Excerpt from Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer: Annotated Edition, With Introduction and Notes 1. The great variety of hymnals in the Church of England is alike a sign of vitality and a source of weakness. Apart from collections introduced by clergymen for the sole use of their own congregations, there are probably more than two hundred hymn-books which are adopted by several churches, often by all in one town or neighbourhood, and several of them accompanied by most valuable music. It is difficult to estimate highly enough the amount of patient prayerful toil which the compilation of these hymnals has involved. And who shall affirm that any such labours, undertaken for the glory of God and in accordance with the faith once for all delivered to the saints, have been in vain? Doubtless the humblest of these works has caught some rays of light peculiarly its own from the great crystal of truth, and has, at all events for a while, satisfied the wants of that company of the Church Militant which has used it as a manual of worship. And it would not be difficult to assign to each of the more important collections - those collections which are or have been used by hundreds of churches - its own especial meed of excellence, and to show the good work which each has done in its chosen department. Only a living laborious Church would have put forth such efforts. Indolence would have been content with the frigid respectability of days gone by. Fifty years ago, however, the frost began to break up. And now the winter is past; the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; and, as we see in nature, accompanying all the other signs of spring, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. 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.