University of Virginia Library

The “Benedicite” is a hymn or canticle which may be used interchangeably with the Te Deum in the Morning Prayer of the Church of England. It is taken from the Apocrypha, where it appears as an addition to the Book of Daniel, and is there called “The Song of the Three Holy Children,” that is, Hananiah or Ananias, Mishael or Misael, and Azariah or Azarias, whose names were changed when they entered the service of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, into the more familiar Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego. (Dan. i. 7.)

There is no Hebrew version of the Song. It is only found in the Greek, and in that language was widely circulated along with the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. The Benedicite was used as a hymn by the Jews for a century or two before the Birth of Christ, and is therefore some five hundred years older than the Te Deum; and it was adopted by the Christians in their public worship at a very early period. Cyprian, who lived in the fourth century, says it was used in the Church long before his time, and quotes it as a part of Holy Scripture. But as Wheatley observes (Common Prayer, p. 144), “Our Church does not receive it for Canonical Scripture, because it is not to be found in the Hebrew, nor was allowed in the Jewish Canon; but it is, notwithstanding, an exact paraphrase of the hundred and forty-eighth Psalm, and so like it in words and sense that whosoever despiseth this, reproacheth that part of the Canonical Writings.”

The frequent repetition of the refrain, “Bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever,” gives great dignity to this call upon the creatures to join with man in the praises of their Maker. It is interesting to think that the mysterious silence of centuries between the Old and New Testaments is, in part, bridged over by the exultant strains of this noble hymn, which after being long familiar to Jewish lips was taken up by the voices of the early Christians, and has come echoing down the ages to the present time, ever reminding men that the God of Nature is the God of Grace.

Some years ago a book was published which drew much attention to this Hymn. It was the well-known work by Dr. Child Chaplin, and was called “Benedicite, or the Song of the Three Children; being illustrations of the power, beneficence, and design manifested by the Creator in His works.” It contained what may be called a series of popular scientific essays on the various clauses of the Benedicite, except the last seven invocations.

These thirty-two Rondels on the successive verses of the Benedicite, each with a different refrain, were composed, not consecutively. in various places in England and Scotland, during the years 1883 and 1884.

The new East Window, in Londesborough Church, designed by Mr. Temple Moore, and filled with stained glass by Messrs. Burlison and Grylls of London, was intended to commemorate the coming of age of the only son of Lord and Lady Londesborough, the Honourable Francis Denison, now Lord Raincliffe, Dec. 1885. The subject is the Crucifixion.

Major-General G. F. Moore, a brave soldier, an upright man, a sincere Christian, and a great lover of Nature and Art. He was wounded severely at the siege of Moultan. He died September 8, 1884. To a friend who asked him shortly before his death if he felt comfort and confidence in the Cross of Christ, he answered, “I have got beyond the Cross; I am in the Presence.”

Frederick R. Wilton, B.A., Scholar of St. John's College, and one of the masters of the City of London School, killed on Snowdon, in 1874. Robert C. Wilton, Scholar of Christ's College, drowned at Tenby in 1884—a youth of great promise—both sons of Mr. Robert Wilton of Doncaster. See a sonnet in the author's “Lyrics, Sylvan and Sacred,” p. 92, on the death of the first-named student, ending

On his way up the mountain he met with a gentleman, to whom among other things he said, “I never felt so near to Christ as I do on this mountain to-day.”

The first Bishop of Jerusalem, and the author of the Epistle of St. James—whose words in chapter v., verse 9, correspond with and illustrate the question put to the martyr by his Jewish enemies.

Tradition says that Lazarus lived thirty years after he was raised from the dead, and was never known to smile.