|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, "Creator alme siderum,"{1} chanting in awful tones the two comings of |91| Christ, for redemption and for judgment; and then are sung the words that strike the keynote of the Advent services, and are heard again and again. "_Rorate, coeli, desuper, et nubes pluant Justum_ (Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down the Righteous One). _Aperiatur terra et germinet Salvatorem_ (Let the earth open, and let her bring forth the Saviour)." _Rorate, coeli, desuper_--Advent is a time of longing expectancy. It is a season of waiting patiently for the Lord, whose coming in great humility is to be commemorated at Christmas, to whose coming again in His glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead the Christian looks forward with mingled hope and awe. There are four weeks in Advent, and an ancient symbolical explanation interprets these as typifying four comings of the Son of God: the first in the flesh, the second in the hearts of the faithful through the Holy Spirit, the third at the death of every man, and the fourth at the Judgment Day. The fourth week is never completed (Christmas Eve is regarded as not part of Advent), because the glory bestowed on the saints at the Last Coming will never end.