VOL. 4. PANSIES. 'Pansies, that's for thoughts.'-Hamlet. THOUGHTS! Why thoughts? why call ye thoughts, sweet flowers? Sure, there is naught Of care or sorrow e'en in one flower-face, Thoughts! yes, thoughts; wherefore not thoughts, fair flowers? But of complexion varied, like to ye, All shades, all hues; so call ye thoughts may we Yes, ye are like to thoughts, but not the whole, Ye, dark or bright, wear Heaven's own livery, Our flowers we tend, we water morn and eve, With rankest weeds o'errun, or e'en at best A desert spot! But let it not be so.-Come, heavenly dews; O mighty Husbandman, Thy planting own, Come, childlike trusting thoughts, remembering Him Considering well the lily's dainty cup, Come, gentle thoughts of poor humanity, O'er all its sins and woes; for His dear sake, And with such thoughts we'll store ('tis very fit) Who sway the minds of men, the while they sleep 'On all things true and pure; if there be aught Think upon these.' So shall our thoughts bring peace; so may they claim THE CANTICLES IN MORNING PRAYER. THE TE DEUM. ANALYSIS. THE TE DEUM is a Hymn of twenty-nine verses. strike the key-note of praise and adoration. arranged as follows: The first two verses The remainder may be PART I. VERSES 3-9. THE ADORATION OF SAINTS AND Angels, Offered to JEHOVAH directly. 1. That of the Angels of GOD in the Seraphic Hymn. II. That of Saints in bliss-Apostles, Prophets, Martyrs PART II. VERSES 10-18. THE ADORATION OF THE CHURCH MILITANT, 1. In the acknowledgment of the Holy Trinity PART III. VERSES 19-29. THE SUPPLICATION OF THE CHURCH MILITANT, Addressed to CHRIST as Redeemer. 1. That having redeemed He will also ultimately save His Church; 19-28 and which petition П. Each individual concludes by offering separately for his own individual soul 29 PARTS I. and II. are responsive or antiphonal. In Part II. GOD'S Church on Earth makes response to the praises offered, in Part I., by GOD's servants in Heaven. PART III. is not praise at all. It is a kind of appendix of supplication, and is not antiphonal to anything in Part I. The Church on earth being yet militant, has to follow up her praises with supplication that she may hereafter join the praises in Part I., to which now she only responds in Part II. Part I. is Old Testament praise offered to JEHOVAH. Parts II. and III. are New Testament praise and prayer offered to the Holy Trinity through Christ the Mediator. WE come now to the TE DEUM, which is indeed the typical or pattern Canticle of all. By this we mean that all the various purposes which the Canticles fulfil in our Service-book are discharged by this great ecclesiastical Hymn. We have already explained at great length how the office of the Canticles is (1) To respond to the reading of Holy Scripture ;— (2) To introduce further reading of Holy Scripture ; (3) To connect the readings from the Old Testament with those from the New; and thus generally to weld into one connected whole both the Divine teaching of God's Word, and also our human worship in its two great departments of praise and prayer. The TE DEUM fulfils all these offices in the most marked and typical manner. As to the Divine teaching of GOD's Word, it has been well called a 'Creed set Hymn-wise.' It sums up the revelation of GOD as contained in Holy Scripture. If our Scripture Lessons begin with the Old Testament revelation of the Father, and then go on through the New Testament revelations of GOD the Son and GOD the Holy Ghost, down to the second Advent and the final judgment of mankind ;;—so does the great TE DEUM. It begins with 'We praise Thee, O GOD;' it travels onward down the Gospel History to the 'We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge;' and thus it embraces the full-orbed round of Scripture teaching. That it has always been regarded as a thanksgiving for-or a commemoration of the revelation of GOD in Holy Scripture, is obvious from the way in which it has always been used in every Service-book ever known of. Its place has been always after the Matin Lections; never before them. The Eastern Church too adds her witness in the same direction. Of course, in the form in which we have it, the TE DEUM is a hymn of the Western, and of the Western Church alone. Not so however with reference to the elements of which it is composed. Portions of it, or hymns and anthems which look like portions of it variously worked up, are frequent in the ancient Eastern Offices; and the curious thing is that these too were always hymns to be sung after the reading of Holy Scripture. For ancient as our TE DEUM is in the form in which we now have it, there is no doubt that