Several weeks ago, I began searching abebooks.com for a hymnal by Isaac Watts. That little hymnal came in the mail today!
For about a year or so, I have become more enamored with a concept that I call “hymns as poetry”. I have several hymnals in my office and have been able to acquire a couple of older hymnals and I have enjoyed reading the words of the hymns. In my reading of Spurgeon and Bounds, I have been drawn to the poetic verse. This led me to base my Morning Devotional at the Academy on a reprinted copy of another hymnal where many of its hymns connect to passages of scripture. One hymn writer that I frequently was drawn to was Isaac Watts.
I began to become more and more interested in this particularly significant hymn writer. As I researched, I began to see that he based a large amount of his hymns on the book of Psalms. I heard that there was a collection of his hymns based on Psalms and I began to hunt for it. Thankfully, I found a thin version of the hymn on abebooks.com. I ordered the book and it came today.
The book was even thinner than I expected but the content of the hymns was far more than I had home. I was overjoyed to feel this book in my hands. The copyright date reads 1888-100 years before graduated from High School. The pages are thin and the print is small. However, the content is exactly what I am looking for. I plan to use this hymnal as I do my personal devotions in the next year.
[…] By Isaac Watts in Dr. Watts Psalms and Hymns #165 […]