THEIR AUTHORS AND ORIGIN*. 2G7
a boy, Edmund Butcher had felt poetical promptings, and had written, at the age of fourteen, a little poem, entitled " The Brutaeis," founded on the fabled tradition of the peopling of Britain by the Trojans. And in 1798, on his removal to Sid- bury, when he thought it right to publish for the use of his London congregation some of the sermons he had preached to them, he added hymns to the discourses, and called the work " Sermons : to which are added suitable Hymns." And he says in the preface that he had composed the hymns expressly to be sung when the sermon was read in the family, and he hoped that the hymn would be read where it could not be sung. He is said to have published three volumes of " Sermons for the Use of Families." His last work was a volume of " Prayers for the Use of Families and Individuals." These were adapted to each sermon in his volume, and there were forms suitable for particular occasions. After his death, Mrs. Butcher published a small volume of his " Discourses on our Lord s Sermon on the Mount." Mr. Butcher was also the editor of the later volumes of the " Protestant Dissenters Magazine." Some of his hymns are in Kippis and other collections.
" Great God, as seasons disappear." Na. 952.
This is, in a very much altered form, the hymn of six verses given after his sermon xvi., in his work of 1798, " Sermons, &c." The title of the sermon is "Harvest Reflections," and the text, Jeremiah viii. 20, " The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." There are twenty-one discourses in the volume. The author says in the preface : " I pray God, that these poetical epitomes may be instrumental in fixing upon the memory the leading ideas of the discourse to which each belongs." The writer had around him the harvest scene, and in his own frail condition a pre-intimation of the blow of the sickle of which he writes.
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