its materials are older still, and that the stately tree sends its roots far down into the ritual stores of the Sacred East. It is a touching thought that in our grand TE DEUM we combine full many a hymn and anthem of untold antiquity, the offspring of the rapt devotion of the early Eastern mind, all welded into one majestic whole by the genius of the Western Church; and that, since its first composition, there never has been a time in the history of the Western Service-books when it has not formed part of the Matin song. But the TE DEUM is not only a 'Creed set hymn-wise,' it is also in its measure a kind of rhythmical paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer too. You may write it out in parallel columns with the several petitions of our Saviour's Prayer, just as you may arrange the Articles of the Creed in parallel columns with the list of the great Church Seasons, and the Christian Festivals and Anniversaries. The TE DEUM is a cord of three strings, each interwoven with the other so that you can scarcely disconnect them. The facts of the Faith are the central cord of all which binds the whole together; the facts of the Incarnation of our Lord, His redemption of mankind, His future judgment, and the revelation of the Holy Ghost. Then come the two other cords of praise and of supplication, intertwined with each other and with the facts of our belief:-(1.) of praise for what GOD and Christ have done for us, for the Church as a whole, and for each of us as individuals; (2.) of supplication lest we come short of the glory which has been revealed, and fail to profit by the redemption which He has accomplished. And nothing can be more touching than to see the way in which this grand Canticle comes gradually down from the elevated strain of its majestic opening to the almost saddened tone of its pathetic close. At first all is grand and noble and jubilant, for it begins with GOD and not with men, with Heaven and not with earth. It is God in His illimitable majesty Whom we contemplate: we are filled with His Glory, and all our words and thoughts are laden with exultation. We think of those who stand next to Him in adoration; the heavenly host who have never sinned-Angels and Cherubim and Seraphim; the redeemed who have fought their fight-Apostles, Prophets, Martyrs; and all our thoughts are joyous. Then we come down to earth, to the Church yet militant, and our words are soberer, but still partake of the same general character of jubilation-for is She not the Bride of Christ although for the present She abides in the wilderness?-'holy' in her collective capacity, the Temple of the Holy Ghost. But yet our phrase is now of moderated tone. The Angels cry aloud;' the Apostles 'praise Thee;' of the Church we say, 'the holy Church .... doth acknowledge Thee.' Mark the change of word-acknowledge. It is a word of lesser exultation, but still it is decisive in its character. There is no indecision about it; and we observe too that it is the precise description of what the Church militant is placed on earth to do. She is God's witness upon earth; it is her business to acknowledge' Him below, even as the redeemed 'praise' Him above; and this she never fails to do even in the worst of times. GOD is never without the witness of the Holy Church throughout all the world;' and accordingly we go on next with how the Church acknowledges Him, i. e. in the maintenance of the Apostolic Testimony in the Apostles' Creed, the substance of which is next recited in verses 11-19. So the Church acknowledges. Him throughout the whole world. After this we come down a step lower still-from the Church to its constituent parts;-to ourselves now worshipping, and to the supplication which forms Part III. of the TE DEUM. The Church below is militant, yet sure to be triumphant in the end; but how as to each several member of her body? How about ourselves? are we sure of our crown? are we sure that we acknowledge' Him? A pathetic minor now begins to cross the harmony, and from praise we turn to praying. We want help,' and where are we to get it? The answer can only come out of the Creed which the Holy Church has just acknowledged. What is the Creed but the revelation of our help? Hence the supplication takes its start from the acknowledgement; we start off from the Creed when we begin to pray; and we go on to call upon the Redeemer to 'save' us, to 'govern' us, to lift us up;' we conjure Him by the memory of His Redemption, which we have just been acknowledging, not to leave us without His help. Thrice we call upon Him to have mercy upon us. Once we pray that during the coming |