How did I weep, in Thy Hymns and
Canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned
Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled into
my heart, whence the affections of my devotion overflowed, and tears
ran down, and happy was I therein.
Not long had the Church of Milan begun to use this kind of
consolation and exhortation, the brethren zealously joining with
harmony of voice and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, that
Justina, mother to the Emperor Valentinian, a child, persecuted Thy
servant Ambrose, in favour of her heresy, to which she was seduced
by the Arians. The devout people kept watch in the Church, ready to
die with their Bishop Thy servant. There my mother Thy handmaid,
bearing a chief part of those anxieties and watchings, lived for
prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still were stirred
up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted city. Then it was first
instituted that after the manner of the Eastern Churches, Hymns and
Psalms should be sung, lest the people should wax faint through the
tediousness of sorrow: and from that day to this the custom is
retained, divers (yea, almost all) Thy congregations, throughout other
parts of the world following herein.
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