To Pius X the Divine Office had always been a work of predilection. It is said that as a child he had often seen Cardinal Monico with his Breviary in his hands, and had wondered vaguely what beautiful stories there could be in the book that so engrossed his attention. And when in later days he opened it for the first time himself his childish dreams found their fulfilment. For the Breviary is the story of the Church and her saints, and the whole Psalter enwraps it like a glory. It was to the treasures of that great book that he went all his life for his morning meditation until he knew it as one knows the heart of a friend. And loving it with the love of a true friend, and seeing faults amidst its beauties, he would let it also share in "the restoring of all things in Christ." For over four hundred years a redistribution of the Psalter throughout the week had been sighed for, but every scheme had failed. Pius appointed a commission to deal with this problem, giving certain general lines on which to base the reform, and in a few years the new Breviary was issued. The rearrangement secured the recitation of the whole Psalter once a week, the length of the office on Sundays and ferias was reduced, while the complexities of the calendar were simplified. "No one can fail," wrote the pope, "to be stirred by those numerous passages of the Psalms which proclaim so loudly the immense majesty of God, His omnipotence, His unutterable justice, His goodness and clemency . . . . Who can fail to be inspired . . . by those thanksgivings for God's benefits, by those lowly and trustful prayers for benefits desired, by those cries of the penitent soul deploring its sins? Who is not kindled with love for the picture of Christ the Redeemer so lovingly shadowed forth, whose voice Augustine heard in all the Psalms, praising or mourning, rejoicing in hope or longing for accomplishment? With good reason was provision made in past ages by decrees of the Roman pontiffs, canons of councils, and monastic laws that both sections of the clergy should chant or recite the whole Psalter every week." The pope spoke of the many pleas that had reached him that the old custom might be restored, and of the work that had been done to this effect, which was but a prelude to a further emendation of the Breviary and the Missal.