104'4 6 ? f\\\>'^/Kei^ Tb f>U^ Ici ^^VKtA^ /j^aToZCiO )^ 15-S- ' , . ' • ^^^^f hkJi &<,I^Jk-(^l 0 IV/ DIES IR^ AND STABAT MATER. WITH ORIGINAL TRANSLATIONS. Stabat MATER 1>PI.0R08A Justa Crucem Lachiymoaa P, D.' HYMN OF THE SORROWS OF MARY TRANSLATED BY ABRAHAM COLES, M. D., Ph. D. Photograph NEW YORK U. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1866 Rnterei according to Act of Congress in the year 1865, by Abraham Coles, in the Clerk’s office of the District Court of the District of New Jersey. PROEM. HE celebrated Paffion Hymn, the Stabat Mater, is so conftantly aflbciated with the Dies Irae that to mention the one is to suggeft the other. It has been thought, therefore, that a Tranflation of this Prosa likewise, made as literal as poffible, might be acceptable to some readers, and form a not unsuitable appendage to the present volume, by supplying a ready means of comparison between two produdlions, about which, down to this day even, there has been a difference of opinion as to which should be awarded the palm of superiority. It is hardly necelTary to say that reference is here had to their lyrical merits only ; for while the devout Proteftant finds nothing in the Judgment Hymn to jar with his own religious convictions, he is neces¬ sarily offended in the Stabat Mater by a devotion he 4 PROEM. believes misdirefted and idolatrous, in the adoration which it pays to the Virgin. He is aware, however, that in the formation of a critical eftimate of the two, theological confiderations have no right to enter ; and certainly the moft zealous Romanift will be con- ftrained to admit that there has been no backward¬ ness evinced on the part of those who are not of his faith to do ample juftice to the lyric excellence of the latter. Some have gone so far as to place it above its great rival, but this is not the general judg¬ ment, nor is it ours. Beautiful it undoubtedly is, and powerful in its pathos beyond almoft anything that has ever been written ; but it is nevertheless true (and the same indeed may be said of the Dies Irae likewise) that it owes much of its power to make us admire and weep to the transcendent nature of its theme. Beyond controversy, the moft affefting spectacle ever ex¬ hibited to the gaze of the universe, was that wit- nefled on Mount Calvary. That amazing scene — Jesus on the cross and his mother ftanding near — had been, of course, a familiar objecft of contempla¬ tion to all Chriftian hearts, centuries before the PROEM. 5 author wrote. His chief bufiness therefore would be not to originate but reproduce. Evidently the key-note of the Hymn is ftruck in the two firft lines, of which the language is wholly borrowed (bating the epithets, which are not in the manner of the sacred writers) from the Evangelift John, as found in the Latin verfion : Stabat juxta crucem mater ejus. This brief but wonderfully sug- geftive sentence, furnillies an outline which the pooreft imagination would be capable of filling up in a degree. Every mother’s heart, for example, would suffice to tell what an abyss of tears muft have gone to make up that hiatus in the narrative, which leaves solely to inference what were the feel¬ ings of her, who, without comprehending the mys¬ tery, flood there gazing upward on the agonized face and writhing form of her divine Son, through the long hours of mortal anguifh during which he hung upon the cross. But however spontaneous and natural, — however true, beautiful, and even poetic, — and however vivid the emotions of sorrow, terror, and pity, arifing out of these inftinctive and uninflru£led perceptions. 