TERSANCTUS," THE soars away at once from self to God, and rests not on our joy in God, but on God who is our joy, giving thanks to the Father for His great glory, and to the Son for His redeeming love. Like the "Te Deum," it is chiefly addressed to Christ. But its accents are to accompany us back into the outer world; and the hymn, which began, as it were, among the angels, ends with a Miserere such as befits those yet in the body of death, well as it befitted those many martyrs of early times who, we are told, sang this hymn on their way to martyrdom. Happy for us if the music of those words sings on in our hearts through the temptations and toils of the following days, and so from hour to hour we make our work keep time to that heavenly melody! "Glory to God on high, and on earth peace, good will towards men. We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we glorify Thee, we give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty. Lord, the only-begotten Son Jesu Christ; O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Thou that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Thou that takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer. Thou that sittest at the right hand of God the Father, have mercy on us. 'For Thou only art holy; Thou only art the Lord; Thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of God the Father." Happy for us when the Gloria and the Miserere are ever thus intertwined! The "Te Deum" completes and crowns this second triad of Christian hymns. It is at once a hymn, a creed, and a prayer; or rather, it is a creed taking wing and soaring heavenward; it is faith seized with a sudden joy as she counts her treasures, and laying them at the feet of Jesus in a song; it is the incense of prayer, rising so near the rainbow round the throne as to catch its light and become radiant as well as fragrant, a cloud of incense illumined into a cloud of glory. It is a shrine round which the Church has hung her joys for centuries, and in which each of us has garnered up one sacred memory after another. Year by year its meaning has been unfolded to One verse has been a fountain of comfort opened to us in some desert place; others have been unveiled to us in the light of a fresh joy or the darkness of a fresh sorrow; and as our horizon widens, it will expand ever above and beyond, because, and only because, it is full of Him whose fulness filleth all in all. us. Its meaning becomes clearer if we regard it as peculiarly a hymn to Christ, which many believe it originally to have been in which case, the doxology to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit* may have been inserted, in a modified form, from its usual place at the end of the hymn. Thus, the first versicle, from a mere general acknowledgment that God is the Lord, becomes a confession that Jesus, who, to deliver us, did not abhor the Virgin's womb, who overcame for us the sharpness of death, and redeemed us with His precious blood, is He whose majesty fills earth and heaven; adored by angels, *Patrem immensæ majestatis; Venerandum tuum verum, et unicum Filium; TERSANCTUS," THE apostles, prophets, martyrs; King of Glory, and everlasting Son of the Father; God over all, blessed for ever. The original Latin may be given, with the suggestion whether the expression "Martyrum candidatus exercitus," may not refer to the white robes made white in the blood of the Lamb; and whether the words translated, "When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death," do not in the original indicate more clearly the truth that our Lord did not merely overcome the pangs of death as martyrs have done, but plucked out its sting; in other words, that He overcame death for us. * Te Deum laudamus: Te Dominum confitemur. Te prophetarum laudabilis numerus; Te martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus. Te per orbem terrarum, sancta confitetur ecclesia, Venerandum tuum verum, et unicum Filium; Tu Rex gloriæ, Christe: Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius. Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti virginis uterum; May not this refer to the prophecy in Isaiah, "This is the name whereby he shall be called, Almighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace"? Tu, devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti credentibus regna cœlorum. Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes in gloria Patris. Judex crederis esse venturus: Te, ergo quæsumus, famulis tuis subveni, quos pretioso sanguine redemisti. Eterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari. Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine: et benedic hæreditati tuæ. Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in æternum. Per singulos dies benedicimus te. Et laudamus nomen tuum in sæculum: et in sæculum sæculi. Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire. Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te. In te Domine speravi: non confundar in æternum. CHAPTER III. THE ANONYMOUS GREEK HYMNS. IT may be well to dwell on the anonymous early hymns before we enter on the compositions of any known author, because where the author is not ascertained (and the date thus fixed), whilst the style is simple and primitive, the earliest manuscript discovered may be but a copy of earlier writings, and a record of some far earlier unwritten song. For instance, the "Gloria in Excelsis," sometimes called a Morning Hymn, or the "Hymnus Angelicus," preserved in our Communion Service, is possibly or probably more ancient than anything Clement of Alexandria, the earliest known hymn-writer, ever wrote. Its sublime simplicity would lead one to conclude it must be so, were Christianity merely an historical religion. As it is, the question of comparative chronology seems of little importance. The original authentic documents of our faith are in our hands, and besides these we can acknowledge no standard of doctrine; and the Fountain of our life is equally near to every age. Whether, therefore, the greater purity of many of these anonymous hymns arises from their greater antiquity, or from a fresh approach to that ever-present Fountain in an age when many had recourse to polluted waters and broken cisterns, is a problem we may contentedly leave unsolved. In either case, |
