II In an Oxford College Chapel is a famous Nativity window. From the Infant, lying in the midst, light is made to stream on all around. So, through the Christmas chapter, ending with our text, light streams from the manger on the Christmas feast ; tingeing alike its festi^dty and fun, its tender memories and associations, making it the Child's Festival of all the year. Children under- stand it best, with a fulness of feeling and an implicitness of faith they lose in after years ; but still to us older ones each Christmas freshens and recaptures something of our childish feelings — in hymn and carol, in family and neighbour greetings, in fireside merriment and kindliness, we feel again the tender softening emo- tion which was our childish tribute to the day. With shepherds, angels, kings, we once more go even unto Bethlehem, content if only, after failures and shortcomings past, chances missed, friends lost, aims unperformed, we may win and make our own the Christmas prize which the angels glorified and the Infant taught, anchoring our souls at last upon the steadfast dominating Peace which waits on gentle will.
1 Margaret Deland.
ST. LUKE II. 13, 14 45
The sacred chorus first was made
Upon the first of Christmas days. The shepherds heard it overhead,
The joyful angels raised it then : Glory to heaven on high it said,
And peace on earth to gentle men.
My song, save this, is little worth,
I lay my simple note aside, And wish you health and love and mirth,
As fits the solemn Christmas tide, As fits the holy Christmas birth ;
Be this, good friends, our carol still, Be peace on earth, be peace on earth.
To men of gentle will.^
2. In its liturgical use the " Gloria in Excelsis " contributed a precious element to the devotions of the Church, as was natural from its heavenly origin and its tone of glory and gladness. It was known as the " Angelic Hymn " (the " Sanctus " being in later time distinguished as the " Seraphic Hymn "). The name in course of time signified not only the words of the angels as used alone, but also the full form of praise and prayer and creed, of which those words became the opening and the groundwork. There are traces of this noble hymn as used in the Church from the most ancient times ; and the Alexandrine Codex (close of fifth century) gives it at length at the end of the thirteenth Canticle of the Greek Church, entitling it a "Morning Hymn." Early Latin translations with differences are found in various quarters, and it seems clear that when the well-known Latin form of the hymn was inserted in the Latin Psalters it was used in the daily or weekly hour services of the clergy.
The introduction of the hymn into the Eucharistic Office of the Western Church has been traditionally assigned to different popes, but it was certainly a part of that Office in the fifth and sixth centuries, and directions are given in the Sacramentaries as to occasions for its use. At times and in places it exhibited doctrinal variations, as in the form given in the Apostolical Constitutions, where it has received a shape possible for Arian use. On account probably of doctrinal diversities the fourth
* W. Tuck well, Nuggets from the Bible Mine, 144.
46 THE SONG OF THE HEAVENLY HOST
Council of Toledo, A.D. 633, directed that in churches only the primitive angelic words should be sung, without the additions composed, as they said, " by the doctors of the Church." But this was a local and temporary restriction. The hymn, or " greater doxology," as it was sometimes called, had its place at the opening of the service as it now has with us at the close. There is a fitness in either position.^
3. This is not the earliest angelic hymn that is recorded or alluded to in Scripture. At the first creation, too, " the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." Whatever doubt there may be in respect of those " sons of God " mentioned in Genesis whose apostasy from Him did so much to hasten the flood, there can be no doubt or difficulty in regard of these. The " sons of God " here can be only the angels of heaven, the heavenly host ; for there as yet existed no other who could claim, or be competitors with them for, this name. So was it at the first creation ; and it might almost seem on this night of the Nativity as if a new creation had taken place, for now again we hear of " a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men." Nor, if we thus judged, should we prove very wide of the truth. There is indeed now a new creation, and a new which is more glorious than the old. In the creation of the world God showed forth His power, His wisdom, His love ; but in the founda- tion of the Church all these His attributes shine far more gloriously forth ; and that Church was founded, the corner-stone of it, elect, precious, was securely laid, on that day when the Son of God, having taken upon Him our flesh, was born of a pure Virgin, and was laid in the manger at Bethlehem. Most fitly therefore was that day of the New Creation, which should repair and restore the breaches of the old, ushered in with hymns of gladness ; most fitly did " the sons of God " once again shout for joy, and welcome, with that first Christmas carol which this dull earth ever heard, the birth of a Saviour and Eestorer into the world.