Excerpt from Hymns That Have Helped: Being a Collection of Hymns Which Have Been Found
I claim nothing for the collection beyond what its name implies. The hymns which it contains are hymns which have helped all sorts and conditions of men to do their work in this world and to face with composure or exultation the coming of the Messenger which summons them to the next. In its compilation I have naturally given the foremost place to those hymns which have helped those who have helped their fellows most. Some hymns are like jewelled chalices from which generation after generation has drunk of the water of life. Others are but as the rusty dipper from which the wayworn traveller cools his thirst. The workmanship of the vessel has weighed little compared with the authentic evidence that it was the means whereby the thirsty soul of man was able to drink and live.
In appealing to the American public I do not feel as if I were venturing upon ground that was more strange to me than that of my native land. For the English Nonconformist has always been more in fellowship with the churches of America than with the Anglican Church that is established and endowed in his own country. The men of the ''Mayflower,''who founded New England, and their descendants after them, have always been more of our kith and kin than the representatives of the church of Laud and the Stuarts. The children of the Puritans in the Old World and in the New form one family, in a much more real and vital sense than those who are outside the circle are able to realise. And within that circle there is no language of the household so familiar as sacred song.
It would be difficult to overestimate the extent to which the religious life of the English-speaking world has been quickened and gladdened by the Songs and Solos of Mr. Sankey. And before Mr. Sankey, the "American Sacred Songster" of Mr. Phillips had done much to enliven our Service of Song. To this day the American hymns and spiritual songs are more popular among our masses than any others.
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