6 PROEM. there is a vagueness as well as vividness, and a re¬ sulting incapacity to express clearly and adequately what is so genuinely felt. The ability to do this is rare, and rarer ftill the poetic faculty, whereby the unwritten melody of the heart is accommodated to all lips and sung in all ears. To say that the author of the Stabat Mater poflelTed this power and achieved this triumph is to beftow upon him and his work the higheft praise. Rude though he be, and a ftammerer of barbarous Latin, he gives undeniable evidence of being a true poet. He has clairvoyance and second fight. The diftant and the paft are made to him a virtual here and now. He is in Italy, but he is also in Judea. He lives in the thirteenth century, but is an eye¬ witness of the crucifixion in the beginning of the firft. He has immediate vifion. All that is tran¬ spiring on Golgotha is difl:in£lly pictured on the retina of his mind's eye. And by the light which is in him he photographs what he sees for the use of others. His ecce I is no pointless indication, but an acSfual fhowing. The wail he utters is a veritable echo of that which goes up from the cross. Every¬ thing is true to nature and to life. PROEM. 7 The Hymn confifts of two parts. The firft four verses give a description of the fituation and charac¬ ter of the adlors in the drama, as pidlorially powerful as scripturally juft. From this fruitful source have come all the Mater Dolorosas of the Painters. It is alTumed, in accordance with the belief of the Fathers, that the prophecy of Simeon: A sword (hall pass through thy own soul also,” had then its proper fulfilment. In the remaining fix verses, the writer henceforth difl'atisfied with the role of a spec¬ tator, seeks to identify himself with the tragic scene \ prays that he may be permitted to bear a part, not in the way of sympathy merely, but of suffering also, and this too, the same both in kind and degree ; that, enduring ftripe for ftripe, wound for wound, there might be to him in every ftage of the Redeemer’s paflion, groan answering to groan. It is now that the Franciscan appears quite as much as the Chriftian. Even when, as in the 8th verse, he quotes St. Paul (who speaks of bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus”), he is evidently thinking of St. Francis. He would fain have repeated the miracle of the ‘‘ Stigmata” in his 8 PROEM. own person, — have an actual and vifible reproduc¬ tion of the print of the nails and the spear in his own hands and feet and fide. As plagas ” in the laft line of the same verse is used not unfrequently in the sense, not so much of wounds as the marks and ap¬ pearances left by wounds, it would correspond very exactly \vith the ftigmata named in the legend, and moft likely, in the author^s use of it, it was intended as a synonym. The poflibility of such a literalness, however incredible to us, would not be so to him. This Hymn is full of the implied merit of suffering, — its meritoriousness in itself. And this is probably one of the reasons why it became such a favorite with the Flagellants, otherwise called Brethren of the Cross (Crucifrates) and Cross-Bearers (Cruciferi), penitents who, in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries went about in proceffion day and night, travelling everywhere, naked to the waist, with heads covered with a white cap or hood, whence they received likewise the appellation of Dealbatores, finging penitential psalms, and whipping themselves until the blood flowed. By their means it was that the knowledge of this Hymn was firfl: carried to almofl every country in Europe.' PROEM. 9 The authorfhip of the Stabat Mater, like that of the Dies Irae, has been the siibje6l of dispute. It has been varioufly ascribed — to Pope Innocent HI., but backed by no evidence whatever ; to one of the Gregories, (either the 9th, loth, or iith, which, is not ftated,) on the authority of the old Florentine hiftorian Antoninus, who lived in the fifteenth cen¬ tury j to John XXIL, on the faith of the Genoese Chancellor and hiftorian, Georgius Stella, who wrote a few years earlier than the laft named, dying in 1420. The text, as supplied by him, the oldeft perhaps extant, differs but little from that of the Miflale Romanum, except that it contains three more verses. Others have referred its paternity, contrary to all probability, to St. Bernard, Dismiffing all these as conje 61 :ures unsupported by proof, it is now gen¬ erally conceded, that evidence both external and in¬ ternal makes it wellnigh certain that the Hymn was the work of a Franciscan friar, a junior contemporary as well as brother of the author of Dies Irae, named Jacobus de Benediftis, commonly called Jacopone, that