We have listened for so long to sentimental words, to slushy tunes, and are so tired of them, that our range grows narrower and narrower, and finally is reduced to a mere handful of hymns which are sung because ‘everybody knows them.’ Surely this is the dead end of all hymn-singing! Whereas the real art is still alive and practised daily in the Liturgy of the Church, with glorious words and noble tunes. Why must our vernacular hymns fall to the other extreme? For, though vernacular hymn-singing is necessarily an extra-liturgical practice, yet there are many occasions when it can be exercised to the increase of devotion in the faithful, and when it supplies a need possibly more felt now than in the days when the Liturgy itself fulfilled that purpose.

A Daily Hymn Book aroused our expectation. It is a large book, planned on a generous scale, intended to provide hymns for most big feasts in the Church’s Calendar, and arranged according to the liturgical year. It is well and clearly printed, the organist’s copy is a handsome volume, the smaller copies have the advantage of including the tunes to each hymn, which, is a great improvement on the usual book of words. It is prefaced by the Cardinal Archbishop, and has a formidable array of names of authors, composers, and sources. This is the impression of its makeup, after a cursory glance.