nown as a great baritone. As
professional singer and composer at the Paris _Grand Opera_, he had been
employed largely in dramatic work, but his "Ode to Charity" is one of
his enduring and celebrated pieces, and his songs written for benevolent
and religious services have found their way into all Christian lands.

His "Palm-Branches" has come to be a _sine qua non_ on its calendar
Sunday wherever church worship is planned with any regard to the Feasts
of the Christian year.

_EASTER._

Perhaps the most notable feature in the early hymnology of the Oriental
Church was its Resurrection songs. Being hymns of joy, they called forth
all the ceremony and spectacle of ecclesiastical pomp. Among them--and
the most ancient one of those preserved--is the hymn of John of
Damascus, quoted in the second chapter (p. 54). This was the
proclamation-song in the watch-assemblies, when exactly on the midnight
moment at the shout of "Christos egerthe!" ([Greek: Christos egerthe].)
"Christ is risen!" thousands of torches were lit, bells and trumpets
pealed, and (in the later centuries) salvos of cannon shook the air.

Another favorite hymn of the Eastern Church was the "_Salve, Beate
Mane_," "Welcome, Happy Morning," of Fortunatus. (Chap. 10, p. 357.) This
poem furnished cantos for Easter hymns of the Middle Ages. Jerome of
Prague sang stanzas of it on his way to the stake.

An anonymous hymn, "_Poneluctum, Magdelena_," in medieval Latin rhyme,
is addressed to Mary Magdelene weeping at the empty sepulchre. The
following are the 3d and 4th stanzas, with a translation by Prof. C.S.
Harrington of Wesleyan University:

Gaude, plaude, Magdalena!
Tumba Christus exiit!
Tristis est peracta scena,
Victor mortis rediit;
Quem deflebas morientem,
Nunc arride resurgentem!
Alleluia!

Tolle vultum, Magdalena!
Redivivum aspice;
Vide frons quam sit amoena,
Quinque plagas inspice;
Fulgent, sic ut margaritae,
Ornamenta novae vitae.
Alleluia!

* * * * *

Magdalena, shout for gladness!
Christ has left the gloomy grave;
Finished is the scene of sadness;
Death destroyed, He comes to save;
Whom with grief thou sawest dying,
Greet with smiles, the tomb defying.
Hallelujah!

Lift thine eyes, O Magdalena!
Lo! thy Lord before thee stands;
See! how fair the thorn-crowned forehead;