CHAPTER I.
SACRED LYRICS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
In the midst of wars and rumours of wars, the strife of king and barons, and persistent efforts to subdue neighbouring countries, the mere effervescence of the life of the nation, let us think for a moment of that to which the poems I am about to present bear good witness--the true life of the people, growing quietly, slowly, unperceived--the leaven hid in the meal.

For what is the true life of a nation?
That, I answer, in its modes of thought, its manners and habits, which favours the growth within the individual of that kingdom of heaven for the sake only of which the kingdoms of earth exist.

The true life of the people, as distinguished from the nation, is simply the growth in its individuals of those eternal principles of truth, in proportion to whose power in them they take rank in the kingdom of heaven, the only kingdom that can endure, all others being but as the mimicries of children playing at government.
Little as they then knew of the relations of the wonderful story on which their faith was built, to everything human, the same truth was at work then which is now--poor as the recognition of these relations yet is--slowly setting men free.

In the hardest winter the roots are still alive in the frozen ground.
In the silence of the monastery, unnatural as that life was, germinated much of this deeper life.

As we must not judge of the life of the nation by its kings and mighty men, so we must not judge of the life in the Church by those who are called Rabbi.