Crossword-Solution: HYMNISTS 8 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 16

Whitney, admitting the lateness of the Atharva as a collection, says, "This would not necessarily imply that the main body of the Atharva hymns were not already in existence when the compilation of the Rig-Veda took place".(1) The Atharva refers to some poets of the Rig (as certain hymnists in the Rig also do) as earlier men.

But I for one, as I have said already, would never deny that these _may_ be part of the pleasant unconscious poetry of the Vedic hymnists.

Yet in the contemplation of a being so superlative, the hyperbolic flights of the Psalmist may often be followed with approbation, even with rapture; and I have no hesitation in giving him the palm over all the hymnists of every language, and of every time.

The hymnists of Wales are many; but distinguished beyond and above every other, is the celebrated Williams of Pantycelyn, whose hymns are sung in every chapel and cottage throughout the Principality, and are now as refreshing to the religious tastes and emotions of the people as at their first appearance; and, from their intrinsic beauty and warmth, they are not likely to be lost so long as the Welsh language remains a spoken or written tongue.

The sacred songs now used in our American churches are not solely of English origin, or of our own production; but many of the sweetest of them are free versions from the German hymnists.