In ilie stable, mean and low.
" Jesus lying in the manger. Heavenly armies sang the stranger,
In tli(! great joy bearing part ; Stood the old miin with the maiden, No words speaking, only laden
With this wonder iu their heart.
STAB AT MATER SPECIOSA 975
STACTE
•' Mother, fount of love still flowing, Let me, with thy raptm-e >,'lowinir,
Learn to sympathize with thee: Let me raise my heart's devotion Up to Christ with pure emotiou,
That accepted I may be.
•' Mother, let me win this blessing, Let his sorrow's deep impressing
In my heart engraved remain : Since thy Son, from heaven descending, Deigned to bear the manger's tending,
Oh ! divide with nie his pain.
" Keep my heart its gladness bringing, To my Jesus ever clinging
Long as this my life shall last; Love like that thine own love, give it, On thy little child to rivet.
Till this exile shall be past. Let me share thine own affliction ; Let me snffer no rejection
Of my purpose tixed and fast.
" Virgin, peerless of condition. Be not wroth with my petition.
Let me clasp thy little Son: Let me bear that child so glorious. Him whose birth, o'er death victorious.
Willed that life for man was won.
*' Let me, satiate with my pleasure, Feel the rapture of thy treasure
Leaping for that joy intense: That, inflamed by such communion, Through ttie marvel of that union
I may thrill in every sense.
" All that love this stable truly. And the shepherds watching duly.
Tarry there the livelong night: Pray that, by thy Son's dear merit, His elected may inherit
Their own country's endless light."
Besides Dr. Neale's translation, we have one by E. C. Benedict, in Hymns of Ilildebert, p. 21, commencing,
" Beautiful, his mother, standing Near the stall — her soul expanding — Saw her New-boru lying there."
And by Dr. Coles :
" Stood the glad and beauteous mother By the hay, where, like no other. Lay her little infant Boy."
This hymn has been translated into German by cardinal Diepenbrock :
" An der Krippe stand die hohe Mutter, die so selig frohe. Wo das Kindlein lag auf Streu."
And by Konigsfeld :
" An der Krippe stand die hohe Gottesmntter, seeleii frohe. Wo er lag, der kleine Sohn."
IV. Character. — This hymn, like the Mater Dolo- rosa, is unfortunately disligiired by Mariolatry, but, says Dr. Schaff, " The mysterious charm and power of the two hymns are due to the subject, and to the inten- sity of feeling with which the author seized it. Mary at the manger and Mary at the cross open a vista to an abyss of joy and of grief such as the world never saw before. Mary stood there not only as the mother, but as the representative of the whole Christian Church, for which the eternal Son of (iod was born an infant in the manger, and for which he suffered the most igno- minious death on the cross. The author had the rare poetic faculty to bring out, as from immediate vision and heartfelt sympathy, the deep meaning of those scenes in stanzas of classic beauty and melody that melt the heart and start the tear of joy at the manger, and of penitential grief at the cross of Christ, and of burning gratitude to him for that uiuitterable love which caused his birth and his death for a lost and sin- ful world. Such lyrics as these can never die, nor lose their charm. 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever.'"
V. Literature. — SchafT. a new Stahat Mater, in the Hours at Home, May, 18G7; Neale, Stahat Mater Spe- ciosa, " Full of beauty stood the mother" (Loud. 18G7) ;
Coles, Latin Hi/mns (N. Y. 18G8); Benedict, rTymns of Ilildebert (ibid. 1867); Ozanam, Les^l'oetes Franciscains en Italie all Treizieme. Siede (Paris, 1852 ; Germ, transl. by N. H. Julius). See Hymnology. (B. P.)
Stabell, TiiKODOH, a German monk, was born in 180G at Lack, in Caruiola. At a very early age he joined the Order of the Benedictines, and labored from 1835 to 1837 as professor at the St. Stephen's Gymnasium of Augsburg, and from 1839 to 1851 at Salzburg. He died in the chapter of St. Peter at Salzburg, Nov. 6, 18G6, after having completed his Bior/raphies of the Saints. See Literarischer Ilandweiser, 18GG, p. 81. (B. P.)
Stable is once (Ezek. xxv, 5) the rendering of rTl3, naveh, a dwellinfj or habitation (as usually ren- dered); hence a. pastu7-e or resting-place for flocks or other animals. See Stall.
Sta'chys {^tuxvc, an ear of corn; occurs as a proper name in Gruter's Inscript. G89 a), a Christian at Home, saluted by Paul in the Epistle to the Romans (xvi, 9). A.D. 55. According to a tradition recorded by Nicephorus Callistus {/I.E. viii, 6), he was appoint- ed bishop of Bj'zantium by St. Andrew, held the office for sixteen years, and was succeeded by Oncsinuis. He is also said by Hippolytus and Dorotheus to have been one of the seventy disciples.
Stack ('ili'^lil, gadish, a heap [once a " tomb," Job xxi, 32], as of grain, Exod. xxii, G ; elsewhere " shock").
Stackhouse, Thojias, an English divine, was born in 1G80. He was for some time minister of the English Church at Amsterdam, and afterwards succes- sively curate at Richmond, Ealing, and Finchley. In 1733 he was presented to the vicarage of Benham-Val- ence, alias Beenham, in Berkshire, where he died, Oct. 11, 1752. He wrote. The Miseries and Great //ardships of the Inferior Clergy in and about London (1722, 8vo) : — Memoirs of Bishop Atterbury (1723, 8vo) : — .4 Com- plete Body of Divinity (1729, fob): — A Fair State of the Controversy between Mr. Woolston and his Adversa- ries, etc. (1730, 8vo) : — A Defence of the Christian Re- ligionfrom the Several Objections of A ntiscriptuj-ists, etc. (1731, 8vo) : — Reflections on the Nature and Property of Languages (1731, 8vo) : — The Book-binder, Book-printer, and Book-seller Confuted, etc. (1732, 8vo) : — New His- tory of the Bible, from the Beginning of the World to the Establishment of Christianity (1732, 2 vols, fob) : — New and Practical Exposition of the Creed (1747, fob): — Vana L>octrince Emolumenta (1752, 4to): — Sernu)ns,GXc, See Chalmers, Biog. Diet. s. v.-, Hook, Eccles. Biog. s. v.