ies is that they sang it in alternate verses when the
latter was baptized by the former, A.D. 386. We shall presently show
that it is composed on a very elaborate plan, and is very far from
being an extempore Hymn. Its earlier verses are founded on expressions
in Isaiah (vi. 3, ix. 6).

Its concluding part has not always been in the form which has become
familiar to us: in its present shape it may be regarded as the survival
of the best of the different forms. The verses of this part as they
now stand are obviously taken chiefly from the Psalms (xxviii. 9, cxlv.
2, cxxiii. 3, xxxvi. 22, xxxi. 1 or lxxi. 1).

The following lines of an early morning hymn, found in the Alexandrine
MS. of the Bible, are very similar to the verses which we have numbered
11 and 12:

"Day by day will I bless Thee and praise Thy name for ever, and for
ever and ever. Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin."

{66} There is a sentence in S. Cyprian also (_De Mortalitate_, p. 166,
ed. Fell) quoted in the notes in illustration of line 4, which must
have been borrowed from the Te Deum, or lent to it.

It is not easy to determine whether an elaborate composition of this
description, designed evidently for worship, is more likely to lend or
to borrow any particular phrase. The Psalm verses, and verses &c. from
Isaiah, are evidently borrowed by the Hymn. Perhaps this suggests that
the composer was likely to have borrowed, rather than lent, the other
passages. On the other hand, a Hymn founded on Scripture, carefully
composed, and well known in worship, is precisely the source most
likely to be quoted in other Hymns and in books.

We said that _Te Deum_ is a Hymn of the Incarnation, and that it is an
elaborate composition.

It is necessary to examine these points at some length. And first we
must get rid of the modern way of printing it out in 29 verses. Many
of them are half-verses quoted from the Psalms and Isaiah: and when we
have begun to restore these with their colons, we find that the other
verses answer to the same treatment. In short, most of the verses
should be read two together with a colon to separate them for singing
purposes. Having thus restored the Hymn to its original lines, we find
that it consists of 13 verses in 3 Stanzas, the first and third having
five lines each, and the middle Stanza having three lines. The three
lines of the Middle Stanza correspond to the three divisions of our
Saviour's Existenc