Be sober therefore, O my soul,
That He who filleth space
And filleth time, our Saviour, God,
May spare thee by His grace.”
And this beautiful little doxology:
“My hope is God,
My refuge is the Lord,
My shelter is the Holy Ghost;
Be thou, O Holy Three, adored!”
In such sweet and simple language did the early Christians sing their “praise to Christ, as God.” They understood the true meaning of a hymn as Ambrose and St. Bernard also understood it—and as Gregory Nazianzen and Adam of St. Victor never knew it at all. In 1866 Professor Coppée could truly declare that there was no collection of sacred verse in which this thought of adoration and of worship was “the leading feature.” It is better now; but even to-day there is an honored place for any book of praise in which the formal and didactic shall be done away, and where nothing shall be found but the pure reverence of a loving and trusting soul.