By whom walks the moon in brightness,
By whom smile the stars in beauty,
By whom all the race of mortals
Have received their godlike reason,

And thine other works outshone.
Thou the universe createdst,

Hast to each his place decreed, Constituting all in wisdom;

And Thy word, Lord, was a deed. For Thy word, Son of the Highest, In essential might and glory, Equals that of God the Father,

Who creates and reigns o'er all; Whilst the Spirit all embraceth, All preserving, all providing :

Triune God, on Thee we call.

Thou, the one and only Monarch,
In Thy nature changeless, endless,
Of unutterable glory,
Inaccessible in wisdom,

Never-wearied strength of heaven,
Infinite, without beginning,

High in unapproached light;
All with sleepless eye observing,
Not a depth Thy glance escapeth,
From the earth to the abysses,
Deepest deep or highest height:
Wheresoe'er my lot may be,

Grant me thus to worship Thee.
Cleanse me, Lord, from my transgression,
Purge me from an evil conscience,
That Thy Godhead I may honour;
Holy hands in praise uplifting,

Blessing Christ on bended knee.

Own me, then, at last Thy servant,

When Thou com'st in majesty.
Be to me a pitying Father,

Let me find Thy grace and mercy;
And to Thee all praise and glory

Through the endless ages be.

After the weary toil of the day, and the strife of tongues, Gregory's spirit thus fled to the secret tabernacle, into which the empty noises of earth cannot penetrate, the pavilion of the presence of God :—

EVENING HYMN.

Christ, my Lord, I come to bless Thee,
Now when day is veil'd in night;
Thou who knowest no beginning,

Light of the Eternal Light.

Thou the darkness hast dissolvèd,

And the outward light created,

That all things in light might be;

Fixing the unfixed chaos,

Moulding it to wondrous beauty,
Into the fair world we see.

Thou enlightenest man with reason,
Far beyond the creatures dumb,
That light in Thy light beholding,
Wholly light he might become.

Thou hast set the radiant heavens
With Thy many lamps of brightness,

Filling all the vaults above,
Day and night in turn subjecting
To a brotherhood of service

And a mutual law of love.

By the night our wearied nature

Resting from its toil and tears;

To the works, Lord, that Thou lovest,
Waking us when day appears.

Again, in another hymn to Christ, his soul flees with its burden of sins direct to that Refuge, where the weary and heavy laden find rest. Some of its expressions of deep self-despair and trembling-trust may be thus rendered :

Unfruitful, sinful, bearing weeds and thorns,

Fruits of the curse, ah! whither shall I flee? O Christ, most blessed, bid my fleeting days

Flow heavenward-Christ, sole fount of hope to me.

The enemy is near-to Thee I cling

Strengthen, oh strengthen me by might Divine ; Let not the trembling bird be from Thine altar drivenSave me, it is Thy will, O Christ-save me, for I am Thine.

One other hymn of Gregory's may be given, at least in part. It is a voice from those eight years which he spent in retirement. When his work was done, the Church of the Anastasia had arisen, and father, mother, brother, and sister, all were dead. In the depths of its natural fears, and the firmness of the hope to which at last it rises, it tells the history of those solitary years, and echoes well the music of those ancient psalms, which soar so often "out of the depths" into the light of God.

TO HIMSELF.

Where are the wing'd words? Lost in the air.
Where the fresh flower of youth and glory? Gone.

E

The strength of well-knit limbs? Brought low by care.
Wealth? Plunder'd; none possess but God alone.
Where those dear parents who my life first gave,

And where that holy twain, brother and sister? In the
grave.

My fatherland alone to me is left,

And heaving factions flood my country o'er;
Thus, with uncertain steps, of all bereft,

Exiled and homeless, childless, aged, poor,
No child mine age to soothe with service sweet,
I live from day to day with ever-wandering feet.

What lies before me? Where shall set my day?
Where shall these weary limbs at length repose?
What hospitable tomb receive my clay?

What hands at last my failing eyes shall close?
What eyes will watch me?-Eyes with pity fraught?
Some friend of Christ? Or those who know Him not?

Or shall no tomb, as in a casket, lock

This frame, when laid a weight of breathless clay?
Cast forth unburied on the desert rock,

Or thrown in scorn to birds and beasts of prey;
Consumed and cast in handfuls on the air,

Left in some river-bed to perish there?

This as Thou wilt, the Day will all unite

Wherever scatter'd, when Thy word is said:

Rivers of fire, abysses without light,

Thy great tribunal, these alone are dread.

And Thou, O Christ, my King, art fatherland to me,
Strength, wealth, eternal rest, yea, all I find in Thee!

Thus, in the old Ionic tongue, the wail of feeble mortality went forth once more, but with a close the old

Ionic music never knew; for Christ had died, and risen from the dead, and the other world was a region of melancholy shades no longer, for He is there.

No wonder that when that chord of hope had once been struck, no effort of an apostate emperor, no refinement of pagan art or philosophy, could silence it; for, with all its beauty, if the old music once ceased to be Bacchanalian, what could it end in but a death wail?

A few more Christian hymns reach us from the East, lingering on even after the religion of Mohammed had started on its fiery course, beginning in the devastation or a flood of fire, and ending in its ashes, knowing no sacred music but the battle cry and the funeral wail. About the sacred poems of Cosmas the Hierosolymite, there is a majestic music. They seem to march solemnly, as if in battle array, recurring at intervals to a grand refrain, as if meant to be taken up in chorus. The words are such as these. In a hymn on the Nativity, the choral words recur continually :

-

That He might be glorified.

Then again—

Again

Glory to thy power, O Lord,

God of our fathers, blessed art Thou.

Let all creation bless the Lord,

And glorify Thy name from age to age.

In a hymn on the Epiphany the varying refrains are

That He might be glorified.

Then at regular intervals

For Thou art Christ, wisdom and power of God.