most celebrated and most highly endowed of the venerable band. I knew that our National Library is rich in materials for the accomplishment of such a design, and hoped to be able to make my volume more valuable by the introduction of some pieces which have never yet appeared in any printed form. But I found that my wishes had far outrun my capacity for realizing them. The great distance of my residence from London, my pressing and unintermitting duties at home, both parochial and private, and other considerations, together constituted a barrier which I could not pass, and I was compelled to confine myself to Ephraem, and such critical and exegetical aids as my own small library afforded. I certainly have much regretted this on several grounds, although as my task proceeded I found less cause for lamenting my disappointment and feeling impatient under the restrictions which imperative necessity imposed upon me. The metrical productions of the renowned Deacon of Edessa are so numerous and varied, that the difficulty has consisted rather in knowing what to select, and how to do justice to him within such narrow limits, than in any want of materials. I have therefore ceased to regret being confined to one author, feeling sure that in one small volume it is better to convey a full idea of his mental powers and compositions, than to furnish hasty and incomplete outlines of a greater number.

Great injustice will be done me if this work is considered in any other light than as a specimen of what may be effected in the interesting though neglected field en

tered upon. Anything like completeness is out of the question within the space which circumstances have assigned to me, and would demand a far higher oriental scholarship than I can pretend to. If I succeed in conveying to English readers some conception of the value of the Syrian hymnology, and thus open the way to future acquisitions from the same source, my highest wish on the subject will be gratified. The execution of this circumscribed design has convinced me of the vast extent of the literary field, a small corner of which I have attempted to till, and of the very varied and practised talents which its cultivator ought to possess. It has certainly taught me the defects of my own husbandry. I am conscious that my first experiments want that finish and certainty of result which greater experience may give to them. The implements with which I have laboured are comparatively rude in their structure, and, like a new settler in fertile though wild regions of the earth, I have had, in part, to manipulate my own tools. The defective nature of the critical apparatus at his command, is strongly felt by any one who passes from Hebrew or Greek or Latin literature, to Syriac. There is this satisfaction, however, that every new comer does something to make future progress more easy, and to facilitate the course of after labourers.

I am anxious that it should be distinctly understood that my design is a literary, and not a theological one. I should have acted uncourteously, at least, to the great body of patrons by whose generous assistance I have been

able to execute and publish the work, had I obtruded upon them any strong or party-coloured sentiments from the text-book of my author, or brought into prominence any subjective doctrinal impressions I may myself have received from him. But, apart from a feeling of what is due to others, I am free to confess, that I have felt no temptation to throw upon the troubled arena of Christian life another subject of contention among good men; and if my readers only feel in perusing the volume, as I have done in the more arduous task of writing it, they will be less, and not more, disposed to seize any advantage which Ephraem may seem to give to their own sentiments. There can be no question that a limited range of knowledge and thinking is favourable to bigotry and exclusiveness ; while wider and more frequent incursions into the fair regions of varied intellect around us, have a wonderful tendency to enlarge the heart and lessen the influence of prejudices. The idola specûs can neither breathe the atmosphere nor bear the light of calm and free enquiry.

I have found a pleasure in studying these relics of an age fifteen centuries nearer than our own to the times of our Lord and His apostles, unalloyed by any regret at the contrasts presented between the opinions of the Divine of the fourth of these great revolutions, and those maintained in the nineteenth. The mental phenomena exhibited in the works of men who lived so near both the place and the time distinguished by the rising of the Sun of Righteousness, are, to me, too deeply interesting to allow anything to alloy the pleasure of possessing them. Such

men had their aberrations from what we may conceive to be a right line, but are the angles of our divergence more acute? We study and admire a classic author, although his theology and ethics may be thoroughly adverse to our own: much more should a literature, every line of which is dedicated to God and our Redeemer, receive our homage, notwithstanding its occasional departures from the views and practices of our own age.

I have discovered, as one result of my labours, that a very strong feeling exists in one department of the Church of England against patristic literature; so strong indeed, that it has, in some cases, overcome private respect for myself, and prevented its subjects from lending me any assistance in my undertaking. Now, let it be granted that such literature has had its injudicious cultivators, under whose hands it has produced briars and thorns; yet, I would ask, is that any reason why the land in future should lie idle? I would further enquire whether such a literature can be neglected with safety; and whether its rejection by one party will not more fatally lead to its abuse by another. The true problem is this:-Can the phenomena, presented by the Church in its historical development, be ignored on either Christian or philosophical grounds? If certain results have followed the setting up of Christ's kingdom on earth, it is difficult to see what good end can be answered by attempting to throw them into forgetfulness, or by frowning upon those who take upon themselves to record them. Any system which endeavours to prop itself up by a one-sided and partial

reference to antiquity, must fail to win the love of the thoughtful, however it may be lauded by the fanatical. This was the old trick of the anti-geologists, practised by some parties to this day. Unable to cope with the lucid reasonings of men who deduced their conclusions from facts, they decried the facts as dangerous to religion and morals, and warned all good men to shut their eyes against them. But revelation has been illustrated and not injured by geology; and so will Christian truth in its objective reality be advanced, and not retarded, by a full recognition of all the phenomena which from age to age have clustered around it. It is in reference to this view of our duty with regard to conflicting opinions, that the motto of the title-page has been chosen :-" The Church listens to all words: but is not drawn away after them."

On these principles the selection has been made by me from the works of Ephraem, without any reference to the approval or dislike of a party; nor have I excluded or introduced a single hymn on theological grounds. I would say that no verse has received a colouring from my own sentiments, did I not know that as the ray passing through a coloured medium, borrows its hue, so the character of our mental impressions imperceptibly fashions the words we utter. My task has been a pleasant one; so much so as to leave a strong feeling of regret on its completion. May a portion, at least, of my own pleasurable emotions be experienced by my readers.

There are one or two minor features of the work to which this is the proper place to refer. My prospectus