For the original, the translator has gone to the service-books, and for the most part has confined himself to the hymns which are to be found in the Triodion, containing the Lenten services; and in the Pentecostarion, in which are found the hymns for the services of Easter and Pentecost. A few specimens are also given from other offices, particularly that for Christmas. Renderings from the work of the earlier Greek hymn-writers are added at the end of this volume; but, unlike the hymns of the Church service-books, these hymns originally are in the classical measures, and illustrate the work of the best Christian poets, who in some cases wrote extensively. III. It is a very remarkable fact, and certainly not to our credit, that, with the exception of a very few who have made the study a specialty, our educated men show a most unaccountable ignorance of the most attractive and valuable material for praise and prayer contained in the Greek Church service-books. We have learning more than enough, and zeal enough for the pursuit of study in other departments, but this unworked field lies fallow, and no one thinks it worth his while to cultivate it. That the study will reward the student, although not in a material sense--for the meaningless prejudice of the great mass of our people for what is local and against the thought of the stranger, no matter how beautiful it may be, is still to be reckoned with--yet in the highest sense as conferring upon him a new delight, there can be no doubt; for, after the necessary expenditure of patient application, and the passing of the initiatory stages which in every department of study are somewhat trying, the attraction will begin, and the subject become positively fascinating. To any one having the lyrical gift and the necessary qualifications for the study of Greek, those service-books might prove a mine of treasure inexhaustible. In the seventeen quarto volumes which contain the Greek Church offices, there must be material of one kind or another for many thousands of hymns; yet, when hymnal compilers ask for hymns from the Greek for their collections, they are not to be had, save in the few renderings made by Dr. Neale. In the most recently compiled collection for church use--_The Church Hymnary_--only five pieces from the Greek find a place. What a humbling confession! They are the best available from the very small number of translations in our possession, which, perhaps, does not exceed one hundred and fifty pieces in all. We have not treated the Latin Church after that fashion. There is not a hymn of real merit in the Latin which has not been translated, and in not a few cases oftener than once; with the result that the gems of Latin hymnody are the valued possession of the Church in all English-speaking lands.