2nd ed., 1803; 3rd ed., 1806; 4th ed., 1813.

The editor is said to have been Rev. Simeon Howard (1733-1804), (See Bentley’s Diary, II, 371), Jonathan Mayhew’s successor as minister of the West Church. Mayhew’s congregation was notably liberal and this book represents the first step away from psalm-books of the traditional type. It contains 166 hymns, including a number of classics by Watts, Barbauld, Addison, etc. The tone in general is ethical rather than theological, and many of the hymns are moral precepts in mediocre verse, some, at least, probably of local production, but the authors cannot be identified as no author is named; there is no preface, and the compiler’s name is not given.

Note:—The American Unitarian Association does not own a copy. There is one in the Congregational Library, 14 Beacon Street, Boston.

2. A Collection of Hymns for Publick Worship—Salem; n.d. (1788)

Edited by Rev. William Bentley (1750-1819) of the East Church, Salem, Mass., and used there until superseded in 1843 by Flint’s Collection (17). There is no preface and the compiler’s name is not given. There are no musical directions except the metre of each hymn. The book consists of two parts, the first containing 40 psalms “according to Tate and Brady’s Version,” arranged by metre; the second containing 163 hymns of high quality, including many of the classics of the period. The book is much superior to No. 1, but had little use outside the church for which it was intended, perhaps because Bentley, though one of the earliest outspoken Unitarians, was persona non grata in a Federalist stronghold on account of his political opinions.

Note:—The American Unitarian Association does not own a copy. There is one at The Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.

3. Sacred Poetry: consisting of Psalms and Hymns adapted to Christian devotion in publick and private. Selected from the best authors, with variations and additions—By Jeremy Belknap, D.D., Boston, 1795.

Many editions. Some included a supplement of Hymns for the Lord’s Supper, selected and original, (7) prepared by Rev. Thaddeus M. Harris, minister of the First Church in Dorchester, 1801. In 1812 an edition appeared with 28 additional hymns, “Selected by the successor of the Rev. Author,” i.e. by W. E. Channing.

Dr. Belknap (1744-1798) was the first Congregational minister of the Federal Street Church (his predecessors having been Presbyterians), and his immediate successor was William Ellery Channing. Belknap endeavored to compile a collection which should serve both the orthodox and the liberal wings of the New England Congregationalism of his day. In his preface he says, “In this selection, those Christians who do not scruple to sing praises to their Redeemer and Sanctifier, will find materials for such a sublime enjoyment; whilst others, whose tenderness of conscience may oblige them to confine their addresses to the Father only, will find no deficiency of matter suited to their idea of the chaste and awful spirit of devotion.” Belknap, however, failed in his attempt to produce a compromise book, as it found favor only in the liberal churches, which used it for some forty years.

The book contains 150 psalms, selected from versions by Tate and Brady, Watts, and others, often “with variations”; and 300 hymns, widely selected from English sources, including Pope’s “Universal Prayer” (altered), Helen Maria Williams’ “While Thee I seek, protecting Power,” hymns by Cowper, Newton, Doddridge, Merrick, Addison, Anne Steele and others. Belknap introduced Anne Steele’s hymns to Americans. There are no hymns by Charles Wesley, and the only hymns of American authorship appear to be Mather Byles’ “When wild confusion rends the air,” and a metrical version of Psalm 65 by Jacob Kimball.

There are no musical directions save the metre of each hymn and the key. “The characters denoting the sharp or flat key are prefixed to each psalm or hymn, at my request, by the Rev. Dr. Morse, of Charlestown.”

The book was much the best of its period. When, in 1808, the vestry of Trinity Church, Boston, impatient at the delay of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in getting out a hymnal, issued one for their own use, they drew heavily on Belknap’s, saying in their preface, “In this selection we are chiefly indebted to Dr. Belknap, whose book unquestionably contains the best specimens of sacred poetry extant.”

4. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for public worship.—Boston, 1799; edited by Rev. James Freeman (1759-1825). 2nd ed., 1813.

