28-CHRISTMAS.

HARK! THE HERALD

ANGELS SING.

THIS familiar Christmas hymn was originally written, "Hark how all the welkin rings," as is shown within brackets, and also in the second verse there is a change. It is printed at the end of the Book of Common Prayer, and is the only Wesleyan hymn thus favoured. Both the hymn and the tune are inseparably associated with the English Christmas.

H

[ARK! the herald angels sing,

Glory to the new-born King;
[Hark how all the welkin rings,
"Glory to the King of kings,].
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!"

Joyful, all ye nations, rise,

Join the triumph of the skies;
With the angelic host proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.
[Universal Nature, say,

Christ the Lord is born to-day!"]

Christ, by highest heaven adored,
Christ, the everlasting Lord,
Late in time behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin's womb.

Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see,
Hail, the Incarnate Deity!

Pleased as man with men to appear,
Jesus, our Immanuel here!

Hail, the heavenly Prince of Peace!
Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Risen with healing in His wings.

Mild He lays His glory by,
Born, that man no more may die,
Born, to raise the sons of earth,
Born, to give them second birth.
Come, Desire of Nations, come,
Fix in us Thy humble home;
Rise, the woman's conquering Seed,
Bruise in us the Serpent's head.

Now display Thy saving power,
Ruined nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join

Thine to ours, and ours to Thine.
Adam's likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp Thy image in its place;
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.

Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the Heavenly Man:
Oh! to all Thyself impart,
Formed in each believing heart.

29-LENT. MISERERE.

THE penitential psalm (the fifty-first), attributed to David after his sin with Bathsheba, is, perhaps, of all the psalms in the Psalter, that which has helped men most. Mr. Marson says, in his " Psalms at Work": "None of the other psalms have had half the effect upon men's minds that this one has had. It has a library of its own." It was the favourite of Aldhelm in the eighth century and of Keble in the nineteenth.

HA

AVE mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness; according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

For I acknowledge my trangressions; and my sin is ever before me.

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight; that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts; and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

Restore unto me the joy of my salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation; and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.

For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it; thou delightest not in burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion; build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering; then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

[ISERERE mei, Deus: secúndum magnam

Mmisericórdiam tuam.

Et secúndum multitúdinem miseratiónum tuárum: dele iniquitátem meam.

Amplius lava me ab iniquitáte mea: et a peccáto

meo munda me.

Quoniam iniquitátem meam ego cognosco: et peccátum meum contra me est semper.

Tibi soli peccávi, et malum coram te feci: ut justificéris in sermónibus tuis, et vincas cum judicáris.

Ecce enim in iniquitátibus concéptus sum: et in peccátis concepit me mater mea.

Ecce enim, veritátem dilexísti: in cérta et occúlta sapiéntiæ tuæ, manifestásti mihi.

Aspérges me hyssópo, et mundábor: lavábis me, et super nivem dealbábor.

Audítui meo dabis gaudium et lætítiam: et exultábunt ossa humiliáta.

Avérte fáciem tuam a peccátis meis: et omnes iniquitátes meas dele.

Ĉor mundum crea in me, Deus: et spíritum rectum ínnova in viscéribus meis.

Ne projicias me a fácie tua : et Spíritum sanctum tuum ne aúferas a me.

Redde mihi lætitiam salutáris tui: et spíritu principáli confirma me.

Docébo iníquos vias tuas: et impii ad te converténtur.

Libera me de sanguínibus, Deus, Deus salútis meæ et exultábit lingua mea justitiam tuam.

Domine, lábia mea apéries: et os meum annuntiábit laudem tuam.

Quoniam si voluísses sacrifícium, dedissem, utique holocaústis non delectaberis.

Sacrifícium Deo spíritus contribulátus: cor contrítum et humiliátum, Deus, non despícies.

Benigne, fac, Dómine, in bona voluntáte tua Sion: ut ædificéntur muri Jerúsalem.

Tunc acceptabis sacrificium justitiæ, oblationes, et holocausta: tunc imponent super altare tuum vitulos.

Gloria Patri, etc.

Dr. Ker, writing on the same theme in "The Psalms in History," says: "It was sung by George Wishart and his friends the night he was taken prisoner, to be afterwards burned. It was read to Lady Jane Grey and her husband, Guildford Dudley, when they were executed together, August 22, 1553-read to her in Latin, and repeated by her in English. It was also read at Norfolk's execution a few years later. For a long period in the Middle Ages, and after the Reformation, it was the Miserere, the last cry for mercy sung or heard by those who were about to step into the presence of the Judge. Most of the Huguenots made it their death-song."

30-GOOD FRIDAY. STABAT MATER. THIS most pathetic hymn of the Middle Ages is not so well known among Protestants as it ought to be. "The vividness with which it pictures the weeping mother at the Cross, its tenderness, its beauty of rhythm, its melodious double rhymes, and its impressiveness when sung either to the fine plain song melody or in the noble compositions which many of the great masters of music have set to it, go far to justify the place it has long held in the Roman Catholic Church."