special prominence. Indeed, the early literature of the Church-not only its hymns, but creeds and liturgies, are singularly free from those carnal conceptions of our Lord's work which came in later times into so much prominence, both in the Roman Church and what may be called the ultra-Evangelical section of the Protestant Church. Our modern hymnody is, to a large extent, reverting to this earlier type; occupying itself with the facts of our Lord's life as in the Eastern, and with the ethical side of the Gospel as in the Latin Church.

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CHAPTER V.

MEDIEVAL HYMNS.

THERE are two writers who form a kind of connecting link between early and medieval hymnody-Venantius Fortunatus, who was born in 530, and died in 609 A.D.; and Gregory the Great, whose life extended from 550 to 604 A.D. Fortunatus, a child of the sunny south, in his early days was a kind of Troubadour: "the fashionable poet of his day," who wandered from castle to palace, appearing and singing his songs at marriages and festivals, fond of court revelry; but yet, so far as we can judge, one of the few who passed unscathed through the fires, and they were fierce, of the temptations of such a course in those times. Later in life he was consecrated a priest, and became almoner of the monastery at Tours, founded by Queen Rhadegunda, with whom he had been on very intimate terms, and to whom he addressed many of his poems. Still later in life he became Bishop of Poitiers. His hymns are such as we should expect from such a nature, and from the sunny land in which he spent his days. Three of these attained to great popularity. They have more in common with those of the Eastern Church than those of Ambrose and his school, and are more the product of the poet's imagination than of the moral

nature which found so full an expression in the Ambrosian hymnody. One of these, the "Vexilla Regis prodeunt," well-known through Dr. Neale's translation, "The Royal Banners forward go," who calls it "one of the grandest in the treasury of the Latin Church," was written to commemorate the reception of certain relics by St. Gregory of Tours and St. Rhadegund, at the consecration of a church at Poitiers, and was originally intended for use as a processional hymn. This is Dr. Neale's translation of it :

The Royal Banners forward go;

The Cross shines forth in mystic glow;
Where He in flesh, our flesh Who made,
Our sentence bore, our ransom paid.
Where deep for us the spear was dy'd,
Life's torrent rushing from His side,
To wash us in that precious flood
Where mingled water flowed, and Blood.
Fulfilled is all that David told

In true Prophetic song of old;

Amidst the nations God, saith he,

Hath reign'd and triumph'd from the Tree.

O Tree of Beauty! Tree of Light!
O Tree with royal purple dight!
Elect on whose triumphal breast

Those holy limbs should find their rest!

On whose dear arms, so widely flung,

The weight of this world's ransom hung:
The price of human kind to pay,
And spoil the Spoiler of his prey.

With fragrance dropping' from each bough,
Sweeter than sweetest nectar Thou;
Decked with the fruit of peace and praise,
And glorious with triumphal lays.

Hail, Altar! hail, O Victim! Thee
Decks now Thy passion's victory;
Where Life for sinners death endured,
And life by death for man procured.

In the 14th century, the following verses were added

when the hymn was appropriated to Passion-tide:

[O Cross, our one reliance hail!
This holy Passiontide, avail
To give fresh merit to the Saint,
And pardon to the penitent.

To Thee, Eternal Three in one,
Let homage meet by all be done;
Whom by the Cross Thou dost restore,
Preserve and govern evermore.]

Another is the "Pange lingua gloriosi" ("Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle "), a hymn in which praise of the cross finds full expression, as witness the following

verse:

Bend thy boughs, O Tree of Glory!
Thy relaxing sinews bend;

For awhile the ancient rigour
That thy birth bestowed, suspend;
And the King of Heavenly Beauty

On thy bosom gently tend!

His "Salva festa dies" ("Hail, festal day! ever exalted high") has for centuries been used as a hymn for Easter day, and is full of poetic vigour, as the following verses may show :

The changing months, the pleasant light of daye,

The shining hours, the rippling moments praise,

Since God hath conquered hell, and rules the starry sky.

Countless the hosts Thou savest from the dead;

They follow free where Thou, their Lord, hast led.
Hail, festal day! ever exalted high.

Gregory the Great is a personage of more interest to English folk than his contemporary Fortunatus, since to him we owe the mission of Augustine, by which Christianity was introduced to our land; whilst his name is familiar to the youngest by the beautiful story which tells how, on going into the slave market at Rome, and marking the beauty of certain fair English youths, he exclaimed, "If they were Christians, they were not Angles but angels." A sight which probably prompted

the despatch of the mission for the conversion of England to Christianity. Had our country been won to and remained faithful to a Christianity such as was seen in Gregory, the Reformation would have been little needed in our land. Gregory is one of the noblest figures in the history of the Church. To him we owe the Plain Songthe Gregorian tones which for centuries held their ground in the Church, and which to this day find many earnest defenders. Mone, in his great work, "Hymni Latini Medii Evi," assigns to Gregory the "Veni Creator Spiritus," usually assigned to Charlemagne. Wackernagel is of the same opinion. Daniel, however, ascribes it, as it usually has been, to the great Emperor of the West. The question of its authorship must probably remain uncertain. Of its high popularity there can be no doubt. Daniel says it was appointed for use at the creation of a pope, the election of a bishop, the coronation of kings, the celebration of a synod, the elevation and translation of saints. It is the only hymn inserted in the Book of Common Prayer, where Bishop Cosin's version is adopted. It has been again and again translated. As it is so uncertain whether Gregory wrote it, we append another hymn by him, in the translation of an anonymous writer, which seems to us very beautiful:

Now, when the dusky shades of night, retreating
Before the sun's red banner, swiftly flee:
Now, when the terrors of the dark are fleeting,
O Lord, we lift our thankful hearts to Thee,-
To Thee, Whose word, the fount of life unsealing,
When hill and dale in thickest darkness lay,
Awoke bright rays across the dim earth stealing,
And bade the eve and morn complete the day.

·--

Look from the tower of heaven, and send to cheer us
Thy light and truth to guide us onward still;

Still let Thy mercy, as of old, be near us,
And lead us safely to Thy holy hill.

E