which is rather an exhortation in the tone of the Imitation than a hymn; and the
O qualis quantaque laetitia,
better known, through the general omission of its first verse, as the
Adstant angelorum chori.
Dr. Trench well says that the whole of our author’s poetry will not yield a second passage at all to be compared in beauty with this. Indeed, most of Thomas’s poetry lacks the inspiration which characterizes his best prose. He is a poet in prose and a prosy poet, and writes in verse because he has been required to fill up some empty place in the hymn-list of his monastery. His acquaintance with the hymn-writer’s art is bounded by his daily familiarity with the hymns of his breviary, and he betrays the fact by starting from the first lines of well-known hymns in his own work. But in this hymn on the joys of heaven he for once struck the right key, although even here he shows some stiffness of the joints, like a monk more used to a seat in the Scriptorium than to the saddle of Pegasus. The hymn is known to English readers by the admirable version of Mrs. Charles:
“High the angel choirs are raising
Heart and voice in harmony.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
FRANCIS XAVIER, MISSIONARY TO THE INDIES (1506-52).
No man, since the days of the Apostles, has been more commended for his zeal than Xavier. He has been the moon of that “Society of Jesus” of which Ignatius Loyola was the guiding sun. His privations, heroism, and success have been the constant theme of the Roman Catholic Church. And it is impossible to study his life without a conviction that there was in it a devout and gallant purpose to bless the world.
Our limits and our line of thought alike demand of us that we shall not attempt, in any exhaustive form, to treat of Francis Xavier from the theologic or controversial side. He interests us, apart from his personal character, simply because two Latin hymns have been accredited to his pen. These have the same opening line,