All our ills expelling,
Every bliss implore.
Monstra te esse matrem,^505
Sumat per te precem,
Qui pro nobis natus
Tulit esse tuus.
Show thyself a mother,
Offer Him our sighs,
Who, for us Incarnate,
Did not thee despise.
Virgo singularis,
Inter omnes mitis,
Nos culpis solutos
Mites facet castos.
Virgin of all virgins!
To thy shelter take us—
Gentlest of the gentle!
Chaste and gentle make us.
Vitam praesta puram
Iter para tutum,
Ut videntes Iesum
Semper collaetemur.
Still as on we journey,
Help our weak endeavor,
Till with thee and Jesus,
We rejoice for ever.
Sit laus Deo Patri,
Summo Christo decus,
Spiritui Sancto
Honor trinus et unus.
Through the highest heaven
To the Almighty Three,
Father, Son, and Spirit,
One same glory be.
The Latin hymnody was only, for priests and monks, and those few who understood the
Latin language. The people listened to it as they do to the mass, and responded with the Kyrie
eleison, Christe eleison, which passed from the Greek church into the Western litanies. As the
modern languages of Europe developed themselves out of the Latin, and out of the Teutonic, a
popular poetry arose during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and afterwards received a
powerful impulse from the Reformation. Since that time the Protestant churches, especially in
Germany and England, have produced the richest hymnody, which speaks to the heart of the people(^505) The words of our Lord to John: "Behold thy mother" (John 19:27), were supposed to be spoken to all Christians.