- GEORGE HERBERT
- MILTON
- YOUNG
- COWPER
- MONTGOMERY
- HEBER
- Engraved by P. P. Becker.
- London, Groombridge and Sons.
A
CYCLOPÆDIA
OF
SACRED POETICAL
QUOTATIONS;
CONSISTING OF
CHOICE PASSAGES FROM THE SACRED POETRY
OF ALL AGES AND COUNTRIES,
CLASSIFIED AND ARRANGED, FOR FACILITY OF REFERENCE,
UNDER SUBJECT HEADINGS;
ILLUSTRATED BY STRIKING PASSAGES FROM SCRIPTURE,
AND FORMING ALTOGETHER
A COMPLETE BOOK OF DEVOTIONAL POETRY.
EDITED BY H. G. ADAMS.
EDITOR OF THE “CYCLOPÆDIA OF POETICAL QUOTATIONS,” ETC.
NEW EDITION.
ALEX. GARDNER,
PAISLEY; AND PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
PREFACE.
The favour with which our former compilation—the “Cyclopædia ofPoetical Quotations”—was received, and the numerous calls which we hadfor an extension of the plan of that work, induced us to determine onthe issue of this companion volume, which, although exactly similar insize and price, and method of arrangement, yet possesses a decidedlydistinctive feature in the sacred character of all the piecesincluded. We have endeavoured to make it one of the most completecollections of Religious Poetry ever offered to the public;and cannot doubt that, as such, it will be acceptable to a very largeclass of readers. As the matter in this volume had to be arrangedunder a far less number of distinct headings than that of the workabove named, there was space for the introduction of longer pieces,and thus many of the most beautiful specimens of devotional poetry,which are to be found in the literature of this and other nations, aregiven with little or no curtailment. Although there is much poetry of areligious character scattered through the former volume, yet—inasmuchas it is presumed[iv] that most persons who possess the one will alsodesire to have the other—none of the pieces which may there be foundare admitted into this compilation, except in some cases where it wasfelt that by re-uniting the portions there arranged under severalheadings, so complete and beautiful a whole could be presented, thatits insertion here was almost rendered necessary.
As we wished to make our volume entirely unsectarian in itscharacter, we have endeavoured to avoid the insertion of poems whichinvolve merely doctrinal points. Those grand truths and principles ofChristianity on which all denominations of the Saviour’s professedfollowers are agreed, offered ample scope for poetic illustration;and happily we could, alike from the pages of a Milton, a Watts, aDoddridge, a Wes