Pentecost. A
few specimens are also given from other offices, particularly that for
Christmas.

Renderings from the work of the earlier Greek hymn-writers are added at
the end of this volume; but, unlike the hymns of the Church
service-books, these hymns originally are in the classical measures, and
illustrate the work of the best Christian poets, who in some cases wrote
extensively.

III. It is a very remarkable fact, and certainly not to our credit, that,
with the exception of a very few who have made the study a specialty, our
educated men show a most unaccountable ignorance of the most attractive
and valuable material for praise and prayer contained in the Greek Church
service-books. We have learning more than enough, and zeal enough for the
pursuit of study in other departments, but this unworked field lies
fallow, and no one thinks it worth his while to cultivate it. That the
study will reward the student, although not in a material sense--for the
meaningless prejudice of the great mass of our people for what is local
and against the thought of the stranger, no matter how beautiful it may
be, is still to be reckoned with--yet in the highest sense as conferring
upon him a new delight, there can be no doubt; for, after the necessary
expenditure of patient application, and the passing of the initiatory
stages which in every department of study are somewhat trying, the
attraction will begin, and the subject become positively fascinating. To
any one having the lyrical gift and the necessary qualifications for the
study of Greek, those service-books might prove a mine of treasure
inexhaustible. In the seventeen quarto volumes which contain the Greek
Church offices, there must be material of one kind or another for many
thousands of hymns; yet, when hymnal compilers ask for hymns from the
Greek for their collections, they are not to be had, save in the few
renderings made by Dr. Neale. In the most recently compiled collection
for church use--_The Church Hymnary_--only five pieces from the Greek
find a place. What a humbling confession! They are the best available
from the very small number of translations in our possession, which,
perhaps, does not exceed one hundred and fifty pieces in all.

We have not treated the Latin Church after that fashion. There is not a
hymn of real merit in the Latin which has not been translated, and in not
a few cases oftener than once; with the result that the gems of Latin
hymnody are