On November 25, 1948, the churches of the English speaking world celebrated the bicentenary of the death of Isaac Watts. In the sifting process of two hundred years it is possible to view his contribution in perspective; and as one seeks to estimate what is permanent and abiding in his work, one becomes convinced that he is an important figure by any standard, and in the field of hymnology he is outstanding.

The period of the Civil Wars and Commonwealth in England was one of the most momentous epochs in British history. For small groups of people the decade of the 1640's inaugurated a New Age—an age in which the Holy Spirit reigned triumphant. Such believers reached the zenith of Puritan “spiritualism,” or that movement which placed the greatest emphasis upon the Third Person of the Trinity.

Few men in modern Dutch history have played such a significant role as Abraham Kuyper. A theologian of European renown, a church reformer whose activities lastingly changed the existing church order in his country, a statesman who during five decades of an active political career combined his religion with a unique theory of government, and last but not least, a journalist and outstanding man of letters, Kuyper, during the course of his long life, placed a stamp upon the civilization of the Netherlands which it never was to lose. The immense breadth of his intellect, sustained by a tremendous energy, allowed him to speak with authority on subjects ranging from Calvin's concept of grace, through Islamic architecture, to the future of colonial reform, and earned him the epithet of Abraham de Geweldige (Abraham the Magnificent). His greatest achievement, however, was the foundation of a system of religious dogma upon which he erected a political and social philosophy which in the Protestant Netherlands since 1850 was the only one of lasting influence.1