PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. HE AIM of the present volume is to offer to THE members of our English Church a collection of the best sacred Latin poetry, such as they shall be able entirely and heartily to accept and approve-a collection, that is, in which they shall not be evermore liable to have the current of their sympathies checked, by coming upon that, which, however beautiful as poetry, out of higher respects they must reject and condemn-in which, too, they shall not fear that snares are being laid for them, to entangle them unawares in admiration for ought which is inconsistent with their faith and fealty to their own spiritual mother. Such being the idea of the volume it is needless to say that all hymns which in any way imply the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation are excluded. In like manner all are excluded, which involve any creature-worship, or which speak of the Mother of our Lord in any other language than that which Scripture has sanctioned, and our Church adopted. So too all asking of the suffrages of the saints, all addresses to the Cross calculated to encourage superstition, that is, in which any value is attributed to the material wood in |