is falsified by the work of Charles Wesley; for hymns, which are really good in every respect, flowed from his pen in quick succession, and death alone stopped the course of the perennial stream.'
Charles Wesley's hymns were one of the chief factors in the making of Methodism. Mr. Garrett Horder says, 'For spontaneity of feeling, his hymns are pre-eminent. They are songs that soar. They have the rush and fervour which bear the soul aloft.' Dr. Schaff writes, 'It is a remarkable fact that some of the greatest religious revivals in the Church as the Reformation, Pietism, Moravianism, Methodism—were sung as well as preached, and written into the hearts of the people, and that the leaders of those revivals—Luther, Spener, Zinzendorf, Wesley—were themselves hymnists.' The force of those words will be felt by every student of church history, not least by those who are familiar with the work of Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey in England and Scotland. Mr. Sankey said, 'I find it much more difficult to get good words than good music. Our best words come from England; the music which best suits our purpose comes from America.'
A few hymns crept into the Scottish Psalter of 1564-5, but they do not seem to have received direct ecclesiastical sanction. None of them were transferred to the Psalter of 1650, or to the Translations and Paraphrases. The General Assembly having already made various unsuccessful attempts to secure a suitable collection of sacred songs, appointed a Committee, in 1742, to prepare a volume of Scripture paraphrases. Some of the Scotch contributions are good, but the collection of 1741-81 'is hardly what might have been expected from the gifts and graces of the ministers of the Church of Scotland' at that time.
The article on Children's Hymns in the Dictionary of Hymnology by Mr. W. T. Brooke, 'whose acquaintance with early English hymnody,' the editor says, is unrivalled, will repay careful study. The early vernacular carols and hymns do not appear to have been composed expressly for children, though young folk naturally rejoiced to sing them. The history of juvenile hymnody begins with the Reformation. Wither's Hallelujah contains a hymn or two for the young, and Herrick wrote a child's grace. Jeremy Taylor's Golden Grove contained some 'Festival Hymns' 'fitted to the fancy and devotion of the younger and pious persons, apt for memory, and to be
