effect of "unhinging the domestic relations." Nothing, indeed, can be more preposterous than the idea that married people will, if the Bill be passed, live in a state of perpetual anxiety to take advantage of its provisions. The fact is, such is the perversity of human nature, that people are seldom much inclined to do what they may do every day of the week. How many Londoners ever visit the tower, ascend the monument, or explore Westminster Abbey? If you want a man (we include both sexes in the word) not to do a thing, let him know that he may do it. It is after forbidden things that we hanker-distance lends enchantment to the view-difficulty enhances the ardour of the pursuit. But there is another and more amiable view of the case. We cannot state it better than in the words of the intelligent writer, whose pamphlet is before us-"There need be no apprehension," he says, "that a Court of Divorce would be inundated with the complaints of wives, if it were open to them. The knowledge that a law was in existence enabling a wife to apply for divorce-either à mensâ et thoro, or à vinculo matrimonii, in case of extremity-would shed a wholesome influence over the mind of husbands disposed to err, or who had entered on the paths of error. The natural love of home-the welfare of a family-the dislike of publicity-the dread of a worse future-and the clinging of a mother to the father of her children, even through evil repute, would go far, as those amiable feelings always have gone, to encourage forbearance, to suggest mild remonstrance, and to cherish the still-lingering hope of better days." The poor creatures, indeed, hope on against hope, make excuses as long as they can, and flatter themselves that it is only a temporary aberration, and that the wanderer will return again to the ark of conjugal love and fidelity. And in the case of the offended husband, there are other considerations to check any very strong desire publicly to expose the guilt of his wife. He cannot do so without bringing at least some conventional disgrace upon himself, and, moreover, he will seldom be able to appear in Court with clean hands. But there is little need of speculation on these points, when we have the practical evidence afforded by the records of our own Scotch courts. The statistics of Divorce in Scotland, as cited in a former article, show how little there is really to be apprehended from any relaxation of the law in England. There is, indeed, no fear of any but extreme cases being brought before the Court of Divorce-cases in which it would be grievous cruelty to throw difficulties in the way of dissolution of marriage-cases which cry out piteously for the saving hand of the law. Having, therefore, no fear upon this point, and much hope upon many others, we earnestly hope that the Bill, as amended by the Lords, will become the law of the land.

Difficulties in the Way of Legislation.

193

Judging by present appearances, we believe that there is a prospect of this long-pending, well-considered, and much-discussed question being settled before the close of the session. The second reading of the bill was moved in the House of Commons on the 24th of July, when Mr Henley made a futile attempt to cause the postponement of its consideration, on the ground that the House required more time to form a deliberate opinion on so grave a question. Of the gravity of the question there can be no doubt. But as no subject, during the last two years, has been more prominently before the country than this, we conceive that, if the House has not yet had time to consider it, there is little chance of its being sufficiently instructed at the end of another session. The House itself was of this opinion, and Mr Henley's proposal was rejected by a large majority. The Commons, indeed, in this instance had an advantage, rarely enjoyed by that body, in the foregone discussions of the Lords-" repeated and elaborate discussions" (to use the words of the Solicitor-General), "which were shared in by the most eminent lawyers in England, in which their Lordships had the assistance of Bishops of the Church, and which followed upon the report of at least one Commission." The postponement of the measure last year was a disappointment to many; a second postponement would be a disappointment to many more. If the bill, as there is now every reason to anticipate, be carried through before the rising of the Parliament, the first session of the new House of Commons will be distinguished by at least one beneficent measure.

VOL. XXVII. NO. LIII.

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ART. VIII.-1. Select Metrical Hymns and Homilies of Ephraem Syrus. Translated, with Notes, etc., by the Rev. HENRY BURGESS, Ph.D. 1853.

2. Sacred Latin Poetry, chiefly Lyrical; with Notes and Introduction. By the Rev. R. C. TRENCH, M.A. 1849.

3. Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences. Translated by the Rev. J. M. NEALE, M.A. 1851.

4. Hymnal Noted. 1851.

5. A Short Commentary on the Hymnal Noted, from Ancient Sources, intended chiefly for the use of the Poor.

6. The Ecclesiastical Latin Poetry of the Middle Ages. By the Rev. J. M. NEALE, M.A. (forming part of the Encyclopædia Metropolitana). 1852.

PSALMS and hymns and spiritual songs have thrilled for ages through the Church on earth, as they shall thrill for endless ages through the Church in glory. From the time that the hymn arose which ended the first Lord's Supper, they have gone up to God, almost without cessation, from palaces and cathedrals, from cottages and churches, from the caves and solitudes of the wilderness: the flood of melody has been swelled by rivulets of song from the lips of dying saints, and by mighty gushings from the hearts of congregated thousands. Wherever the trumpet of Christianity has been sounded, the echoing anthem has replied; wherever the voice of God's messengers has been heard, the song of praise has followed, like the carol of the lark which heralds the dawn.

