The Latin Hymn-writers and Their Hymns

BY THE LATE SAMUEL WILLOUGHBY DUFFIELD, Author of “The Heavenly Land,” “Warp and Woof,” “The Burial of the Dead,” and “English Hymns: Their Authors and History.”
EDITED AND COMPLETED BY PROF. R. E. THOMPSON, D.D., Of the University of Pennsylvania.
“Et semper in hunc studiorum quare munitissimum portum ex hujus temporis tempestatibus lubenter confugissem.”—H. A. Daniel.
“In diesem Sinne betrachte ich diese, uns von der Vorzeit überlieferten ehrwürdigen und erhabenen Kirchlichen Dichtungen als ein geistiges Gemeingut.”—G. A. Konigsfeld.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, by FUNK & WAGNALLS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C.
Some months before the death of my true hearted friend, Rev. S. W. Duffield, he wrote to express his wish that I should complete this work, if he did not live to finish it. As I was not aware how grave, and even hopeless, was his illness, I did not feel that I was undertaking a serious responsibility in assenting to his wish. But his untimely death brought to me the duty of discharging a wish which “the emphasis of death” made imperative.
In our conferences over the book and its subject, which we had had for three years past, I had come to appreciate Mr. Duffield’s ideas as to its form and content, and read with much interest his preliminary studies in the Christian Intelligencer , the Sunday-School Times , and the New Englander . On coming into possession of his manuscript and notes, I found that the greater part of the book had been carried almost to the point of readiness for the printer, although several chapters had not been written and all needed careful revision.
I have revised throughout the chapters Mr. Duffield left, but in doing so I have been embarrassed by the very vitality and personal quality in Mr. Duffield’s style. He reminds one of what Archdeacon Hare says of the freshness and living force in a page of Luther’s. This has constrained me to leave intact many a phrase or expression I should not have used, but which was natural and even inevitable in him. It is my hope that I have not sacrificed this admirable quality of his writing to any pedantry of judgment.