[To rue EDITOR Or The arserAros.'"] BM—With regard to the
correspondence about Dr. Watts's hymn, "Our God, our help in ages past," it may be of interest to quote a passage from the preface to A Collection of Hymns for Methodtsts, by the Rev. John Wesley, October 20th, 1779. Dr, Watts's hymn is included in this collection. The passage is as follows "Many gentlemen have done my brother [the Rev. Charles Wesley] and me the honour to reprint many of our hymns. Now they are perfectly welcome so to do provided they print them just as they are. But I desire they would not attempt to mend them ; for they really are not able. None of them is able to mend either the sense or the versa Therefore I must beg of them one of these two favours either to let them stand just as they are, to take them for better, for worse ; or to add the true reading in the margin, or at the bottom of the page; that we may no longer be accountable either for the nonsense or for the doggerel of other men."
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