The range of Christian song is a wide one: their authors were neither of a single country nor a single era. Since Christ left earth for heaven, they have been found in every age among the followers of every Christian creed. Kings and monks, apostles and martyrs, saints and bishops, have united in their composition: Charlemagne and Alfred, Bernard and Abelard, Watts, Doddridge and Heber, here meet on common ground: controversialists have laid aside their polemics, and philosophers their dialectics, to produce that grand aggregate of Christian psalmody which is the joy of all true believers. And hence we shall do well to regard hymns, not so much as the compositions of this or that writer, but as the utterance of the Christian life of a Christian man. They are part of our heritage as members of the Catholic Church, which is gathered from all ages and climes, and not as members of the particular body to which we may nominally belong.

It is probable that, while the miraculous influences of the Spirit continued upon earth, no uninspired songs were admitted into the public or private devotions of Christians. The Psalms, which had daily thrilled through the temple courts from the vast chorus of singers, responding to each other in alternate song from each side of the brazen altar, found an echo in the assemblies of the infant Church, and formed the staple then, as they have done ever since, of the sacred songs of Christians. But besides these, in the early dawn of Gospel light, there probably arose the songs which the Spirit Himself breathed-the wai TVEUμarizai of Coloss. iii. 16-which went up to heaven in all the freshness and fulness, as some think, of ecstatic inspiration. The traces of the first written hymns are very indistinct: one landmark only is left to us in a fragment of the second century, preserved by Eusebius,' which states, that "whatever psalms and hymns were written by the brethren from the beginning, celebrate Christ, the Word of God, by asserting His divinity." And this statement is borne out by the earliest hymn which has come down to us-the angelical doxology, as it is termed-a wonderful assemblage of triumphant praises, which burst forth from the heart in all the grandeur of their unadorned pathos :-" We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, we glorify Thee, we give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty. O Lord, the onlybegotten Son, Jesu Christ; O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. Thou that takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer. Thou that sittest at the right hand of God the Father, have mercy upon us. For Thou only art holy; Thou only art the Lord; Thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of God the Father."" And if we bear in mind what historians tell us of it, this hymn will be invested with a charm which few others can claim, for it was the song which martyr after martyr sang so cheerfully as they marched from their prisons to their death-place.

The Eastern Churches were extremely cautious with regard to the hymns which they admitted into their worship; but those which received their sanction are very sublime. They have the peculiarity of not being arranged in regular metre, but this only adds to their grandeur.

With regard to the mode of singing, we may observe that ecclesiastical writers are nearly unanimous as to the early practice of antiphonal singing-a practice probably transferred from

'Eusebius, Eccles. Hist., v. 28.

2 We quote the translation which is found in the English Book of Common Prayer, at the close of the Communion Service.

the Jewish ritual, and especially employed in the case of the Psalms, many of which are indisputably composed to suit such an arrangement. Socrates, the Church historian, however, claims a higher authority for its adoption in Christian worship, relating that Ignatius of Antioch was once caught up in ecstasy to hear the anthems of the angels, and beheld their "trinal triplicities" answering each other with voices of celestial sweetness, throughout the plains of heaven.' The Church on earth wished to echo, as far as possible, the hymns of the Church above, and thus, according to this historian at least, antiphons were universally adopted. But the case does not require such a "deus ex machinâ:" we know that the Christians of those days continued frequently for whole nights in the devotional exercises of prayer and praise, so that we can well understand how human weakness would prompt them to take some such measure as this for preventing too speedy exhaustion and weariness. For they could not have consented to let their solace become itself a burden; they could not have allowed earthly frailty to stay the current of their songs, without an effort to prolong its strength.

The remark we made just now, that hymns were the Church's strength in the time of trouble-her comfort in the weariness of her pilgrimage, is especially true of the periods when she had to combat, not her enemies without, but her recreant children within. Her troubles ceased not with the cessation of persecution from the world; a still bitterer cup was stored up for her in the conflicts of her inward foes. And we must note this fact well.

The Church in Syria affords us an apt illustration of the consoling power of Christian psalmody: when, for example, the faithful were ejected, by the preponderance of Arian influence, from the Church at Antioch, their pastors, Flavian and Diodorus, led them from place to place, like a literal flock in the desert, resting beneath the open sky, near the foot of a mountain, everywhere making their songs their solace. "At length" (to use the simple words of Theodoret) "they led the flock beside the banks of a neighbouring stream. They did not, like the captives of Babylon, hang up their harps on the willows; for they sang praises to their Creator in every part of His empire." 2

But although we might feel tempted to linger over a scene like this, our space reminds us that we have to do rather with the subject-matter of hymns, than with their history. We therefore pass-and the transition is but from one part of the Syrian

1 The language of the Alexandrian liturgy also speaks of the angels singing antiphonally there is a magnificent anthem to Him around whom "stand the cherubim and seraphim, crying one to another with voices which never cease, and doxologies which are never silent."

2

Theodoret, Eccl. Hist., iv. 25 (ed. Gaisf.) Oxon: 1839.