and even poſſeſſes ſo ſtrange a gift of faſcination, a gift in which no other compoſition equals and but one other approaches it, that the very found of its words will allure him who is ignorant of their meaning.
This marvellous power cannot be meaſured and defined, yet a diſtinguished American clergyman has thus cloſely analyzed it: "Combining ſomewhat of the rhythm of claſſical Latin, with the rhymes of the mediæval Latin, treating of a theme full of awful ſublimity, and grouping together the moſt ſtartling imagery of Scripture as to the laſt Judgment, and throwing this into yet ſtronger relief by the barbaric ſimplicity of the ſtyle in which it is ſet, and adding to all these its full and trumpet-like cadences, and uniting with the impaſſioned feelings of the South, whence it emanated, the gravity of the North, whose ſeverer ſtyle it adopted."—Dr. W. R. Williams.
The Great Hymn has ever allured and eluded tranſlators. Its apparent artleſſneſs and ſimplicity indicate that it can be turned readily into another language, but its ſecret power refuſes to
