The history of hymns, from the earliest to the latest times, furnishes one of the most interesting chapters in the history of the Church. In the hymn the spirit seems to bound into a higher life, and expressions which are scarcely admitted in cold conversation, which almost seem like exaggerations in an essay, or inflated even in a sermon, are felt to be a sweet, fitting, and natural utterance; in some happy moment a nature gifted by genius, subdued by sorrow, but lifted up to a region of serene vision and glowing consolation, found itself caught and compelled to utter an experience which to itself was not always abiding, but which often became afterwards an exceeding joy to it to remember, and which the Church at large retained as the expression of what it believed, and desired yet more fervently to believe through all subsequent ages. Thus the great hymns grew, and the Church has never been without them. Thus many of the portions of the Common Prayer Book of the Church of England and many of its collects are “the golden fruit in a network of silver;” and we in the present day are singing hymns of the holy men of old, who were moved by the Divine Spirit to utter forth the words of prayer and praise. In his Life of Dr. Watts, Dr. Johnson has many remarks which have been the subjects of criticism and exception, but in none are his remarks more open to exception than when he says that “his religious poetry is unsatisfactory.” “The paucity of its topics,” he continues, “forces perpetual repetition, and the sanctity of the matter rejects the ornaments of figurative diction; it is sufficient for Watts to have done better than others what no man has done well.” If this is kindly said, still it is not true; perhaps Johnson was confining his observation, which he ought not to have done, to sacred poetry as belonging to that order represented by Milton or Phineas Fletcher; and yet this could scarcely be the case; and if he referred to his productions as a hymn-writer, then, through the long ages past, men innumerable had done well, as many a noble Latin and German hymn abundantly shows. In the first ages of the Church, the whole city of Milan was alive with hymns, and Augustine tells us how his soul was moved by the power of sacred psalms; the passage is well worth remembering. “The hymns and songs of the Church,” he says, “move my soul intensely; by the truth distilled by them into my heart the flame of piety was kindled, and my tears flowed for joy. The practice of singing had been of no long standing in Milan, it began about the year when Justinian persecuted Ambrose; the pious people, watched in the church, prepared to die with their pastor; there my mother sustained an eminent part in watching and praying; then hymns and psalms, after the manner of the East, were sung, with a view of preserving the people from weariness; and thence the custom has spread through Christian Churches.” Johnson was a pious man, the truth as it is