the house of the Lord. There is the song of Hezekiah, when he recovered from his sickness, and the psalm of Jonah, from the depths of the sea. There was a song by the waters of Babylon, though not for the ear of the oppressor. There was the song of liberated Israel, at the dedication of the wall of the Holy City, when" the singers sang loud, and they all rejoiced: for God had made them rejoice with great joy: the wives also and the children rejoiced: so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off.” There were new songs in the prophets for the new joy which was to descend on earth, until at last the joy came, and the songs of the angels broke on the ears of the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night.

Not

Even on earth the morning awakes with music. a day is born but finds some creature ready to welcome it with a song-some echo of that birth-day hymn which the morning stars sang together when all the sons of God shouted for joy. No wonder, then, that a burst of inspired song greets that Dayspring from on high. The theme, not creation, but the Son, "the Child Jesus, Christ the Lord!" The singers; from heaven a multitude of the heavenly host, and on earth the blessed virgin-mother, and two old men. Humble voices, heard by few then, yet pouring out their full hearts to God, and so forming a new channel of praise, never since left dry.

The first recorded Jewish hymn was chanted by the great lawgiver, with a nation for his chorus. The first Christian hymn was sung by Mary the mother of Jesus, with no audience, as far as we know, but one other faithful woman. The contrast, doubtless, has its meaning.

The heart of Mary, like a sweet flower with its cup turned up to the morning sky, in its lowliness drank in the light and dew of heaven, and sent them back in fragrance; full of God, and therefore full of joy. And yet her hymn is no angelic song, no thanksgiving of an unfallen spirit who looks on adoring at the great miracle of Divine love. That human tone, which gives its deepest music to the new song of heaven, is not wanting in Mary's. She can say, "My Saviour," that she also may sing hereafter, "Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us by Thy blood!" The Magnificat of the blessed Virgin is but another strain in the great Song of Redemption.

Then Zacharias, when the seal is taken off his lips, and his mouth is opened to praise God, at once his heart is borne away beyond his own special blessing, on the great tide of joy, which is the common element of all the redeemed, and the natal hymn of the Baptist soars away into a Christmas carol. For a moment his song alights on the peculiar gladness which had visited his house, the child of his old age, who was to be the prophet of the Highest; but then again it soars upward, until it is lost in the early beams of the Dayspring from on high.

It

One other hymn completes that first cluster; and this, unlike the other two, was uttered in the temple. must have been long indeed since any fire from heaven had touched the mercenary sacrifices there, or any gush of fresh inspiration had pierced the icy routine of the services. At length, however, the heavens, which had seemed so impenetrable, opened, and before the vail was rent, and they melted away for ever, service and sacrifice

shone with a new and Divine radiance from the Sun which was rising behind them.

Once more the music of inspired song was heard in the temple; not from the choir of David's priestly singers, but from the lips of an old man, as he held the infant Saviour in his arms. Yet, in the few simple words with which Simeon welcomed the joy he had waited for so long, he rose to a height at which even Pentecostal gifts did not always sustain apostles. The old man's vision reached to the universal promise, and he saw in Jesus, not only the Glory of Israel, but the Light to lighten the Gentiles. With such a vision well might he depart in peace!

Thus the first triad of Christian hymns, the three matin-songs of Christianity, were completed. Ere another was added to the sacred list, the great victory which had been thus sung had to be won, not with songs, but with strong crying, and tears, and unutterable anguish. To human ears the completion of the great victory was announced, not with shouts of triumph and songs of angelic hosts, but by one dying human voice, speaking in darkness from the cross.

"When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost."

Yet are those dying words the fountain-head of every hymn of joy and triumph which men have ever sung since Eden was closed, or ever will sing, throughout eternity.

The Bible records the words of but one other hymn; for a hymn it was, whether said or sung.

The Son of God had burst the bands of the grave, and had ascended to be where He is now, at the right hand of God, and, as He promised, the Comforter had come, and, knit together in living unity by Him, the Church had appeared a living temple of God in the world. Thus the only hymn recorded in the Acts is not, like those in the Gospels, sung by solitary voices. It is a choral burst of praise; and, like so many since, it is struck from the heart of the Church by the hand of persecution. The first persecution of the Church gave birth to her first hymn. Peter and John came back from their night in prison to the band of believers; and they lifted up their voices to God with one accord, and the place where they met was shaken by an earthquake.

After that we have no record of any hymn, (unless the thirteenth chapter of first Corinthians, rising sublime and detached, as it does, from the general level of the epistle, may be called one,) until the songs of heaven fall on our hearts from the heights of the Apocalyptic vision. Then from within the gates of pearl, from the city which is also a paradise, from beside the fountain of life, and from before the throne of God and the Lamb, we catch the tones of the new song, and find it the ever new Song of Redemption, the psalm of the new creation; the song which Moses sang, and David, Hannah, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and the early Church, when she first tasted the bitter cup of her Lord; the song which every sinner that repenteth sings, and the angels echo, which we are singing, and still learning now, and which will be new in its inexhaustible depths of joy for ever and ever.

THE

CHAPTER II.

TERSANCTUS," THE GLORIA IN EXCELSIS,"
AND THE TE DEUM."

66

THREE Hymns and three Creeds have come down to us from early times, and have been incorporated into our Liturgy, besides the hymn preserved in our Ordination Services. They have descended to us pure and distinct, through the gradually thickening corruptions of many centuries. Fragments of the language of Heaven, often preserved by those who knew not the interpretation, they must, through those dark and confused ages, have formed channels of communication with God for many a perplexed but believing heart.

In the preservation of the Holy Scriptures themselves, through similar perils, we recognise, with adoration, the controlling hand of God; and we may surely also attribute it to His merciful providence, that through those centuries, when so many would receive no spiritual food, except through the external Church, and the Church so often gave the stone, if not the serpent, to her children, instead of bread, anything so pure and life-giving should have been enshrined in her daily Offices, as the Creeds of the Apostles, of Nice, and of Athanasius, the two Hymns now in our Communion Service, and the "Te Deum."