As we wished to make our volume entirely _unsectarian_ in its character, we have endeavoured to avoid the insertion of poems which involve merely doctrinal points. Those grand truths and principles of Christianity on which all denominations of the Saviour’s professed followers are agreed, offered ample scope for poetic illustration; and happily we could, alike from the pages of a Milton, a Watts, a Doddridge, a Wesley, a Montgomery, and a Keble, find plenty of matter for our purpose, without entering at all upon the thorny paths of controversy. The introduction of Scripture quotations at the head of each subject will, we apprehend, be considered a useful feature of our compilation. As might be expected, the noblest poetry that ever was written is to be found in the inspired volume, and those passages which we have selected therefrom, as specimens of poetic composition alone, will, we apprehend, be considered the true gems of the collection. While we are upon the subject of Scripture quotations, we may perhaps be allowed to place before our readers a fine passage from Gilfillan’s “Bards of the Bible,” in reference thereto:-- “The charm which Scripture quotation adds to writing, let those tell who have read Milton, Bunyan, Burke, Foster, Southey, Croly, Carlyle, Macaulay, yea, and even Byron, all of whom have sown their pages with this ‘orient pearl’ and brought thus an impulse from divine inspiration, to add to the effect of their own. Extracts from the Bible always attest and vindicate their origin. They nerve what else in the sentence in which they occur is pointless; they clear a space for themselves, and cast a wide glory around the page where they are found. Taken from the _classics_ of the _heart_, all hearts vibrate more or less strongly to their voice. It is even as David felt of old toward the sword of Goliath, when he visited the high-priest, and said, ‘There is none like that, give it me;’ so writers of true taste and sympathies feel on great occasions, when they have certain thoughts and feelings to express, a longing for that sharp two-edged sword, and an irresistible inclination to cry ‘None like that, give it us; this right Damascus blade alone can cut the way of our thought into full utterance and victory.’” From the Psalms of David, as giving expression in the most poetical and devotional form, to almost every variety of passion and emotion of which the human mind is cognizant, we have, of course, taken a large proportion of our Scripture passages, and therefore do we think it well to quote the above author’s apostrophe to these sublime compositions.