Life eternal,
From earth unto the sky,
Our Christ hath brought us over,
With hymns of victory.

Another very famous translation from the Greek by Neale is the hymn:

Art thou weary, art thou languid,
Art thou sore distressed?
"Come to me," saith One, "and, coming,
Be at rest."

This hymn is often regarded as an original by Neale, but the author was
St. Stephen the Sabaite, a monk who received his name from the monastery
in which he spent his life, that of St. Sabas, near Bethlehem,
overlooking the Dead Sea. St. Stephen, who was born in 725 A.D., had been
placed in the monastery at the age of ten years by his uncle. He lived
there more than half a century until his death in 794 A.D.

Neale was equally successful in the translation of ancient Latin hymns.
Perhaps the most notable is his rendering of Bernard of Cluny's immortal
hymn:

Jerusalem, the golden,
With milk and honey blest!
Beneath thy contemplation
Sink heart and voice oppressed:
I know not, O I know not,
What blissful joys are there,
What radiancy of glory,
What light beyond compare!

So facile was Neale in the art of writing either English or Latin verse,
that he often astounded his friends. It is said that on one occasion John
Keble, author of "The Christian Year," was visiting him. Absenting
himself from the room for a few minutes, Neale returned shortly and
exclaimed: "I thought, Keble, that all your poems in 'The Christian Year'
were original; but one of them, at least, seems to be a translation."
Thereupon he handed Keble, to the latter's amazement, a very fine Latin
rendering of one of Keble's own poems. He had made the translation during
his absence from the room.

But Neale did not confine himself to translations. He also wrote a large
number of splendid original hymns. He was fond of writing hymns for holy
days and festivals of the church year. The hymn printed in connection
with this sketch is for Advent. "Oh Thou, who by a star didst guide," for
Epiphany, and "Blessed Saviour, who hast taught me," for confirmation,
are among his other original hymns.

Because of his "high church" tendencies, accentuated no doubt by the
influence of the "Oxford Movement," Neale incurred the suspicion of some
that he leaned toward the Church of Rome. However, there is nothing of
Roman error to be found in his hymns. The evangelical note rings pure and
clear, and for this reaso