The Ladder Of Praise
The various parts of the Praise portion of the Service are not
repetitions of the same ideas. We {39} have first, in the Psalms, the
simpler thoughts about God. The First Lesson, taken from the Old
Testament, advances to higher or more complex thoughts in Praise of
Him. The next stage is reached in the Second Lesson; and the Apostles'
Creed crowns the whole. Thus a Ladder of praise is made whereby we
climb up to th
thought of God in His Perfect Being, which is the very
essence of Real Worship.
The first steps in this ladder are made by the use of the Book of
Psalms, which is divided into sections for these daily Services, and so
arranged that they supply different Psalms for 30 mornings and 30
evenings. If there are 31 days in the month, those for the 30th day
are repeated on the 31st: in February, the (29th and) 30th are omitted.
There are many words which originally meant a Song, but in course of
time have come to mean a special kind of song, or the music which
belongs to a song. Thus Cantus, a song, gives us Chant, the music
of a psalm verse; and Canticle, a psalm after a Lesson. psalmos, a
song, gives us psalm, a hymn, but not metrical, hymnos, a song,
gives us hymn, a song in metre.