276550

1503

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by ISAAC KNAPP, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

Mrs. E. N. Vanderpool 30 ap. 08

EDITOR'S ADVERTISEMENT.

Those who are laboring for the freedom of the American slave, have felt their need of aid which has ever been sought by those in all ages who have striven for the good of their race;-the encouragement, consolation and strength afforded by poetry and music. This generally expressed feeling was the origin of the present book of hymns with the accompanying strain of poetry; hardly less elevated, though more ornamented and diffuse than is allowed by the severe beauty and sublimity which should model the Christian Lyric.

They feel that the spiritual warfare in which they are engaged, requires the exercise of all the faculties; and they cannot allow the opponents of their principles the selection of the moral and intellectual powers with which it shall be carried on,

-no, though this free use of their own souls should occasion men to call them agitators and fanatics. In giving man imagination and affections, God has furnished him with the powers that enable him to follow the dictates of reason and revelation; and he should not do otherwise than cultivate and sanctify ALL the faculties, subduing them to the obedience that is in Christ Jesus, by gladly acknowledging through them all, the fraternity of the whole human race.

[The machinery of metres, names of tunes, numerals, and characters, has been omitted, because they are useless to those who are unable to sing, and because the spirit and the understanding are a sufficient directory to those who can.]