ate place to give an exact description of this form of prayer
service which preceded and prepared the way to the greatest system of
musical ritual in any ancient religion. If we may judge from the literary
remains of Nippur now in the University Museum, the priestly schools of
temple music in that famous city were extremely conservative about
abandoning the ancient liturgical compilations. These daily song services,
all of sorrowful sentiment and invariably emphasizing humility and human
suffering, are constructed by simply compiling into one breviary a number
of ancient songs, selected in such manner that all are addressed to one
deity. In this manner arose intricate choral compilations of length
suitable to a daily prayer, each addressed to a great god. Hence we have
in the temple libraries throughout Sumer and Babylonia liturgies to each
of the great gods. Even in the less elaborate _kisub_ compilations there
is in many cases revealed a tendency to recast and arrange the collection
of songs upon deeper principles. A tendency to include in all services a
song to the wrathful word of the gods and a song to the sorrowful earth
mother is seen even in the Nippurian breviaries of the precanonical type.
I need not dilate here upon the great influence which these principles
exercised upon the beliefs and formal worship of Assyria and Babylonia,
upon the late Jewish Church and upon Christianity. The personified word of
god and the worship of the great _mater dolorosa_, or the virgin goddess,
are ancient Sumerian creations whose influence has been effective in all
lands.

As examples of the liturgical compilation texts the reader is referred
especially to the following tablets. On pages 290-292 the writer has
described the important compiled liturgy found by CHARLES VIROLLEAUD.(15)
It is an excellent example of a Nippurian musical prayer service. It
contained eleven _kisubs_, or prayers, and they are recast in such manner
that the whole set forth one idea which progresses to the end. The liturgy
has in fact almost reached the stage of a composition. And in these same
pages the reader will see how this service finally resulted in a canonical
liturgy, for the completed product has been recovered. On pages 309-310
will be found a fragment, part of an ancient liturgy to Enlil of the
compiled type. Here again we are able to produce at least half of the
great liturgy into which the old service issued. In the preceding part of
this vo