wild
billow," "The day is past and over," and "A great and mighty wonder."
This last is a little Christmas hymn of unusual charm. His description of
the storm of Galilee is one of the classics of Greek hymnology:

Fierce was the wild billow,
Dark was the night;
Oars labored heavily,
Foam glimmered white;

Trembled the mariners,
Peril was nigh;
Then said the God of God,
"Peace! It is I."

To John of Damascus, who died about 780 A.D., we are indebted for two of
the most popular Easter hymns in use today, namely, "The day of
resurrection" and "Come, ye faithful, raise the strain." Further
reference to these will be found in the chapter on the great translator
of Greek and Latin hymns, John Mason Neale.

When John of Damascus forsook the world and left behind him a brilliant
career to enter a monastery founded in 520 A.D., by St. Sabas, he took
with him his ten-year-old nephew, Stephen. The boy grew up within the
walls of this cloister, which is situated in one of the deep gorges of
the brook Kedron, near Bethlehem, overlooking the Dead Sea. Stephen, who
came to be known as the Sabaite, was likewise a gifted hymnist, and it is
he who has given us the hymn made famous by Neale's translation: "Art
thou weary, art thou languid?" Stephen died in 794 A.D.

The last name of importance among the great hymn-writers of the Greek
Church is that of Joseph the Hymnographer, who lived at Constantinople in
the ninth century. It is he who wrote the hymn on angels for St.
Michael's Day:

Stars of the morning, so gloriously bright,
Filled with celestial resplendence and light,
These that, where night never followeth day,
Raise the "Thrice Holy, Lord!" ever and aye.

As early as the fourth century the Council of Laodicea had decreed that
"besides the appointed singers, who mount the ambo, and sing from the
book, others shall not sing in the church." How far this rule may have
discouraged or suppressed congregational singing is a subject of dispute
among historians. However, it is a matter of record that hymnody suffered
a gradual decline in the Eastern division of the Christian Church and
eventually assumed more of a liturgical character.

An Ambrosian Advent Hymn

Come, Thou Saviour of our race,
Choicest Gift of heavenly grace!
O Thou blessed Virgin's Son,
Be Thy race on earth begun.

Not of mortal blood or birth,