A WORD TO THE READER.

LITTLE need be said by way of introduction to the selection of poems now offered to the public. It was thought that a compilation from the most approved writings of our best poets, containing nothing of a frivolous or questionable character, would be welcomed by a numerous and intelligent class of readers. The desire of the Editor has been, to seek exclusively for that species of poetry, which is calculated to carry the mind of the reader from the false and fleeting excitements of earth, to those more enduring pleasures that are to be found in the contemplation of the brighter and happier world hereafter to dawn. To those who can appreciate the beauties of sacred song, the Editor with confidence submits the following collection. The names of the authors, to which he need but refer, will be a sufficient evidence of the amount of talent and merit of which he has availed himself.

It is a melancholy fact that so many bards have in our own times wasted the most glorious gifts of

the Creator, a brilliant imagination and fine taste, in ministering only to the passions of earth. No such effusions will find place in the following pages. It is hoped that the time is coming when it will be universally acknowledged, that never are the poet's numbers more worthily sung-never is his lyre more sweetly tuned-than when devoted to the praise of HIM from whom all ideas of the pure, the holy, and the beautiful, proceed.