is, the great Jacob. This latter name, it seems, was originally defigned as a kind of nickname ; the JO • PROEM. syllabic suffix, one^ meaning in Italian great, having been added by scoffing contemporaries by way of de- rijion, on account of the ftrangeness of his appearance and behavior. Indeed, if we may credit the ftories told by Wadding, the Irifli hiftorian of the order, himself one of the number, his conduit at times so far exceeded the bounds of ordinary fanatical ex¬ travagance, as to be totally irreconcilable with the poffeffion of right reason. Wadding expreffly says that he was subjeit to fits of insanity, leading him at one time to enter the public market-place naked, with a saddle on his back and a bridle in his mouth, going on all fours ; and at another, after anointing himself with oil, and rolling himself in feathers of various colors, to make his appearance suddenly, in this unseemly and hideous guise, in the midft of a gay alTembly gathered together at the house of his brother on the occafion of his daughter’s marriage, — and this too, in disregard of previous precautionary entreaties of friends, who, apprehenfive, it seems, at the time they invited him that he might be guilty of some crazy manifellation or other, had begged him not to do anything to difturb the wedding feftivities, but to behave as an ordinary citizen. PROEM. II The fhocking circumftances under which he loll a pious and beloved wife (the fall of a scaffold upon which a large number of females were seated wit- neffing some speftacle), and the discovery after death that fhe wore a girdle of hair around her naked body as a means of mortification to the flefh, affecSled him, it is said, to such a degree, that he immediately re¬ solved to abandon the world, and devote the remainder of his days to the severeft penances. He accordingly gave up all his civil honors, and divided his eftate among the poor. Uniting himself to one of the exifting orders, he now went abroad as a monk, clothed in rags, and praftifing all manner of ascetic severities beyond what was required of him by the rules of his order. It is charitable to suppose that the fhock of his domeftic calamity, while it awakened his religious senfibilities, had the effeeft at the same time of un¬ settling his reason, caufing partial insanity. It is in no wise inconfiftent with this suppofition, that he was able to write poems of such excellence as the Stabat Mater, and that other one ascribed to him by Wad¬ ding: ‘‘Cur mundus militat sub vana gloria,’’ &c.. 12 PROEM. fince it is well known that mental unsoundness on some one point is not necelTarily incompatible with the normal exercise of the general powers of the mind. This medical fail was not so well underftood in his time as now ; and when at the end of ten years he delired to be received by the Minorites, and they hefitated on account of his reputed insanity, their scruples were overcome by reading his work On Contempt of the World,’’ conceiving that it was impofEble that an insane man could write so excellent a book. This would seem to have been a prose work^ written probably in his own Italian vernacular, and therefore not to be confounded with the Hymn juft referred to, which usually bears likewise the title of De Contemptu Mundi.” As a Minorite he was not willing to become a prieft, only a lay-brother. Very severe againft him¬ self, he was, says Wadding, always full of defire to imitate Christ and suffer for Him. In an ecftasy he imagined at times that he faw Him with his bodily eyes, and believed that Jesus often conversed with him,—-calling him deareft Jacob. Very frequently he was seen fighing; sometimes weeping, sometimes PROEM. 