DOWNLOAD ~ Songs of the Spirit " by A. B. Simpson ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Songs of the Spirit
- Author : A. B. Simpson
- Release Date : January 07, 2018
- Genre: Music,Books,Arts & Entertainment,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 1007 KB
Description
Foreword
Among the many
tributes paid to Dr. Simpson at the Memorial Service was the statement that his
hymns would be sung, when his books were forgotten. Since his home-going on
October twenty-ninth, many of his friends have requested that his poetical
writings be collected and published. The committee having in preparation his
memoirs found a large number
of manuscripts, some of which were in the uncorrected form in which they flowed
from the author’s heart. Mrs. Simpson and her family have put all of them at
our disposal. Selections have been made from these new hymns which, together
with some of the gems which have become familiar through the columns of his
periodical, “The Alliance Weekly,” and in the hymnology of our generation, are
now given to a wider circle. There remain enough poems for a second volume
which we hope will soon be issued.
Though literary critics have recognized the poetic genius which is so
clearly seen even in Dr. Simpson’s prose, he himself disclaimed any natural
gift of song. In a letter, written shortly before he ceased his activities, he
stated that he never had written a poem in his life until the Spirit of God
filled him with “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” They came to him on all
sorts of occasions on land and sea. Some of the following poems were written in
Jerusalem, others on the Red Sea, and still others in the Far East during his
first missionary journey; while the fitting conclusion to this volume is “Safe
Home,” written as he neared harbor after girdling the South American continent.
Many of his finest hymns were produced under the inspiration of the preparation
of his great sermons, and were sung to his own music from manuscript on Sunday
mornings in the Gospel Tabernacle, New York City. For years he rarely failed to
send his friends a Christmas greeting or New Year message in song; nor did
Commencement Day pass at his beloved school, the Missionary Institute, Nyack,
without a new Class Song. The last hymn which he gave us, “The Whole Bible to
the Whole Wide World,” was written for the Class of 1919 after he had given up
all active ministry.
This collection is now sent forth with the prayer that “the sound of a
voice that is still” may be heard by many old and new friends. He has entered
the great company of our forerunners in faith, yet in his songs “He, being
dead, yet speaketh.”
The Editor.
Nyack-on-the-Hudson.