Excerpt from The Catholic Hymnal: Containing Hymns for Congregational and Home Use, and the Vesper Psalms, the Office of Compline, the Litanies, Hymns at Benediction, Etc Congregational singing is known to be one of the most powerful means of awakening the religious emotions of the people, while at the same time doctrinal truths, contained in the hymns, arc deeply impressed upon the minds of those who thus proclaim in public their faith and the devout sentiments of their hearts. If people can be got to sing in praise of any project or principle, it is easy to arouse their enthusiasm in its favor. If they sing about anything, it is because they love it. All agree that if Congregational singing were done with spirit it would be a most powerful auxiliary to the priest It would aid him very much in the work of instruction and exhortation, which, for the want of some such help, he is obliged to supply by extraordinary preaching, numerous instructions, and spiritual conferences. All, too, have felt the want of such singing at special Lenten services, during retreats and missions, at low masses, and at the meetings of sodalities established in parishes, and in our colleges and convent-schools. The best effort hitherto made has been to have a few hymns suitable for children's use sung by children, to which the older people pay little or no attention. The present Hymnal, carefully compiled with the aforementioned purposes in view, is offered to the reverend clergy and to superiors of our educational institutions with the confident assurance that it will realize much that has been deemed desirable in a hymn-book for general use. Having had for several years good opportunities of testing the abilities and tastes of our people in this matter, I have reason to believe that the large majority of the hymns contained in the present collection will be found, on reasonable trial, to be such as the people will learn without difficulty, and will sing with pleasure when assembled in church, and also at home. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.