ADVENT SETTING OF VENITE.
Behold the King cometh. Let us go to meet our Saviour.
O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our Salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving: and shew ourselves glad in him with Psalms.
Behold the King cometh. Let us go to meet our Saviour.
For the Lord is a great God: and a great King above all gods. In his hand are all the corners of the earth: and the strength of the hills is his also.
Let us go to meet our Saviour.
The sea is his, and he made it; and his hands prepared the dry land. O come, let us worship, and fall down: and kneel before the Lord our Maker, for he is the Lord our God: and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
Behold the King cometh. Let us go to meet our Saviour.
To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts: as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness. When your fathers tempted me: proved me and saw my works.
Let us go to meet our Saviour.
Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said; It is a people that do err in their hearts, for they have not known my ways. Unto whom I sware in my wrath: that they should not enter into my rest.
Behold the King cometh. Let us go to meet our Saviour.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Let us go to meet our Saviour.
Behold thy King cometh. Let us go to meet our Saviour.
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THE COMPOUND ANTHEM.
The Prioress, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, relates that a
Litel child his litel book lernynge,
As he sat in the scole in his primere,
He O alma redemptoris herde synge,
As children lerned her antiphonere:
From this we understand that O alma redemptoris was an "Antym" out of the Antiphonere, or Anthem Book. This Anthem has six hexameter lines followed by a Verse and Respond, and the Collect which we now use for Lady Day. This, then, is what we have called the Compound Anthem.
A good example of it is found in the Prayer Book of 1549 where the
Easter Anthems, as we still call them, were ordered to be used in the
Morning afore Mattins. Their "setting" was as follows:
Christ rising again from the dead now dieth not: Death from henceforth hath no power upon him. For in that he died, he died but once to put away sin; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. And so likewise count yourselves dead unto sin, but living unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
Christ is risen again, the firstfruits of them that sleep. For seeing that by man came death, by man also cometh the resurrection of the dead. For as by Adam all men do die: so by Christ all men shall be restored to life.
Hallelujah.
The Priest. Shew forth to all nations the glory of God.
The Answer. And among all people his wonderful works.
Let us pray.
O God who for our redemption didst give thine only begotten Son to the death of the cross; and by his glorious resurrection hast delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so {149} to die daily from sin, that we may evermore live with him, in the joy of his resurrection; through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
The history of the transformation of this Anthem into a Psalm, as it is now used, may be given here. In 1552 its rubric was changed to the present form: that is, it was no longer to be used before Mattins; it was to be sung or said instead of Venite. The Verse, Respond and Collect were omitted. In 1662 Gloria Patri was added, and the words of 1 Cor. v. 7, 8 were inserted at the beginning.
The Easter Anthems, as now ordered, are most properly set as a Psalm. With similar propriety, when they were used before the Service of Mattins, they were set as a Prayer-Anthem—beginning with the jubilance which is expressed by the twofold Hallelujah, and gradually modulating the jubilance in preparation for the Service which followed.
Simple Anthems were so frequent, and their changes for special occasions were so many, that they created some confusion and intricacy in the old Services. We may, however, recognise the beauty and worshipfulness of the plan. In the Visitation of the Sick, the words O Saviour of the world &c. as used with Psalm lxxi. are a survival of it. The verse Remember not Lord &c. was introduced at the beginning of the same Service, as an Anthem to Psalm cxliii. The Psalm was omitted in 1552, but its Anthem remains.
The singing of the Psalm and Anthem will be understood from the example quoted above—the half choir which sang the Psalm was continually interrupted by {150} the half choir which sang the Anthem. The following illustration is quoted (by Martene) as of the 11th century. In this case a verse of Magnificat was sung after each verse of the Anthem.