This was the first of the hymn-books prepared for use in King’s Chapel, Boston, where it was used for 30 years until succeeded by Greenwood’s Collection (13). No preface; no musical directions except that the metre is indicated. The names of some authors are given in the index of first lines. The book contains 155 psalms, or parts of psalms, “selected principally from Tate and Brady,” followed by 90 hymns and 8 doxologies. The collection is decidedly inferior to that of Belknap (3) in range and quality.

Note:—The American Unitarian Association does not own a copy, but King’s Chapel does.

5. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns—by William Emerson, A.M., Pastor of the First Church in Boston; Boston, 1808.

Rev. William Emerson (1769-1811) was the father of Ralph Waldo Emerson. His book is more handsomely printed than most hymn books of the period and contains 150 hymns. It was very liberal in tone and was assailed by the orthodox for having omitted hymns on several of “the most essential doctrines of Christianity.” Its most notable feature was its endeavor to improve the singing by “prefixing to each psalm and hymn the name of a tune, well composed and judicially chosen” as “a valuable auxiliary to musical bands. No American hymn-book has hitherto offered this aid to the performers of psalmody.” The key in which the tune is set and the metre are also indicated at the head of each hymn. There is also an interesting “Index of Tunes, and Musical Authors,” with references to the various collections in which the recommended tunes may be found. As this list of collections of tunes was prepared by a person particularly interested in promoting good music it is here reprinted as indicating the best available sources at the time:

Mass. Com., Massachusetts Compiler; Sal. Coll., Salem Collection; Lock H. Coll., Lock’s Hospital Collection; Sac. Min., Sacred Minstrel; B.C.M., Beauties of Church Music; Psal. Evan., Psalmodia Evangelica; F. C. Coll., First Church Collection; Suff. Selec., Suffolk Selection; Bos. Selec., Boston Selection; Newb’t Coll., Newburyport Collection; Mus. Olio, Musical Olio; Col. Repos., Columbian Repository; B. Coll., Bridgewater Collection.

While this book thus made the selection of tunes easier than did most of its contemporaries, it is needless to point out how inconvenient it was not to have the tunes in the same book with the words. With all its excellencies the book had small use, being rather too far in advance of its time.

6. A Selection of Sacred Poetry consisting of Psalms and Hymns from Watts, Doddridge, Merrick, Scott, Cowper, Barbauld, Steele and others—Philadelphia, 1812; 2nd ed., 1818; 3rd ed., 1828; 4th ed., 1846.

Edited by Ralph Eddowes (1751-1833) and James Taylor (1769-1844) two laymen of the church in Philadelphia in which Joseph Priestley had preached after coming to America, but which remained without a settled minister until Rev. W. H. Furness was installed in 1825. A good collection of 606 psalms and hymns, from varied English sources, as indicated by the following quotation from preface:—“The Society of Unitarian Christians in Philadelphia, from its first formation, has used, in its public devotional exercises, the collection of hymns and psalms made by the Rev. Doctors Kippis and Rees, and Messrs. Jervis and Morgan.... A late collection by the Rev. Mr. Aspland, of Hackney, has also afforded assistance, of which advantage has been freely taken; and by resorting to another, published in 1789 by the Rev. Messrs. Ash and Evans of Bristol, this work has been enriched with several pieces of Mrs. Steele’s exquisitely beautiful and highly devotional poetry.”

7. Hymns for the Lord’s Supper, Original and Selected. [edited] by Thaddeus Mason Harris, D.D., Boston; printed by Sewall Phelps, no. 5 Court Street, 1820; 2nd ed., 1821.

In 1801 Rev. Thaddeus M. Harris, minister of the First Church in Dorchester, Mass., printed a few hymns for use at the Lord’s Supper, and these formed the basis for this enlarged collection published in 1820. This edition contains original hymns by Rev. John Pierpont of Boston, Rev. Samuel Gilman of Charleston, S. C., and others, none of them in use today. The booklet probably had more circulation for private reading than for public use.

8. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns, for social and private worship—New York, 1820; 2nd ed., 1827; 4th ed., 1845.

