This being true, the editor who supplies the wanting critical attitude shows no presumption, provided his vision is clear and his skill in supplying more accurate, more melodious, or more practical phraseology adds value to the hymn. Martin Madan was no hymn writer, but when he rewrote Watts’ hymn, “He dies, the Heavenly Lover dies! The tidings strike the doleful sound On my poor heartstrings; deep he lies In the cold caverns of the ground,” and gave us the noble stanza, “He dies, the Friend of sinners, dies; Lo! Salem’s daughters weep around; A solemn darkness veils the skies, A sudden trembling shakes the ground,” he not only gave it a dignified and Biblical content and form, but he rescued the hymn for the spiritual edification of coming generations. _Biblical Precedent._ There is plenty of Biblical precedent. The original compiler and editor of the Psalms, be he Asaph or Ezra, inserted a version of the eighteenth psalm differing from the original as found in the twenty-second chapter of Second Samuel. It cannot escape the most casual reader of the New Testament that its quotations from the Old Testament, whether poetical or prose, are by no means accurately reproduced. Moreover, the writers of psalm versions from Marot and Luther down to Watts did not hesitate to condense, alter, or interpolate new ideas in their transcriptions of the sacred originals. They had no sense of presumption; their minds were preoccupied with the practical ends they were trying to serve. IV. ANALYSIS OF CHANGES MADE It may be instructive to study more in detail the occasions for changes made in our hymns and learn the justification for many of them. If some of them seem somewhat microscopic and even captious, none the less they make for exactness, for nice discrimination, and for more intelligent appreciation of the literary and spiritual values of our magnificent body of hymns.[2] _The Omission of Verses._ A very important change from the original of many hymns is the omission of some of the less valuable stanzas, or even a condensation of some of them by omitting unattractive lines. “Oh for a thousand tongues to sing,” the fine hymn that opens all but recent Methodist hymnals, originally began, “Glory to God and praise and love,” and had eighteen stanzas. The hymn as now used consists of stanzas 7 to 12 of the original. Some hymnals omit stanza 10. In the Trinity hymn sometimes ascribed to Charles Wesley, “Come, Thou Almighty King,” the second of the original five stanzas is always omitted: “Jesus, our Lord, arise, Scatter our enemies, And make them fall; Let thine almighty aid Our sure defense be made, Our souls on thee be stayed; Lord, hear our call.” The evident imitation of the second stanza of the British National anthem is too obvious: