[4]This transfer of the song to clerical singers soon had its inevitable result. Jerome begins to be apprehensive that the form of singing would come to have too exclusive consideration. He complained that those who led the song, like comedians, “smoothed their throats with soft drinks in order to render their melodies more impressive, and that the heart alone can properly make melody to God.“ CHAPTER IX [1]“The Greek language lived long and died slowly, and the Christian hymn writers wrote in its decadence.” (Rev. John Brownlie, in his preface to _Hymns of the Greek Church_.) [2]The canon is an elaborate service consisting of nine odes or hymns of different forms. CHAPTER X [1]“Jesus, the very thought of Thee” (Caswall) or “Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts” (Palmer). [2]“O sacred Head, now wounded,” translated by James W. Alexander from Paul Gerhardt’s “O Haupt voll Blut and Wunden,” a German version of the Latin hymn above. [3]Imagine a poem of such length in the difficult “Leonine hexameter” of which the following translated lines will give an inkling: “These are the latter times, these are not better times, let us stand waiting! Lo, how with awfulness, He, first in lawfulness, comes arbitrating.” Dr. Neale wisely reduced his centos to a plain meter, giving them practical usefulness. [4]Matthew Arnold described it as “the utterance of all that is exquisite in the spirit of its century.” (Quoted by Gillman, in his _Evolution of the English Hymn_.) CHAPTER XI [1]As an indication of how prevalent this singing of religious hymns was, we note the fact that in 1512, twelve years before Luther’s first hymnbook appeared, a collection of Roman Catholic hymns, set to profane tunes, was issued in Venice, Italy. [2]“To Luther belongs the extraordinary merit of having given to the German people in their own tongue the Bible, the Catechism, and the Hymnbook, so that God might speak directly to them in his Word, and that they might directly answer him in their songs.” Dr. Philip Schaff adds elsewhere that Luther “is the father of the modern High German language and literature,” and that these are the common possession of the Germanic tribes with their diversified dialects from the Adriatic to the Baltic Sea. Erasmus Alber, a contemporary who wrote twenty excellent hymns, calls Luther “the German Cicero, who not only reformed religion, but also the German language.” Hans Sachs, the poet cobbler of Nuremberg, who, besides a great deal of general poetry, also wrote a number of hymns, styled Luther “the nightingale of Wittenberg.” CHAPTER XII [1]Dr. Schaff. CHAPTER XIII