Compiled by Dr. Henry D. Sewall, one of the laymen who founded the First Congregational Society of New York, now All Souls Church, which was organized in 1819. Commonly called “the New York Collection.” It contains 504 psalms and hymns arranged in three sections in alphabetical order of first lines. There are no musical directions except that the metre of each hymn is indicated. The Collection is chiefly notable for the inclusion, without the author’s name, of five original hymns by William Cullen Bryant, a member of the congregation, who had written them at the instance of Miss Sedgwick.

The fourth edition, 1845, made some substitutions and added 146 hymns to the original number.

9. A Selection of Psalms and Hymns, for social and private worship—Andover, 1821; 2nd ed., Cambridge, 1824; 11th ed., Boston, 1832.

Edited by Jonathan Peele Dabney (1793-1868), a graduate of Harvard who had studied for the ministry but was never ordained. The book was smaller, cheaper and better arranged than Sewall’s (8), and had considerable use. It contains 385 hymns, and 21 “Ascriptions and Occasional Pieces,” these last including Henry Ware’s Easter hymn, “Lift your glad voices,” and Heber’s “From Greenland’s icy mountains.” There are no musical instructions beyond indication of metres.

10. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Social and Private Worship, compiled by a committee of the West Parish in Boston—Boston; printed by John B. Russell, 1823.

This book was a successor to No. 1. No preface; no copyright; no indication of the identity of the compilers. It contains 320 psalms and hymns by Tate and Brady, Watts, Doddridge, Barbauld, Steele and others. No hymn by Charles Wesley, but it has John Wesley’s “Lo, God is here,” attributed to “Salisbury Coll.” Also 6 communion hymns; 5 for Christmas, including Tate’s “While shepherds watched their flocks by night,” attributed to Dr. Patrick; Milton’s “Nor war nor battle’s sound,” altered by Dr. Gardiner; and Sir Walter Scott’s “When Israel of the Lord beloved”.

Note:—The American Unitarian Association does not own a copy, but there is one at the Congregational Library, 16 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.

11. A Selection from Tate and Brady’s Version of the Psalms: with Hymns by various authors—For the use of the church in Brattle Square, Boston. Boston: Richardson & Lord, 1825.

Compiled by a committee of that church. The church used the Bay Psalm Book until 1753; then Tate and Brady’s New Version of the Psalms, with an appendix of hymns selected by a committee. In 1808 another committee published another appendix, entitled A Second Part of Hymns. The book issued in 1825, by a committee the membership of which is unknown, is a revision and enlargement of the original Tate and Brady and the appendices. It contains 150 psalms and 363 hymns. No musical directions save indications of metres.

12. Sacred Poetry and Music reconciled, or a Collection of Hymns original and compiled—by Samuel Willard, D.D., A.A.S. Boston: L. C. Bowles, 1830.

This book, “adopted while in manuscript, by the Third Congregational Society in Hingham,” had little use beyond that parish. It contains 518 hymns, and 7 chants, the latter being a feature not met with in any earlier book in this series. Tunes are indicated for each hymn, but the editor had some peculiar theories about the “reconciliation” of words and music. The editor, Rev. Samuel Willard (1776-1859), had been minister at Deerfield but had retired on account of blindness and was temporarily resident in Hingham when this book was published.

13. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Christian Worship—Boston: Carter and Hendee, 1830.

Edited by Rev. Francis William Pitt Greenwood (1797-1843), minister of King’s Chapel, Boston. Greenwood’s Collection, as it was generally called, containing 560 psalms and hymns, superseded Belknap’s (3) as the hymn-book most widely used in Unitarian churches in the first half of the 19^th century. It ran to fifty editions and was used in King’s Chapel, for which it was prepared, until superseded there by Hymns of the Church Universal, 1890, (39). Based upon Watts, the book contains the then very recent hymns by James Montgomery, Harriet Auber, Bowring and Heber, and practically introduced Charles Wesley to American Unitarians. In Young Emerson Speaks, edited by A. C. McGiffert, 1937, pages 145-150, will be found a sermon on “Hymn Books” preached by R. W. Emerson in 1831, while still minister of the Second Church in Boston, in which he recommends the church to adopt Greenwood’s Collection in place of Belknap’s. Emerson, in his Journal for 1847, noted that Greenwood’s Collection was “still the best.”

