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Hail, the Lord of earth and heaven!
Praise to Thee by both be given:
Thee we greet triumphant now;
Hail, the Resurrection Thou!

Charles Wesley, the author of this hymn, was the greatest hymn writer of the Wesley family, and it was a large and a noted one, Charles being the eighteenth child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley. He is the author, it is said, of 6500 hymns. He was a Methodist clergyman, and is known as one of the "Oxford Methodists." A good Methodist, he has written not a few hymns which the various churches with practical unanimity have taken up and adopted into the family of good Evangelical hymns. "Christ the Lord is risen today," the lines of which usually end with the "Hallelujah," is one of them.

The origin of that ancient hymn, "The day of Resurrection," and the occasion of its singing are so interesting and suggestive that we conclude with the story of this hymn which is necessary to the completion of the songs of the sanctuary at Easter time. Dr. John Mason Neale, the translator, calls it a "glorious old hymn of victory." It is part of the canon for Easter of John Damascus, who died 780 A. D.

The circumstances of this old song are very interesting. The scene was at Athens. We are told that as midnight approached the archbishop and the priests, accompanied by the king and the queen, left the church and stationed themselves on the platform, which was raised considerably above the ground. This was in order that the concourse of people might have a good view. A vast throng stood in breathless expectation. All held unlighted tapers, in readiness for when the glad moment should arrive. Meanwhile the priests murmured a melancholy chant. Suddenly

a cannon announced that midnight had passed and Easter Day had begun. The archbishop elevated the cross and exclaimed exultantly, "Christos Anesti," which is, "Christ is risen." Everyone instantly took up the cry. The vast multitude broke through and dispelled the intense and mournful silence. "Christ is risen! Christ is risen!" echoed and re-echoed everywhere. The darkness was instantly superseded by a blaze of light. Thousands of tapers, like streams of fire, gleamed in all directions. The roll of the drum and the peal of the cannon resounded throughout the town. Rockets from both hill and plain shot skyward. Meanwhile the aged priests chanted joyfully, "Christ is risen from the dead, having trampled death beneath His feet, and henceforth they that are in the tombs have everlasting life." Out of this has grown our Easter hymn, "The day of resurrection."

AN ANCIENT EASTER HYMN

The day of Resurrection!
Earth, tell it out abroad!
The Passover of gladness,

The Passover of God!
From death to Life eternal,
From earth unto the sky,
Our Christ hath brought us over,
With hymns of victory.

Our hearts be pure from evil,

That we may see aright

The Lord in rays eternal
Of resurrection light:

And listening to His accents,

May hear, so calm and plain,
His own "All hail!"—and, hearing,
May raise the victor strain.

Now let the heavens be joyful!
Let earth her song begin!
Let all the world keep triumph,

And all that is therein:
In grateful exultation

Their notes let all things blend,
For Christ the Lord hath risen,
Our Joy that hath no end.

In our celebration of the grand old festival, after we have learned that there is so much meaning and history in the old hymns which are our favorites, can we rob ourselves of much of the joy and of the blessing of the Easter time by omitting them from our services, and, perhaps, substituting meaningless ditties, which have as their sole argument for their introduction the newness of their manufactured jingles which appeal to the emotions, but carry with them nothing which is historic or fundamental to the greatest fact of our redemption-the resurrection of our Lord?

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SHEPHERD HYMNS

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has given us one of these hymus. Writte in 1 1 it nines in the stanzas the "ectzuation of Chi i as the Shepherd and the blessings which come to this who are of His flock. Mr. W. T. add says of this hymn that it is distinctively a Scotch hyira, it, like some of the old German and ancient Latin hy nr it has become international and belongs to all Christiars wh recognize in Jesus the Good Shepherd. The hyron is on elaboration of the 23d Fraley. Who does not claim, krow and love that beautiful Si berd Psaim?

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