Among all the abundant treasures of the gospel, with which the people of
God are blessed in this day of Christ’s second appearing, the gift of songs claims a
distinguished place. It is a gift in which Believers can best unite their feelings of joy
and thanksgiving for the gospel — in which they can lift up their voices together in
praise to God, while they express their faith and their feelings in all the manifestations
of Christ to his people, and their sense of the inestimable privileges which they enjoy.
Agreeable to ancient prophesy, they can sing in the height of Zion, and flow together
to the goodness of the Lord. Herein true Believers can feel their spirits assimilated
to saints and angels in the world of spirits, where the highest praise and thanksgiving is
poured forth in the blessed gifts of songs.
The object of this publication is to furnish Believers with a collection of hymns,
which have been composed by the Believers of different places, and which have met the
approbation of the Ministry and Elders of the Church. The occasion may require, in their
seasons of worship at the present day: for, although it can not be expected that every
hymn will be suitable to be sung in every order, and on every occasion, yet there may be
hymns selected from among them, which are adapted to every order of Believers; and it is
expected that every family will select, for their own use, such as are best calculated for
their own order, and adapted to the various circumstances and changes which they may meet
with in their travel, of which they must be their own judges.
The general sentiments conveyed in the hymns, are conformable to the present faith and
testimony of Believers; they are the effusions of the feelings of those who have
occasionally turned their attention to the labor in this line; and though no systematic
order of sentiments is to be expected into a collection of this kind, yet the faith and
testimony of the gospel appears obvious through the whole collection. Some of the hymns
contain lively expressions of faith, in the present manifestation of God, in the different
operations of his work. In others may be seen the sense of Believers, in their
thankfulness and gratitude for the gospel, and their love and union to the work of God.
Others contain their present sense and ideas of the works of Antichrist — the present
state of the world — the loss of man — the folly and blindness of the present
adherents of the various systems of the antichristian religion etc. In short, the work of
God, and the works of the wicked one, are clearly characterized and contrasted, in a
greater or less degree, throughout this collection; and the faith and sense of Believers
may easily be discovered in these compositions.
It is not expected that the people of God will ever be confined,
in their mode of worship, to any particular set of hymns, or any other regular system of
words — for words are but the signs of our ideas, and of course, must vary as the
ideas increase with the increasing work of God. Therefore, these compositions, though they
may evince to future Believers, the work and worship of God at this day; yet they can be
no rule to direct them in that work of God which may be hereafter required of his people.
As the work of regeneration is an increasing work, and as there can be no end of the
increase of Christ’s government and Kingdom; so all that his people have to do is, to
keep in the increasing work of God, and unite with whatever changes that increase may lead
to, which, to the truly faithful, will be a continual travel from grace to grace, and from
glory to glory: so that the spiritual songs of Believers, as well as every other part of
their worship, must be according to that degree of grace and glory in which they are
given. Therefore, these hymns, wherever they may be sung by Believers, must be limited to
the period of their usefulness: for no gift or order of God can be binding on Believers
for a longer term of time than it can be profitable to their travel in the gospel.
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This was the first "hard" bound book to be published by the Early Shakers. It was used within their own communties—" adapted to the day of Christ's Second Appearing" and "composed for the use of his people". Here presented are the Preface and an Index of excerpted Hymns from the Original as well as the entire Table of Contents.