Thus, the history of the hymn, and of hymns from the earliest ages, their originals, their writers, their associations, would form one of the most charming chapters of Church history. To read how the great hymns grew, what study of Church history can be more delightfully entertaining? Down the long line of the ages the hymns pass on, and they, more than the creeds of councils and the clangour of warriors, seem to shape the spandrels from whence leap up the great arches of the Church. The great Church hymns, by these greatly its unity of faith is proclaimed. In what simple incidents many of the chords arose. That is a very sweet, solemn, pathetic line in our wonderful Burial Service, “In the midst of life we are in death”—in fact, it seems to be the adaptation of the first line of the rare old Latin hymn, the “Media Vita,” composed by Notker Balbulus, born of a noble family of Zurich. He attained to great eminence at St. Gall by his learning and skill in music and poetry, and his knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. No one ever saw him, say the old stories of him, but he was reading, writing, or praying. The faint sound of a mill-wheel near his abbey, moved him to compose a beautiful air to some pious verses, and looking down into a deep gulf, and the danger incurred by some labourer in building a bridge over the abyss, suggested the celebrated hymn, the “Media Vita.” What a singular and interesting history there is in the hymn, “Jerusalem, my happy home.” Through what generations of variations it has passed!