13 finging, sometimes embracing trees, and exclaiming, ‘‘ O sweet Jesus! O gracious Jesus ! O beloved Jesus ! ” Once when weeping loudly, on being afked the cause, he answered : Because Love is not loved/’ This fine saying is not unworthy of the author of the Stabat Mater. For determining the genuineness of love he gives these searching tefts. I cannot know pofitively that I love, yet I have some good marks of it. Among others, it is a fign of love to God when I alk the Lord for something and He does it not, and I love Him notwithftanding more than before. If He does contrary to that which I seek for in my prayer, and I love him twofold more than before, it is a fign of right love. Of love to my neighbor I have this fign : namely, that when he injures me I love him not less than before. Did I love him less, it would prove that I had loved not him previoufly but myself.” In this acute appreciation of the figns and symptoms of true love, he gives evidence certainly of no want of (kill in spiritual diagnosis ; and were he equally sound and discriminating in all parts of Chriftian doctrine and experience as in this, it might have been quite PROEM; H safe to truft him with the cure of souls. It may be that his tefts are too severe and superhuman^ and so far erroneous. On the subjugation of the senses he allegorizes in this wise : A very beautiful virgin had five broth¬ ers, and all were very poor. And the virgin had a precious jewel of great worth. One brother was a guitar-player, the second a painter, the third a cook, the fourth a spice dealer, the fifth a pimp. Each was willing to use blandifhments to get the ftone. The firft was willing to play, and so on. But flie said: What fliall I do when the mufic has ceased ? In fhort, (he remained firm, and gave the jewel to none. At length a great king came, who was willing to raise her to be his bride, and give her eternal life if ftie would present him with the ftone. Where¬ upon flie says : How can I, O my sovereign, to such grace refuse the ftone ; and so fhe gave it him.” It is plain that by the brothers are meant the Five Senses ; by the virgin, the Soul ; and by the precious jewel, the Will. With his severe principles and severer ascetic life, Jacopone could not fail to earneftly denounce the * PROEM. 15 corruptions of his time in general, and especially the licentious manners, wickedness, and debaucheries of the priefthood, and the deeply sunken condition of the Church. Boniface III., who, prior to hfs elevation to the papal chair, had lived in friendly re¬ lations with Jacopone, having been deeply offended by some fharp censures directed againft him, threw him into prison, — at the same time suspended over him the excommunication. Boniface one day pair¬ ing the cell where Jacopone was, afked scornful¬ ly, ‘‘When will you come out?” He answered, “ When you come in.” Boniface’s own imprison¬ ment and unhappy end in 1303 set him at liberty. It is related likewise how he baffled Satanic craft by superior craftiness of his own ; but the details of these temptations are so childilh and ridiculous that it would not be profitable to quote. Doubtless it is more fitting to weep than to laugh over the frenzies and follies of such a man, — “To see that noble and moft sovereign reason Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harfh.” His whole hiftory gives a melancholy but inftruc- tive infight into the prevalent fanaticism and dark- i 6 PROEM. ness of the period. His death took place at an advanced age in 1306. He died,” says Wadding, like the swan, finging, — having composed several Hymns juft before his death.’’ The number of Tranflations made of the Stabat Mater is scarcely exceeded by that of the Dies Irae. Lisco, in his work devoted to this Prosa, gives or makes mention of eighty-three in all, complete and incomplete. With the exception of four done in Dutch, these are all German. A fimilar collection of Englifh verfions, although comparatively few in number, would not be without intereft. In attempting to add another to those already exifting, the present IVanflator has been moved by a defire to produce one more literal, if poflible, than any he has seen. He is not, he confefies, friendly to free tranflations. Free, he has often observed, is another name for false. A counterfeit is put in the place of the genuine ; so that inftead of a Stabat we get only some worthless subftitute. He honors that pains¬ taking religious scrupulofity which respecSls the sa¬ credness of words as well as thoughts ; and Ihuns all sacrilegious license and profane handling, — carry- PROEM. 