of decay,
The brightness of a holy deathbed blending
With dawning glories of the eternal day.

While Ambrose was defending the faith and inditing sacred songs at Milan,
another richly-endowed poet was writing sublime Latin verse far to the
West. He was Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, the great Spanish hymnist. Of
his personal history we know little except that he was born 348 A.D. in
northern Spain, probably at Saragossa.

In early life he occupied important positions of state, but in his latter
years he retired to a monastery. Here he exercised his high poetic gifts
in writing a series of sacred Latin poems. He was preeminently the poet
of the martyrs, never ceasing to extol their Christian faith and
fortitude. Bentley called Prudentius the "Horace of the Christians."
Rudelbach declared that his poetry "is like gold set with precious
stones," and Luther expressed the desire that the works of Prudentius
should be studied in the schools.

The finest funeral hymn ever written has come to us from the pen of this
early Spanish bard. It consists of forty-four verses, and begins with the
line, _Deus ignee fons animarum_. It is sometimes referred to as the
"song of the catacombs." Archbishop Trench of England called this hymn
"the crowning glory of the poetry of Prudentius," and another archbishop,
Johan Olof Wallin, the great hymnist of Sweden, made four different
attempts at translating it before he produced the hymn now regarded as
one of the choicest gems in the "Psalm-book" of his native land.

An English version, derived from the longer poem, begins with the stanza:

Despair not, O heart, in thy sorrow,
But hope from God's promises borrow;
Beware, in thy sorrow, of sinning,
For death is of life the beginning.

A Prophetic Easter Hymn

Welcome, happy morning! age to age shall say,
Hell today is vanquished, heaven is won today.
Lo, the Dead is living, God for evermore!
Him, their true Creator, all His works adore.
Welcome, happy morning! age to age shall say.

Maker and Redeemer, Life and Health of all,
Thou from heaven beholding human nature's fall,
Thou of God the Father, true and only Son,
Manhood to deliver, manhood didst put on.
Hell today is vanquished; heaven is won today!

Thou, of life the Author, death didst undergo,
Tread the path of darkness, saving strength to show;
Come then, True and Fait