The dewy freshness that the furnace flings
Works out a wondrous type of future things:
Nor did the flame the Holy Three consume,
Nor did the Godhead’s fire thy frame entomb,
Thou, on Whose bosom hung the WORD:
Wherefore we cry with heart’s endeavour,
“Let all Creation bless the LORD,
And magnify His Name for ever!”
Babel’s proud daughter once led David’s race
From Sion, to their exile’s woful place:
Babel now bids her wise men, gifts in hand,
Before King David’s Royal Daughter stand,
The Mother of the Incarnate Word:
Wherefore we cry with heart’s endeavour,
“Let all Creation bless the LORD,
And magnify His Name for ever!”
146
From music grief held back the exile’s hand:
How sing the LORD’s song in an alien land?
But Babel’s exile here is done away,
And Bethlehem’s harmony this glorious day
By Thee, Incarnate GOD, restored:
Wherefore we cry with heart’s endeavour,
“Let all Creation bless the LORD,
And magnify His Name for ever!”
147
Of old victorious Babel bore away,
The spoils of Royal Sion and her prey:
But Babel’s treasure now, and Babel’s kings,
CHRIST, by the guiding star, to Sion brings.
There have they knelt, and there adored:
Wherefore we cry with heart’s endeavour,
“Let all Creation bless the LORD,
And magnify His Name for ever!”
Hymns of the Eastern Church, 1866
John M. Neale's life is a study in contrasts: born into an evangelical home, he had sympathies toward Rome; in perpetual ill health, he was incredibly productive; of scholarly temperament, he devoted much time to improving social conditions in his area; often ignored or despised by his contemporaries, he is lauded today for his contributions to the church and hymnody. Neale's gifts came to expression early–he won the Seatonian prize for religious poetry eleven times while a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, England. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1842, but ill health and his strong support of the Oxford Movement kept him from ordinary parish ministry. So Neale spent the years between 1846 and 1866 as a warden of Sackvi… Go to person page >
Cosmas, St., The Melodist. (Died circ. A.D. 760.) The second among the Greek ecclesiastical poets. He was adopted by the father of St. John of Damascus, and educated with him by a Sicilian monk also named Cosmas, who had been redeemed from slavery by his adopted father. The two foster-brothers retired together to St. Sabas, and there stimulated, assisted and vied witii one another in the composition of hymns. It is not certain whether some of the Canons, Triodia, and Idiomela under the name of Cosmas may not be the work of the elder Cosmas. He was elected Bishop of Maiuma in A.D. 743, and is commemorated in the Greek Calendar on Oct. 14. The story of Cosmas the elder is beautifully told in Milman's Lat. Christ., vol. ii. 364. Daniel, vol. i… Go to person page >
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