but it may easily entice a translator to be satisfied with a lifeless stringing of inept fragments. All this and much more has been brought home to the writer times without number.

If one would have his work to be permanently useful; if he would aim at any particular employment of his hymns, he must observe the conditions which such an aim implies. A translator who aims at the use of his work in public worship, must aim at pellucid simplicity both of phraseology and of structure; and if they are to be widely, permanently, or deservedly popular, they must be gifted with becoming grace. This cannot be done in translations pure and simple. The present collection gives the result of an experiment. The Greek has been used as a basis, a theme, a motive; oriental colour, and it is to be hoped some of the oriental warmth has been preserved. Now and again an oriental figure is retained, and to those who have any knowledge of the worship of the Eastern Church, it must be obvious that the peculiar themes of her praise are in abundant evidence.

What, then, is the net result? To an unpractised eye, if no indication of the source of these hymns had been given, could anything about them have suggested their source? To the unpractised eye, nothing. But no one who knows the Greek Offices will travel far before he overtakes well-known landmarks. This is just as it should be. It is sufficient that a fertile source of suggestion has been found—of theme, thought, form, colour—and that from this ancient source it is possible to procure much that is beautiful for the adornment of the worship of God’s house to-day. And this gratifying fact is made plain, that the themes of Greek Church praise are the grand themes of the praise of the Church in our land and in all Christian lands;—The Christ in all the Might and Glory of His Person and Work: the need of our humanity, and the way in which Christ met it: His miraculous birth, which is not shorn of any of its mystery, and the embellishments of the event, which are never toned down, but, in true oriental fashion, made, if possible, more dazzling: His Passion and His Death, and the fulness of their atoning efficacy. But, as is to be expected, the grand theme of the Greek singers, as became those who, more than we have done, caught the first inspiration of their praise from the apostles, is the glorious Resurrection of our Lord from the dead. Here, the praise of the Greek Church touches its highest note, and pours forth its most enchanting melody. “Christ is risen,” and the glad response, “He is risen indeed”—these words constitute the keynote of all that is best and most beautiful in Greek worship. The Knowledge and the Wisdom of God are everywhere extolled, and the attribute of Light is continually and cordially applied to the Deity.

One cannot acquaint himself with the Church of the Apostles, with its glowing service, and with the noble stand it has made, and still maintains, for the truth of God and for the Kingdom of Christ in the world, and not feel pained with the fact, so little to the credit of the Church of the West, that, of our sympathy it has little or none. This is largely due to our ignorance. But is ignorance in many cases not culpable? Is it not so in our case? A little more acquaintance with the Eastern Church would vastly alter our attitude towards it, and speedily remove most of our prejudices.

More than once have we listened to depreciations of the Greek Church, and the epithet “stagnant” has always been incorporated as a first-rate misdemeanour of the Orthodox Church of the East. The assumption in the epithet is that the Greek Church is not missionary and aggressive, and the implication is that it has been so from earliest times. Until men acquaint themselves with the history of this Church, and open their