Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/503

 THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 49 1

It seemed as though his spirit were already far away upon the paths he longed in life to tread, and it was good to remember that, in passing into the Infinite, it had gone straight from the City of Rome, and that his last days had been lived amongst the sights and places which were dear to him.

Hymn 981. Grant, O Saviour, to our prayers.

JOSIAH CONDER (737).

From the Congregational Hymn-book, 1836. One of the series of paraphrases of the Collects.

Collect for Fifth Sunday after Trinity, Grant, O Lord, we beseech Thee, that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by Thy governance, that Thy Church may joyfully serve Thee in all godly quietness ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. It forms a fitting close to the prayer and praise of the hymn-book.

��ANCIENT HYMNS AND CANTICLES

982. O come, let us sing unto the Lord.

VENITE, EXULTEMUS DOMINO (Psalm xcv.) was used at the opening of daily worship at least as early as the time of Athanasius, who says of the service at Constantinople in his day, Before the beginning of their prayers, the Christians invite and exhort one another in the words of this Psalm. It was the first morning hymn sung in the religious houses of the West, and has always been used as a prelude to worship. In the Middle Ages it was farsed, or interspersed, with fragments of other psalms called invitatories. These Latin sentences were interwoven with it verse by verse, and varied with the different seasons. But in 1549 it was ordered to be sung simply. The Venite was the battle-song of the proud Knights Templars, and there were few of the battlefields of Europe where it did not strike terror into their foes.

Ver. 6, O come, let us worship, and fall down ; and kneel before the Lord our Maker, was inscribed by a nobler soldier, Christian Friedrich Schwartz (1726-98), over the portals of his Mission Church of Bethlehem at Tranquebar.

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