The preservation of the Creeds is, however, scarcely so remarkable as that of the Hymns. That the Creeds

should ever have become what they are, is indeed more wonderful than that once formed they should have remained intact.

That out of the fierce word-battles of the Oriental Churches, when eternal truths were made the subject of courtly intrigue and popular tumult, and the populace of Greek and Syrian cities were ready to shed each other's blood on account of the relations of the Persons in the Trinity to one another, meanwhile concerning themselves very little about their own relations to God; when an abstract Trinity in Unity was in danger of being worshipped instead of the living and redeeming God; that from such passionate and godless controversies those simple and living Creeds should have been evolved, is indeed wonderful. And since the formation of the Creeds was no miraculous inspiration, the fact may surely teach us a comforting lesson in ecclesiastical history. Living words cannot proceed from lifeless souls; and the ages which compacted the Creeds must surely, beneath that tumult of noisy controversies and strife "who should be greatest,” whose echoes, as they reach us, we are apt to call church history, have borne to heaven many a cry of true prayer, and many a soft chorus of thanksgiving. As St Augustine said, "We look on the surface and see only the scum; beneath we should find the oil.”

*

Thus the Creeds are witnesses not only for the truth they utter, but for the Church which uttered them. Once formed, however, the great difficulty as regarded

*Neander's Church History.

them was over. They were sealed with all the authority of Church and State; they were systematic documents with sharply defined edges; they were fenced in with anathemas, and the anathemas were fortified with civil penalties. The subtle and tumultuous, yet servile populace, who entered into doctrinal controversies with the eagerness with which their forefathers had contended for political rights, might have made the abstraction of a particle the signal for a riot. And when that acute and excitable race had been crushed under the strong fanaticism of Mohammedan armies, or silenced beneath the dead pressure of Mohammedan fatalism and tyranny; when church history passed over to the West and to another range of controversies, the two earlier Creeds had already the sacred halo of antiquity on them; the crystals were set, and no foreign element could blend with them to alter their form.

With the Hymns it might have been otherwise. The strictest research can, it seems, only ascertain their existence in the earliest records, but cannot trace their beginning. That before such a date the "Te Deum” cannot be found, and that in the earliest known Liturgies the "Thrice Holy" can be found, appears nearly all that can be discovered. Whether they sprang first to light in a burst of choral song, like that inspired hymn in the Acts; or were bestowed on the Church through the heavenly meditations of one solitary believer; or gradually, like a river, by its tributary streams, rose to what they are, we can perhaps never know.

We all know the tradition, that the "Te Deum" gushed forth in sudden inspiration from the lips of Ambrose, as be baptized Augustine; or (as it exists in another form)

that St Ambrose and St Augustine, touched at the same moment by the same sacred fire, sang it together in responses. But beautiful as this legend is, and of early origin, those who have searched into the subject most deeply seem to think it must be classed among other beautiful typical stories of the heroic ages of Christendom. There is, however, another theory of the origin of the "Te Deum" (to which Daniel seems to lean), more beautiful and appropriate than even this old legend. It is believed by many to have sprung from an earlier Oriental morning hymn, perhaps to have grown out of fragments of many such hymns. Gradually, therefore, if this be true, it may have flowed on from age to age, gathering fresh tides of truth and melody, till, as you trace back the sacred stream to its source, your exploring feet are checked among the snowy mountains of the distant past, and, listening through the mists and silence, you seem to hear far off the music with which it first wells into light, where the few persecuted Christians of Pliny's days meet before dawn to sing their hymn of praise to Christ as God.

How these three Hymns grew to what they are, remains to us as great a mystery as why their growth stopped where it did. They lay for centuries entombed in a dead language, among all kinds of errors and idolatries; no anathema guarded them either at their entrance or their close. Beside them sprang up a rank growth of prayers to dead men, and lifeless wood, and symbolic bread; passionate appeals to all saints, and fervent pleadings for all souls in purgatory. The voices which chanted them, chanted more frequently Aves and Litanies to Mary,

TERSANCTUS," THE

Queen of Heaven; yet there they stand for us, as pure as if none had ever sung, or had the keeping of them, save angels and the spirits of the just made perfect. Like the sacred body of Him they sang, they lay in the tomb, but did not see corruption. And now that, with much conflict, and labour, and suffering, the mass of evil around them has been cleared off, and the great stone of the dead language has been rolled away, they come forth to us fresh as with the eternal youth of the angels who guarded the Holy Sepulchre, with a countenance like lightning, and raiment white as snow, saying to us, “Fear not ye. It is not possible that Christ or His truth should be holden by any bands of death: the Lord is risen indeed."

In each of these three Hymns how exulting and triumphant the strain is! They are hymns of praise of the noblest kind: they are occupied, not with our feelings about the object of adoration, but with the object Himself. Not a tone of sorrow mingles with them; the joy of Redemption altogether overwhelms the lamentation of the Fall; mortality is swallowed up of life.

And yet the two first, at least, were sung before Christianity had achieved any visible triumph; when it was still a religio illicita, existing by precarious sufferance; when every public act of Christian worship was liable to end in martyrdom, and every song of praise might be finished among the multitude above, who rejoice that they have been counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus. Those who joined in it knew not how soon their "Holy, holy, holy," might be resumed, after a brief agony, among "angels and archangels, and all the com

pany of heaven," or whether their "Glory to God in the highest" might not be chanted next among the angelic band who first struck its chords of joy. Was it not that very possibility which gave the peculiar thrill to the words? “It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto Thee, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God. Therefore with angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Thy glorious Name; evermore praising Thee, and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of Thy glory: glory be to Thee, O Lord Most High."

The duty of joy and praise, the sanctity of all places and the fitness of all times for worship! Do we not feel in this glorious burst of thanksgiving the irrepressible joy of redeemed creatures set free from all bondage; sinful yet forgiven, and fighting with God against sin; children, yet children of God, coming before their Father with the song He loves to hear; little indeed, and as nothing among the countless hosts of heavenly worshippers, yet still actually amongst them, and no strangers there, because, in God's household, whilst the greatest are as dust before His majesty, the least shine as the sun in His love?

It is as if the veil were for a moment withdrawn, and the whole family in earth and heaven were united in one song. Myriads who sang it once on earth have passed through the veil one by one, and have taken their places in the other choir; and soon the veil must be visibly rent, and the two choirs made one.

The second Hymn after the Communion, like the first,

B