17 ing this reverence for the venerated text so far as to be unwilling, if it can poffibly be helped, to vary one jot or tittle, either in the way of subftitution or alteration. He has no patience with that preposterous conceit, sufficiently common, which imagines itself competent to improve on great originals — whether for that mat¬ ter these be in a foreign tongue or the vernacular, and so applies to all tamperings with Englifli hymns as well. It is much, he confiders, as if some absurd novice of the brufli fliould undertake with a pre¬ sumptuous hand to retouch a Raphael ; or an irrev¬ erent ftone-cutter, by the clumsy use of his chisel, to improve a Venus de Medicis, or an Apollo Belvedere ; or some ignorant devotee to make some fine ftatue of the Virgin finer by puerile adornments of dress, trinkets, and glass beads. If the use of means adapted to degrade a mafterpiece to the level of an image be accounted a fin and an outrage, it is diffi¬ cult to see why the impertinences of the cheap em- belliftiments of every would-be tranflator of famous originals, who aspires to be fine rather than faithful, fliould not be regarded as equally criminal. It may PROEM. l 8 be, as Dryden says, almoji impollible to tranflate verbally and well; ” but as the portrait of a friend is worthless, however beautiful, unless it be a likeness, so we hold a verlion muft fail of its purpose and be wanting in value, juft so far as it is lacking in the eflential point of being a faithful representation, both as to form and spirit, of that to which it relates. What is here said, is meant, of course, to apply only to what is deliberately put forth as a veritable trans¬ lation ; and not to a production which avowedly uses the text merely as a theme, profefling and claiming to do no more. In this case one may deviate as he pleases. It is exclulively his own bufiness. With these views of the duties of a tranflator, the writer has aimed, however much he may have fallen Ihort, to make his rendering a word for word reflec¬ tion of the original, so far at leaft as the rigorous requirements of rhyme and rhythm would allow. For the sake, too, of a closer rhythmic conformity^ he has sought even to preserve the mufical quad- ruplications of the female rhymes found in the second and fixth verses. The text adopted is that of the Roman MilTal, except in one or two inftances where another reading has been preferred. PROEM. 19 To make the resemblance between the two Hymns ftill more complete, the Stabat Mater, like the Dies Irae, has been moft fortunate in its mufical alliances ; having been made the theme of some of the moft celebrated compofitions of the moft eminent com¬ posers. It was set to mufic in the fixteenth century by the famous papal chapel mafter, Paleftrina ; and his compofition is ftill annually performed in the Siftine Chapel during Holy Week. It is sung like¬ wise in connediion with the feftival of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin. The compofition of Pergolefi, the laft and moft celebrated of his works, made juft before his death and left unfinifhed, has never, down to the present day, been surpafled, if equalled, in the eftimation of critics. It is set for two voices, with accompaniments. Tieck, in his Phantasus, Vol. 2d, p. 438, (edition of 1812,) thus speaks of the compofition of Pergolefi and the Hymn itself: ‘‘ The loveliness of sorrow in the depth of pain, the smiling in tears, the childlike¬ ness, which touches on the higheft heaven, had to me never before risen so bright in the soul. I had to turn away to conceal my tears, especially at the I 20 PROEM. place : ‘Videt suum dulcem natum.’ How fignificant, that the Amen, after all is concluded, ftill sounds and plays in itself, and in tender emotion can find no end, as if it were afraid to dry up the tears, and would ftill fill itself with sobbings. The poetry itself is touching and profoundly penetrating ; surely the poet sang those rhymes : ‘ Quae moerebat, et dolebat cum videbat,’ with a moved mind.” It is a tradition, that the great impreflion which the Stabat Mater of the young artift (Pergolefi) made on its firft perform¬ ance, inflamed another mufician with such furious envy, that he ftruck down the young man as he was coming out of the church. This tradition has long ago been disproved, but as Pergolefi died early, it may, as one remarks, be permitted to the poet to refer to this ftory, and allow him to fall as a vi£lim of his art and inspiration. He was born 1704—ir at Jefi, and died 1737 at Torre del Greco, at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, where he had retired on account of his weakened health. The recent com¬ position of Roflini is popular and pleafing, but more operatic than ecclefiaftical, and so is better suited to the concert-room than the church. PROEM. 21 The names of other diftinguished composers might be cited, such as Aftorga, Haydn, Bellini, and Neu- komm. Aftorga’s principal work was his Stabat Mater, the MS. of which is ftill preserved at Oxford, he having lived a year or two in England. He was a native of Sicily, and died in 1755. Haydn’s was published in the year 1781. We give below a condensed view of the various readings taken from Lisco; and as the Hymn is usually divided into three-line Strophes, making in all twenty, the references will be to these : — Strophe 2, 4 » 5 ^ 5 . 6 , 8 , 8 , 8 , 9i 10, 11, line 2. Contriftatam—Contriftantem. “ 2. Et tremebat — Pia mater — Dum videbat et tremebat. “ 2. Chrifti matrem (i — Matrem Chrifti cum. “ 3. In tanto — tanto in. “ I. Quis non poffit — Quis non poteft—Qu^is poffit non. “ I. Videns—Vidit. “ 2. Morientem — Moriendo. “ 3. Dum emilit — amifit. “ I. Pia mater—Eja mater. “ 3. Ut libi — Et libi ; ut tibi; ut ipli ; fibi ut. “ 3. Valide—vivide. Jam dignati — Tam dignati. 12, 2. 22 PROEM. Strophe 12, line 3. Poenas pro me — Poenas mecum. I. Fac me vere tecum— Fac me tecum pie. 14» “ 2. Te libenter — Et me tibi — Tibi me con¬ sociare. 14. “ 3 - In planctu — Cum planctu. 15» “ 2. Mihi jam— Mihi tam. 16, “ 2. Suae sortem — Fac consortem. 16, “ 3 - Plagas recolere— Plagis te colere. 17» “ 2. Cruce hac — Cruce fac me hac beari — Cruce fac. 17. “ 3 - Ob amorem — Et cruore. 18, “ I. Inflammatus et accensus — Flammis urar ne (ne urar) succensus. 20, “ 3 - Gloria—Gratia. The Stabat Mater of Haydn has this for the eighteenth Strophe: — Flammis orci ne succendar Per te, virgo, fac, defendar. In die judicii. The Carmelite Miflal gives for the nineteenth Strophe the following : — Chrifte, cum fit hinc exire Da per matrem me venire Ad palmam victoriae. The change made in some copies of the seven- PROEM. 23 teenth Strophe, of the original Cruce hac inebriari,’^ into Cruce fac me hac beari,” is fignificant of ^ome exception . having been taken to the great ftrength, not to say the audacity, of the author’s metaphor, — the drurikenness of love. SEQUENTIA DE SEPTEM DOLORIBUS BEATiE VIRGINIS. T. TAB AT Mater dolorosa Juxta crucem lachrymosa Qiia pendebat Filius ; Cujus animam gementem, Contriftantem et dolentem, Pertranfivit gladius. II. O quam triftis et afflifta Fuit illa benedifta Mater Unigeniti! Quae moerebat et dolebat Et tremebat, cum videbat Nati poenas Inclyti. HYMN OF THE SORROWS OF MARY. ©TOOD th’ affli6led Mother weeping, Near the crofs her Ration keeping, Whereon hung her Son and Lord ; 7 'hrough whose spirit sympathizing, Sorrowing and agonizing. Also paffed the cruel sword. II. O how mournful and diRrefl'ed Was that favored and moft blefled Mother of the Only Son ! Trembling, grieving, bosom heaving, While perceiving, scarce believing, Pains of that Illuftrious One. STABAT MATER. III. Quis eft homo, qui non fleret, Matrem Chrifti fi videret In tanto supplicio ? Quis non polTet contriftari Piam matrem contemplari Dolentem cum P ilio ? IV. Pro peccatis suae gentis Vidit Jesum in tormentis Et flagellis subditum ; Vidit suum dulcem natum Morientem, desolatum. Dum emifit spiritum. V. Pia Mater, fons amoris ! Me sentire vim doloris Fac, ut tecum lugeam. Fac, ut ardeat cor meum In amando Chriftum Deum Ut Sibi complaceam. STABAT MATER. 