Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by

HARPER & BROTHERS,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

W. P. 2

NOTICE.

It is remarkable that no place has been given in the schools and colleges of England and America to the writings of the early Christians. For many centuries, and down to what is called the Pagan renaissance, they were the common linguistic study of educated Christians. The stern piety of those times thought it wrong to dally with the sensual frivolities of heathen poets, and never imagined it possible that the best years of youth should be spent in mastering the refinements of a mythology and life which at first they feared and loathed, and which at last became as remote and unreal to them as the Veda is to us.

Classical Philology, however, took its ideal of beauty from Pagan Greece, and it has filled our schools with those books which are its best representatives.

The modern Science of Language has again changed the point of view. It gives the first place to truth; it seeks to know man, his thoughts, his growth; it looks on the literature of an age as a daguerreotype of the age; it values books according to their historical significance. The writings of the early Christians embody the history of the most important events known to man, in language not unworthy of the events; and the study of Latin and Greek as vehicles of Christian thought should be the most fruitful study known to Philology, and have its place of honor in the University Course.

The present Series owes its origin to an endowment 2029370

by Mr. Benjamin Douglass for the study of these authors in Lafayette College. Each volume will be prepared with critical text, introduction, and notes, like the current approved text-books for college study. They will 'be edited by F. A. March, LL.D., Professor of Comparative Philology in Lafayette College, with such help as may be found desirable. Two volumes are now ready: LATIN HYMNS, with English Notes. For use in Schools and Colleges. By F. A. MARCH, LL.D., Professor of Comparative Philology in Lafayette College. 12mo, Cloth, $175.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF EUSEBIUS. The First Book and Selections. Edited for Schools and Colleges by F. A. MARCH, LL.D. With an Introduction by A. BALLARD, D.D, Professor of Christian Greek and Latin in Lafayette College; and Explanatory Notes by W. B. OWEN, A.M., Adj. Professor of Christian Greek. 12mo, Cloth, $1 75.

A volume of Tertullian and one of Athanagoras are in press, and may be expected in time for the fall term of 1875. Should the Series be welcomed, it will be continued with volumes of Augustine, Cyprian, Lactantius, Justin Martyr, Chrysostom, and others, in number sufficient for a complete college course.

PREFACE.

ALMOST all our elder scholars have favorite Latin hymns, just as they have favorite poems in German or Old English, but they do not seem to have thought of them for college study; that was reserved in the old time for a handful of authors of the so-called classical periods of Latin and Greek. But since the modern Science of Language has widened the view, and we are welcoming text-books in German and English and Anglo-Saxon, and even in Sanskrit and Chinese, it will no longer be a fatal objection to the Hymns that they are not Horatian or Ciceronian. The study of literature is useful mainly to develop character. It is the study of what the great and good have thought and felt and done. By a careful study of their words, we are enabled rapidly to think their thoughts, to repeat in our experience their aspirations and resolves, and to recognize and accept their ideals. Those books of literature are the highest educational powers which contain the most truthful delineation and expression. of the noblest character. Christian is a better word than Augustan. For inspiring and elevating thought,

and for vigor, harmony, and simplicity of language, the Hymns are better than any Augustan Odes. They are the true Latin folk poems; they have been called "the Bible of the people."

They are a valuable study also from the biographical, historical, and literary matter that comes up in reading them. The authors are many of them the heroes of their generation, kings in the realms of thought or action. Interesting events are connected with their composition or history, and they are full of allusion to the great works of the older period, the Bible and the fathers of the Church. There is great variety in the subjects, the meters, and the style of the hymns.

The works to which I have been most indebted for the materials of this collection are the following: H. A. DANIEL: Thesaurus Hymnologicus. Lipsiae, 1841– 1856, 5 vols.-F. J. MONE: Lateinische Hymnen des Mittelalters. Freiburg, 1853-1855, 3 vols. -PHILIPP WACKERNAGEL: Das Deutsche Kirchenlied, etc., vol. i. (Latin Hymns). Leipzig, 1864.-R. C. TRENCH: Sacred Latin Poetry, chiefly Lyrical. 2d ed., London and Cambridge, 1864.-J. M. NEALE: Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences. London, 1867.-MRS. CHARLES: The Voice of Christian Life in Song. New York, 1867.PHILIP SCHAFF, Christ in Song. A. KÖNIGSFELD: Lateinische etc. Bonn, 1847-1865, 2 vols. other books of collections and translations, as well as

New York, 1868.-G. Hymnen und Gesänge, I have consulted many