There is an excellent version of this in German in the Passion Hymn of Paul Gerhard, beginning—
"O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,
Voll Schmerz und voller Hohn!"
But the grandest of all the mediaeval hymns is that attributed to Thomas of Celano, known as the Dies Irae. Its authorship is uncertain; it burst upon the world after a long silence in the church, like some strain wafted over the earth on the winds of heaven. It has always been the favorite hymn for solemnities in every country. In Germany upward of sixty translations have been made of it. Goethe has effectively introduced it into the "Faust" in the cathedral scene, where Marguerite is tempted by the evil spirit, who, when the choir chanted the words—
"Dies irae, dies illa,
Solvet saeclum in favilla,"
whispers sardonically into her ear—
"Grimm fasst dich!
Die Posaune tönt!
Die Gräber beben!
Und dein Herz,
Aus Aschenruh
Zu Flammenquallen
Wieder aufgeschaffen
Bebt auf;"
and so on through the whole scene, corrupting the meaning of the hymn in the mind of the broken-hearted girl. It was muttered by the dying lips of Walter Scott, and has employed the genius of such men as Schlegel, Fichte, and Herder. We give one passage—
"Recordare, Jesu pie,
Quod sum causa tuae viae,
Ne me perdas illa die.
"Querens me sedisti lassus,
Redemisti crucem passus,
Tantus labor non sit cassus."
"Think of me, good Lord, I pray,
Who troddest for me the bitter way,
Nor forsake me in that day.
"Weary sat'st thou seeking me,
Diedst redeeming in the tree,
Not in vain such toil can be."
The mediaeval period was one rich in art and active in intellectual work. The great difference between that age and this is, that in mediaeval times intellectual life was concentrated, and now it is spread abroad; we get more books and readers, but less great books and thinkers. Perhaps there has never been a time of such vigorous intellectual effort in England, unless we except the Elizabethan age, than that of the scholastic controversies of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. It was in this age, too, that the essentially mediaeval art of illumination flourished in all the lettered monasteries of Europe, the age when all the great cathedrals were built; and when that enchanting song whose notes we have just been listening to was improvised and sung. The God who presides over the economy of nature presides also over that of life. His hand is in both, upholding, protecting, guiding. We take up a phase of human history like this mediaeval phase, and to us it appears contradictory, objectless, useless; but we must remember that it is but one part of the great economy, that as every phase of nature has its separate use, so every period in the history of humanity contributes its share to the general result. There are no arid dark wastes in history any more than in nature. Progressing geographical science is gradually revealing to our minds the fact that Central Africa is not the deadly useless desert of our imagination, but is probably belted and intersected with rivers, whose fertilizing power has only to be applied. So a progressive historical science is rapidly clearing away the darkness of these dark ages, revealing to us treasures which have long lain hidden. We speak of the past as antiquity, and we are apt to associate the idea of age with it, just as we look [{824}] toward the present as youthful and new. But we must remember that antiquity really belongs to the present as the result of time, and that the past was the youth. So when we go back into these past ages of the church we must regard them as her youth, and instead of quarrelling with the follies and wantonness inseparable from immaturity, endeavour to do our best to help on the great consummation of her mission in the world, knowing well that although the hey-day of her youth is past, she has not yet attained her full maturity; and in times of despair, when schism is rife, when the sons of her bosom desert her, when men harden themselves against her love and forsake her, ever bear in mind the promise of her great head and founder, "Upon this rock I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."