such a strain,
saying "Glory to God in the highest," and "Let the heavens rejoice and
let the earth be glad," at the hopes aroused by the piety of the new
Emperor.

He attached great importance to preaching, and many of his sermons remain
to this day. He also wrote "Liber Pastoralis Curae," a treatise on the
responsibilities and duties of Bishops. This book had immense influence;
it was circulated in Spain; the Emperor had it translated into Greek; it
was an authoritative text-book in Gaul for centuries; and it was
translated into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred, and was widely disseminated
in England. But it is in the services and service-books of the Church
that he set his mark most conspicuously. He organized and enriched them,
even the Canon of the Mass in which he added to the prayer of oblation
the words "Diesque nostras in tua pace disponas." The work which has been
traditionally ascribed to him in the department of Church Music we shall
enter into more fully.

From his monastic life onwards Gregory seems to have suffered from bad
health, due in part, probably, to his extreme asceticism while living in
his monastery. During the last few years of his life he was in continual
pain from gout, which makes his activity and his achievements still more
astonishing. For long he was confined to his bed altogether. He died on
March 12th, 604. In contrast to the enthusiasm with which his accession
to the Papacy was greeted, he was now accused by the fickle population of
having caused the famine, which was then raging, by his lavish
expenditure, though the latter was largely due to the charitable relief
which he habitually gave to alleviate the distress which prevailed all
the time that he filled the Papal chair. But he was canonized after his
death by universal consent in the West, and the Council of Cloveshoo, in
747, fixed the 12th of March for his veneration: "That the birthday of
the blessed Pope Gregory, and also the day of the burial of St. Augustine
the Archbishop and Confessor (who being sent to the English by the said
Pope, our father Gregory, first brought the knowledge of the Faith, the
sacrament of Baptism, and the notice of the Heavenly Country), which is
the 26th of May, be honourably observed by all: so that each day be kept
with a cessation from labour, by ecclesiastics and monastics; and that
the name of our blessed father and doctor Augustine be always mentioned
in singing the Litany after the invocation of St