a man well versed in literature, especially in Latin poetry, and himself one of the distinguished poets of his time, took measures for the emendation of the hymns in the Roman Breviary.  He was offended by the many defects in their metrical composition, and it is said that upwards of nine hundred and fifty faults in metre were corrected, which gave to Urban occasion to say that the Fathers had begun rather than completed the hymns.  These, as corrected, he caused to be inserted in the Breviary.  Grancolas proceeds to tell us that many complained of these changes, alleging that the primitive simplicity and piety which breathed in the hymns had been sacrificed to the niceties of poetry.  “Accessit Latinitas, et recessit pietas.”  The verse was neater, but the thought was chilled.

VI.  But the Roman Church by no means limits herself to this kind of invocation; prayers are addressed to saints, imploring them to hear, and, as of themselves, to grant the prayers of the faithful on earth, and to release them from the bands of sin, without any allusion to prayers to be made by those saints.  It grieves me to copy out the invocation made to St. Peter on the 18th of January, called the anniversary of the Chair of St. Peter at Rome; the words of our Blessed Lord himself, and of his beloved and inspired Apostle, seem to rise up in judgment against that prayer, and condemn it.  It {261} will be well to place that hymn addressed to St. Peter, side by side with the very word of God, and then ask, Can this prayer be safe?

1.  Now, O good Shepherd,             1.  Jesus saith, I am the good
merciful Peter,                      Shepherd.  John x. 11.

2.  Accept the prayers of us 2.  Whatsoever ye shall ask in
who supplicate, my name, that will I do.  That
                                     whatsoever ye shall ask the
                                     Father in my name, he may give
                                     it you.  John xiv. 13; xv. 16.

3.  And loose the bands of our        3.  The blood of Jesus Christ
sins, by the power committed to      his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
thee,                                1 John i. 7.

4.  By which thou shuttest 4.  These things saith he that heaven against all by a word, is holy, he that is true, he that and openest it[98]. openeth and no man shutteth, and
shutteth and no man openeth. 
Rev. iii. 7.

I am he that liveth and was dead, and am alive for evermore, and have the keys of hell and of death.  Rev. i. 18.

[Footnote 98:  This hymn is variously read.  In the edition of Mr. Husenbeth (H. 497.) it is:  “O Peter, blessed shepherd, of thy mercy receive the prayers of us who supplicate, and loose by thy word the bands of our sins, thou to whom is given the power of opening heaven to the earth, and of shutting it when open.”—­“Beate