Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/31

Rh minstrel king who 'opened a new door in the side of sacred literature—a Bible within a Bible'. The Psalms were our Lord's hymn-book, from which He and His disciples gathered comfort when, 'having hymned', they went forth to the Mount of Olives. Ambrose bears witness to the charm of the Psalter in the fourth century, when he says that if other parts of the Scripture were read in church you could scarce hear anything, but when the Psalter was read all were silent. St. Augustine found in 'those faithful songs and sounds of devotion, which exclude all swelling of spirit', a voice to express his most intense and varied feeling in the crisis of his life at Milan. 'What utterances would I send up unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I inflamed towards Thee by them, and burned to rehearse them, if it were possible, throughout the whole world, against the pride of the human race' (Confessions, x. 4, § 87). The Psalms early found their place in English church life. When the watchman who had been posted on the tower of Lindisfarne saw the signal of Cuthbert's death for which he had been waiting, and hurried with the news into the church, the brethren of Holy Island were singing the words, 'Thou hast cast us out and scattered us abroad; Thou hast also been displeased; Thou hast shown Thy people heavy things; Thou hast given us a drink of deadly wine'.

The distinctively Christian hymn has its root in the poetry and worship of the Old Testament, whose songs and rhythmical passages passed directly into the services of the Greek Church. The Alleluia was early incorporated with Christian song. Jerome notes how the Christian ploughman shouted it at his work. Sailors encouraged one another by a loud alleluia as they plied the oar. St. Germanus of Auxerre and his soldiers used the word as their battle-cry when they won the Alleluia victory over the Picts and Scots in 429. It became the recognized Easter morning salutation, and soon gained a fixed position in the liturgies of the day, especially on the great festivals. The Ter Sanctus, derived from the hymn in Isa. vi. 3, had also been used in Jewish ritual. 'The Hosanna which so constantly accompanies it in early liturgies was partly the echo of the Triumphal Entry, but partly also of the older refrain used at the Feast of Tabernacles'. Antiphonal singing, which Ignatius introduced among the Greeks at Antioch, may be traced to the choir of the old Jewish temple. The refrains and short ejaculations of praise which are a marked feature of