Page:The seven great hymns of the mediaeval church - 1902.djvu/131

divine human Son. They breathe the ſame love to Chriſt, and the burning deſire to become identified with Mary by ſympathy in the intenſity of her joy as in the intenſity of her grief. They are the ſame in ſtructure, and excel alike in the Angularly touching muſic of language, and the ſoft cadence that echoes the ſentiment. Both conſiſt of two parts, the firſt of which deſcribes the objective ſituation; the ſecond identifies the author with the ſituation, and addreſſes the Virgin as an object of worſhip. Both bear the impreſs of their age and the monaſtic order which probably gave them birth. The myſterious charm and power of the two hymns are due to the subject and to the intenſity of feeling with which the author ſeized it. Mary at the manger, and Mary at the croſs, opens a viſta to an abyſs of joy and of grief ſuch as the world never ſaw before. Mary ſtood there not only as the mother, but as the repreſentative of the whole Chriſtian church, for which the eternal Son of God was born an infant in the manger, and for which he ſuffered the moſt ignominious death on the croſs.