27 III. Who the man, who, called a brother. Would not weep, saw he Chrift’s mother In such deep diftrefs and wild ? Who could not sad tribute render WitneHing that mother tender Agonizing with her Child ? IV. For His people’s fins atoning Him flie saw in torments groaning, Given to the scourger’s rod ; Saw her darling Offspring, dying Desolate, forsaken, crying. Yield His spirit up to God. V. Make me feel thy sorrows’ power, That with thee I tears may fliower. Tender Mother, fount of love ! Make my heart with love unceafing Burn towards Chrift the Lord, that pleafing I may be to Him above. 28 STABAT MATER. VI. Sandla Mater, iftud agas, Crucifixi fige plagas Cordi meo valide. Tui nati vulnerati. Tam dignati pro me pati Poenas mecum divide, VII. Fac me tecum vere flere. Crucifixo condolere. Donec ego vixero. Juxta crucem tecum ftare. Te libenter sociare, In plandlu defidero. VIII. Virgo virginum praeclara, Mihi tam non fis amara, Fac me tecum plangere j Fac ut portem Chrifti mortem, Paffionis fac consortem. Et plagas recolere. STABAT MATER. 29 VI. Holy Mother, this be granted, That the Slain One’s wounds be planted P'irmly in my heart to bide. Of Him wounded, all aftounded, — Depths unbounded for me sounded, — Ail the pangs with me divide. VII. Make me weep with thee in union ; With the Crucified, communion In His grief and suffering give ; Near the crofs with tears unfailing I would join thee in thy wailing Here as long as 1 fhall live. VIII. Virgin of all virgins deareft ! Be not bitter when thou hearefi, Make thou me a mourner too ; Make me bear about Chrift’s dying. Share His paflion, fbame defying, All His wounds in me renew: STABAT MATER, IX. Fac me plagis vulnerari, Cruce hac inebriari Ob amorem Filii. Inflammatus et accensus, Per te, Virgo, fim defensus In die Judicii. X. Fac me cruce cufiodiri. Morte Chrifti praemuniri. Confoveri gratia. Qiiando corpus morietur, Fac ut animae donetur Paradifi gloria. STABAT MATER. 31 IX. Wound for wound be there created , With the Crofs intoxicated For thy Son’s dear sake, I pray — May I, fired with pure afFeilion, Virgin, have through thee protedlion In the solemn Judgment Day. X. Let me by the Crofs be warded, By the death of Chrift be guarded, Nouriftied by divine supplies. When the body death hath riven, Grant that to the soul be given Glories bright of Paradise. REMARKS. )0 admiration of the lyric excellence of the Stabat Mater fhould be allowed to blind the reader to those objectionable features which mull always suffice, as they have hitherto done, to exclude it from every hymnarium of Proteftant Chriftendom. For not only is Marv made the obJeCl of religious worlhip, but the incommunicable attributes of the Deity are freely ascribed to her. Her agency is invoked as if (he were the third person of the Trinity, or had powers coordinate and equal. Plainly it is the province of the Holy Ghoft, and not of any creature, to “ work in us to will and to do ; ” to effect spiritual changes ; to ‘‘ take of the things of Chrilt and fhow them unto us,” — and yet these are the very things which (he herself is afked to accomplifh for the suppliant. Fac,” alone, afide REMARKS. 33 from potential equivalents, is used at leaft nine times, — a form of expreflion manifeftly inappropriate un- lefs addrefled to one capable of a£ls causal and orig¬ inal and therefore divine. Not content, it seems, with making her a fountain of supernatural influence, a succedaneum of the Holy Ghoft, her efficiency is extended to the performance likewise of the work affigned to the Son, — Per te, Virgo, fim defensus In die Judicii, — an expreflion of reliance on her rather than on Him to ward off in that day the demands of divine juftice. Mariolalry here culminates. It could not well be carried farther. Confidering that the pofition here given to the mother of Chrifl: receives not a particle of counte¬ nance anywhere in the New Teftament, one is led to wonder how those who accepted its teachings could ever have fallen into so awful an error. If prayer of any kind addreffed to her were laudable or lawful, how can it be explained that all the sacred writers are so intensely reticent upon the point that it is not poffible to find written so much as a fingle 3 34 REMARKS. syllable to authorize it, or a solitary exam))le to sanc¬ tion it ? It is remarkable that Chrift, while here on earth, did not hefitate to rebuke His