Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/204

 186 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. Ambrose is not irascible, nor does he appear sensi- tive or emotional. In harmony with his juristic and dogmatic mind, the sentiments of his heart flow evenly and strongly, not made to eddy by quick quivering sympathies, which, if the Koman temper feels, it will ignore. Ambrose's emotion flows steadily toward that goal which moves it, God — the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. His admonitions are stern, true, unangered; his appeals are not impassioned by his feelings toward the person he addresses. Yet his hu- man feelings are not suppressed; they gather great- ness in the current which they do not disturb, but which carries them onward toward God. Such is the quality of the feeling which rolls so calmly in Ms hymns, springing from the power of his thought of God, and sobered by the compelling sobriety of thai thought, — reverential, awe-struck, correct, mightily loving ; Deus creator omnium^ Polique rector, vestiens Diem decoro lumine, Noctem soporis gratia. This is the reverence of the Christian Roman mind ; the heart turns to God in the Venij redemptor gentium. Dogmatically one hymn is as correct as the other. They may seem unemotional and too correct in state- ment. But the power of their reverent adoration moved Augustine to tears. A supremely great man may contain in his nature what has been attained in those prior periods of human development which constitute the past for him. Such a man does not feel and include the past as it was, but