The sweetest of the Gospel songs, To all the Saints so dear, To every eventide belongs Throughout the changeful year. It sanctifies the vesper hour When summer smiles serene; It is a joy-constraining power When winter blasts are keen. 'My soul doth magnify the Lord'-- Ecstatic is the voice That sings of Paradise restored-- 'My spirit doth rejoice!' PINZOLO: 1882. III. NUNC DIMITTIS. To cradle Mary's Child his heart An old man opens wide: Behold him in God's peace depart, And in God's peace abide. He sings the very Song of Peace, Responsive to the Word; His lullaby shall never cease To make its music heard. For all the children of the Bride, The subjects of the King, With each returning eventide Have learnt his song to sing. He sings of 'peace,' 'salvation,' 'light:' His lovely words we take For consolation night by night, Until God's morning break. Then, when our dazzled eyes grow dim, Breathed with our parting breath The old man's sweet, heart-soothing hymn Glad welcome gives to death. We too what Simeon saw may see-- The Mother undefiled, Our hearts enfold as blissfully The Everlasting Child! TYROL: 1882. FOOTNOTES: [7] _See_ Note F, page 78. [8] S. John i. 23. NOTES. NOTE A. _The Madonna di San Sisto._ Raffaelle's world-famous picture of the Mother and her Divine Child in the Gallery at Dresden is in a measure known to almost all from prints and photographs. As to the _colour_ of the picture, the significant beauty of which none who have not seen the original can conceive, it should be remembered that the parted curtains are green (the earth-colour), and the Virgin Mother comes forth, as it were, from the white bosom of a stooping heaven, whose far distances, dimly seen, fade into a blue firmament peopled with angelic faces. Many have felt this picture--at once so serene and so impassioned--to be a _revelation_. As we yield ourselves to its fascination and search further and further into its depths, we feel that Faber's words justify themselves: 'Christian Art, rightly considered, is at once a theology and a worship; a theology which has its own method of teaching, its own ways of representation, its own devout discoveries, its own varying opinions, all of which are beautiful so long as they are in subordination to the mind of the Church.... Art is a revelation from heaven, and a mighty power for God. It is a merciful disclosure to men of His more hidden beauty. It brings out things in God which lie too deep for words.' (_Bethlehem_, p. 240.)