14. The Springfield Collection of Hymns for sacred worship, by William B. O. Peabody—Springfield: Samuel Bowles, 1835.

Rev. William Oliver Bourne Peabody (1799-1847) was minister at Springfield, Mass. His collection contains 509 hymns, admirably chosen from the accepted classics of the period, Watts and Doddridge predominant, but with an increasing number of the recent compositions by Unitarian hymn-writers of the first third of the 19^th century. No musical instructions beyond indication of metres. On its merits the Springfield Collection rightly shared with Greenwood’s Collection (13) and The Cheshire Collection (20) the largest measure of popularity and use among Unitarians in the middle of the 19^th century.

15. The Christian Psalter: A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for social and private worship—Boston, 1841.

Edited by Rev. William Parsons Lunt (1805-1857), for use in the First Church in Quincy, Mass. It contains 702 hymns and psalms and represents a reversion to the older type of hymnody, “but, if old-fashioned, it was excellent and serviceable.” Lunt included 22 pieces by his parishioner, ex-President John Quincy Adams, whose wife had put into his hands a complete metrical psalter which Adams had composed. At least one of Adams’ psalms is still to be found in some hymn-books.

16. A Manual of Prayer for public and private worship, with a collection of hymns—Boston, 1842.

Edited by Rev. William Greenleaf Eliot (1811-1887). Although printed in Boston, this book was prepared for The First Congregational Society of St. Louis, Missouri, of which the editor had become minister in 1834. The Society was the earliest Unitarian church in the Mississippi Valley, excepting that at New Orleans. The book is primarily a collection of service materials followed by 272 well-selected hymns from standard sources. It was the earliest volume of the sort to be prepared for Unitarian use in the Middle West.

17. A Collection of Hymns, for the Christian Church and Home—Boston, 1843.

Edited by Rev. James Flint (1779-1855). The editor was minister of the East Church in Salem, Mass., and based his book upon the 18^th century collection of his predecessor, William Bentley (2). He borrowed the title and much of the contents of James Martineau’s book published in England in 1840. The book contains 415 hymns.

Note:—The American Unitarian Association does not own a copy of this book. One is in the Congregational Library, 14 Beacon Street, Boston.

18. The Social Hymn Book; consisting of psalms and hymns for social worship and private devotions—Boston, 1843.

Edited by Rev. Chandler Robbins (1810-1882), minister of the Second Church in Boston. The book, which contains 350 psalms and hymns, is based upon Watts and Doddridge, but it introduced new hymns from various sources, among them about twenty of Bishop Mant’s translations of “ancient hymns” from the Roman Breviary. Dr. Robbins was one of the earliest American hymn-book editors to avail himself of the English versions of Latin hymns which were among the fruits of the Oxford Movement. His book has an appendix of 21 tunes in two parts, the book being thus the first in this series to include any printed music.

19. The Disciples’ Hymn Book; a collection of hymns and chants for public and private devotions, prepared for the use of the Church of the Disciples—Boston, 1844.

Edited by Rev. James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888) for use in the Church of the Disciples, Boston, which had been organized in 1841 and of which he was the first minister. The first edition is commonly bound up with Service Book: for the use of the Church of the Disciples. A revised and enlarged edition appeared in 1852. The collection contains 318 hymns and an appendix of chants. It was notable for its freshness and progressive outlook, and drew upon the most recent English sources. It introduced into American use the hymn “Nearer, my God, to thee,” by Sarah Flower Adams, published in England only three years earlier, and other hymns by the same author. It also included some of Clarke’s own hymns, more of which appeared in the second edition.

20. Christian Hymns for public and private worship. A Collection compiled by a committee of the Cheshire Pastoral Association—Boston, 1845.