O LUCE QUAE TUA LATES.
O hidden by the very light,
O ever-blessed Trinity,
Thee we confess, and thee believe,
With pious heart we long for thee!
O Holy Father of the saints,
O God of very God, the Son,
O Bond of Love, the Holy Ghost,
Who joinest all the Three in One!
That God the Father might behold
Himself, *coeval was the Son;
Also the Love that binds them both;
So, God of God, the perfect One.
Complete the Father in the Son,
The Son, the Father in complete,
And the full Spirit in them both;
The Father, Son, and Paraclete.
As is the Son, the Spirit is.
Each as the Father, verily.
The Three, One all transcendent Truth,
One all transcendent Love, the Three.
Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost
Eternally, let all adore;
Who liveth and who reigneth, God,
Ages on ages, evermore!
Next we have Nicolas le Tourneux (1640-1686), the severe Jansenist, whose preaching drew such crowds in Paris that the King asked the reason. “Sire,” replied Boileau, “your Majesty knows how people run after novelty; this is a preacher who preaches the Gospel. When he mounts the pulpit, he frightens you by his ugliness, so that you wish he would leave it; and when he begins to speak, you are afraid that he may.” It was his Année Chrétienne which suggested the Christian Year to John Keble. We have seen how he coached Jean Santeul both as to the matter of his hymns and the right spirit for a Christian poet. But the great preacher’s own hymns are sermoni propriores, “properer for a sermon,” to borrow Lamb’s mistranslation. Verse was a fetter to him, not a wing. His best are the Ascension hymn, Adeste, Coelitum chori, and that on the Baptist, Jussu tyranni pro fide. The former we give in the excellent translation of Rev. A. R. Thompson, D.D.: