ays of apprehending the
meaning of Christmas which we traced in the foregoing chapters. Strictly
liturgical devotions are little understanded of the people: only the
clergy can fully join in them; for the mass of the lay folk they are
mysterious rites in an unknown tongue, to be followed with reverence, as
far as may be, but remote and little penetrated with humanity. Side by
side with these, however, are popular devotions, full of vivid colour,
highly anthropomorphic, bringing the mysteries of religion within the
reach of the simplest minds, and warm with human feeling. The austere
Latin hymns of the earlier centuries belong to liturgy; the vernacular
Christmas poetry of later ages is largely associated with popular
devotion.

|90| Liturgiology is a vast and complicated, and except to the few, an
unattractive, subject. To attempt here a survey of the liturgies in their
relation to Christmas is obviously impossible; we must be content to
dwell mainly upon the present-day Roman offices, which, in spite of
various revisions, give some idea of the mediaeval services of Latin
Christianity, and to cast a few glances at other western rites, and at
those of the Greek Church.

Whatever may be his attitude towards Catholicism, or, indeed,
Christianity, no one sensitive to the music of words, or the suggestions
of poetic imagery, can read the Roman Breviary and Missal without
profound admiration for the amazing skill with which the noblest passages
of Hebrew poetry are chosen and fitted to the expression of Christian
devotion, and the gold of psalmists, prophets, and apostles is welded
into coronals for the Lord and His saints. The office-books of the Roman
Church are, in one aspect, the greatest of anthologies.

Few parts of the Roman Breviary have more beauty than the Advent[35]
offices, where the Church has brought together the majestic imagery of
the Hebrew prophets, the fervent exhortation of the apostles, to prepare
the minds of the faithful for the coming of the Christ, for the
celebration of the Nativity.

Advent begins with a stirring call. If we turn to the opening service of
the Christian Year, the First Vespers of the First Sunday in Advent, we
shall find as the first words in the "Proper of the Season" the
trumpet-notes of St. Paul: "Brethren, it is high time to awake out of
sleep; for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." This, the
Little Chapter for the office, is followed by the ancient hymn, "Cr