mother on a certain occafion when fhe manifefted a dispofition to intrude her maternal human relation into the sphere of His divinity, saying: Woman, what have I to do with thee At another time, upon being told that His mother and His brethren flood waiting without. He said, Who is my mother ? and who are my brethren ? ” and ftretching forth His hand toward His disciples. He said, “ Behold, my mother and my brethren ? For whosoever fhall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother and fifter and mother.” Everybody muft feel that there is a sublime propri¬ ety in this declarative poftponement, once for all, of flefhly relationfhips to the spiritual ; and that it would be infinitely unbecoming in Him, who is the Creator of all and the Judge of all, to be a respe£ler of per¬ sons, swayed as men are swayed by the fond par¬ tialities of blood and kindred. Upon this principle it is easy to account for the flight mention made of Chrifl’s mother in the Evangelifls, and the entire REMARKS. 3S absence of any allufion to her in the reft of the New Teftament. Even the Apoftle John, to whose lov¬ ing care ftie was committed, and who took her to his own house, neither in his Epiftles nor in the Apocalypse names her so much as once. Paul, the moft voluminous of the New Teftament writers, is wholly filent in regard to her. When the people of Lyftra were making ready to pay divine honors to Barnabas and Paul, they, hear¬ ing of it, rent their clothes, and ran among the people, crying out and saying. Sirs, why do ye these things ? ” If these revolted at the idea of being made the objefts of religious worfliip, can we sup¬ pose that supreme form of it lefs fhocking to the soul of Mary, which is neceflarily implied in ad¬ drefling her as the omniscient and omnipresent hearer and answerer of prayer ? Such honor is difhonor. It is an offering of robbery. It robs God. STABAT MATEE. (SUNG ON EVERY FRIDAY DURING LENT.) 1« As sung in the Churches at Home. Grkgouian Chant. From the “ Catholic Psalmist^ -^1 - “p-y —■ ■-■ ■ ■ ■ ■ = 1. Sta-bat ma-ter ( 2. Cu - jus a - ni - n do - lo - ro - sa, lam ge - men-tem. Jux - ta cru-cein Con - tris - tan - tem ■ ■ ■ ■- ■ ■ U ■ ■ —■- ■ - i - 1 - ■ -».— u la - cry - mo - sa, Qua pea de - bat fi - li - us. et do-lea-tern, Per-traa*si * vit gla - di - us. 3. O quam tristis et afflicta Fuit illa benedicta Mater Unigeniti! 4. Quae moerebat et dolebat Et tremebat cum videbat Nati poenas inclyti. 5. Quis est homo, qui non fleret, Matrem Christi si videret In tanto supplicio ? 6. Quis non posset contristari, Piam matrem contemplari Dolentem cum filio. 7. Pro peccatis suae gentis Vidit Jesum in tormentis Et flagellis subditum. 8. Vidit suum dulcem natum Morientem, desolatum Dum emisit spiritum. 9. Pia mater, fons amoris! Me sentire vim doloris Fac, ut tecum lugeam. 10. Fac, ut ardeat cor meum In amando Christum Deum, Ut Sibi complaceam. 11. Sancta mater, istud agas Crucifixi fige plagas Cordi meo valide. 12. Tui nati vulnerati Tam dignati pro me pati Poenas mecum divide. 13. Fac me tecum pie flere Crucifixo condolere Donec ego vixero. 14. Juxta crucem tecum stare Et me tibi sociare In planctu desidero. 15. Virgo virginum praeclara Mihi tam non sis amara. Fac me tecum plangere. 16. Fac ut portem Christi mortem Passionis fac consortem Et plagas recolere. 17. Fac me plagis vulnerari Cruce hac inebriari Ob amorem filii. 18. Inflammatus et accensus Per te, virgo, sim defensus In die judicii. 19. Fac me cruce custodiri Morte Christi praemuniri Confoveri gratia. 20. Quando corpus morietur Fac ut animae donetur Paradisi gloria. STABAT MATEE.—Ohant for Four Voices. IVo. Novello. FromEvening ISermce!''' d=: Sta-bat ma-ter do - lo - J-jiJ—j-sl - ^-T-d~i—T- ^ .zii|idd—T—I—® ro - sa -1 ^ I ^ Jux - ta cru - cem ■T- -I- ^-h'-TT I I—□=: diT —j—j #——I 1 j—r j- 1 — ■»-f—•—-'- Elf --- I la - cry • mo - sa, Qua pen - de J — =^:= bat fi iSi li - us. ^ ' • ‘ r i ^ ^ tv- ^ ]No. 3. ^ tV- ^ '‘'•Rohr's Collection." Z- 5 j-g- Stabat ma-ter do-lo - ro - sa Jux - ta cru - cera ^fS 5,— ^ I I I la - cry - mo - sa, Qua pen - de - bat fi - li - us. ' I - 2 -(SL—CQ- - '-Ct - 1 Ai -■iS • \ ' r fV; V: 4 i •k.