A welcome little book is Hymns and Psalms, by Horace
Smith (Macinillan and Co., 2s. 6d.) The volume is of the slenderest. Mr. smiqi writes, it is dear, only when he feels that he has something to say. Most of it, also, has been published before, but there is enough of new work to give it a place of its own. Two out of thirteen hymna and two out of ten psalms are now published for the first time The new hymns are for morning and evening—challenging, one might say, a perilous comparison, out of which, however, they do not come badly—and the new psalms lxxx. and cl. We may quote the third and fourth stanzas of the "Evening Hymn" :— "Strength to the feeble and the faint, Mercy to sinner and to saint, Comfort to all in woe, or strife, And to the dying endless life.
Keep us, and shield us, Saviour dear, Safe in the night of doubt and fear ; Till from the eastern portals gray Dawns through the dark th' eternal day."
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