56 OUR HYMNS :
a Eomanist. Of the old Latin hymn, the " Veni, Creator Spiritus," Trench says: " This hymn, of which the authorship is popularly ascribed to Charlemagne, but which is certainly older, has had always attributed to it more than an ordinary worth and dignity. Such our Church has recognized and allowed, when, dismissing every other hymn, she has yet retained this in the offices for the ordering of priests and the consecrating of bishops. It was in old time habitually used, and the use in great part still survives, on all other occasions of a more than common solemnity, as at the coronation of kings, the celebration of synods, and, in the Romish Church, at the creation of Popes, and the translation of the relics of saints." A modern writer has sufficiently vindicated Charlemagne from the charge of being unable to write this piece because of his ignorance of Latin He could have been the author, but internal evidence may prove it to have been written before his time. Others have thought it was the work of Ambrose of Milan, who flourished in the fourth century. And it is said that in primitive times, the day being divided into eight parts of three hours each, and a service being held at the end of each period, this hymn was sung at nine o clock in the morning, at which hour the Holy Spirit descended on the Day of Pentecost, according to the words of Peter, who said, " It is but the third hour of the day." The Rev. J. Chandler, in his " Hymns of the Primitive Church," maintains this view.
Dryden also wrote a paraphrase of the " Te Deum."
��THOMAS KEN, D.D. 16371711.
THIS bard-bishop was born at Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire. His eldest sister was the wife of the celebrated Izaak Walton. After receiving a pious education at home, he went to Winchester to study, and afterwards to Oxford. He took his bachelor s
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