The Story of the Hymns and Tunes

"When the lapse of time and accumulation of fresh material suggested the need of a new and revised edition of Mr. Hezekiah Butterworth's _Story of the Hymns_, which had been a popular text book on that subject for nearly a generation, the publishers requested him to prepare such a work, reviewing the whole field of hymnology and its literature down to date. He undertook the task, but left it unfinished at his lamented death, committing the manuscript to me in his last hours to arrange and complete. To do this proved a labor of considerable magnitude, since what had been done showed evidence of the late author's failing strength, and when, in a conference with the publishers, it was proposed to combine the two books of Mr. Butterworth, the _Story of the Hymns_ and the _Story of the Tunes_, in one volume, the task was doubled."