The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-12-25

Matthew Mark Luke and John,
God bless the bed that lie on!
-Four corners to my bed,
-Four angels round me spread
One at the foot and one at the head,
And two to keep
My soul asleep.
And should die before I wake,
pray Thee Lord my soul to take,
For my Redeemer Jesus sake.
1t is evident that Professionalism gradually
rejected the saints and angels from the in
vocation, and reInodeled the lines into the
form that is now familiar to us. In the orig
inal form, or something like it, the White
PaternOSter appears in the hymnOlOgy of
every country Thus in provincial France it
this fashion:
Dieu Ia fait, je Ia dit
raj trouve quatre anges couchees mon lit
TT lie bon Dieu au millieu.
DE quot puis-je avoir peur?
lie bon Dieu est mon pere,
La Verge ma mere,
Les Saints mes freres,
Les Saintes mes soeurs.
lie bon Dieu ma dit
Leve tot, couche tot,
Ne Grains rien; lie feu Forage ct la tempete
Ne peuvent rien contre tot;
Saint Jean. Saint Mare, Saint Luc ct Saint
Matthew,
Cui met les ames en- repos.
Mettez lie mienne ST Dieu lie veut
A variant in the Loire appreximates more
closely to our own quatTain:
Jesus m endort
81 je trepasse, mande mon corps,
ST je trespasse. mande ame
ST je vie mande esprit.
Other variants may be found in other parts
of France, in Italy. in Germany and else
where.
DR.. Isaac Watts, the famous English hym-
nologist, evidently had the whole of the
White Paternoster in mind when he para
phrased it thus:
lay my body down to sleep.
Let angels guard my head.
And through the hours of darkness keep
Their watch around my bed.
With cheerful heart / close my eyes,
Since Thou wilt not remove,
And in the morning let me rise
Rejoicing in Thy love.
There seems also to be some faint rem
iniscence of the first part of the original
White Paternoster in the grewsome nursery
scng which many of us have sung in our
youth with a SILVER:
Ding! dong! passing bell
Fare thee well my mother.
Put in my chp-chip-chap
Beside my darling brother.
My coffin shall be black,
Six angels at my back.
Two to pray
And two to take my soul away.
When l dead and gone,
Then this little book will tell
That l am not forgotten
In the form in which we know the prayer
it would seem that it made its earliest print
ed appearance in the New England Primer,
along with such metrical masterpieces as:
Zaccheus, he
Did climb the tree
Our Lord to see.
In Adams fall
We sinned all.
To go back to the subject of bets upon
these familiar lines, one was thus record
ed in the Boston Globe in April, 1889: "A
few days ago some i've or six gentlemen
were talking together, when one of them
offered to bet with each of the others that
not one of them could write down correctly
the child's prayer beginning: Now, Lord, L
lay me down to sleep The offer having
been taken, each man wrote his version Of
the prayer, and each one failed to write it
correctly, as they all admitted when the
proposer of the bet submitted to them the
following version:
Now, Lord, lay me down to sleep,
l pray, Thee, Lord, my soul to keep,
And if 1 die before l wake
1 pray Thee, Lord my soul to take.
The Boston Globe neglected to give its au-
thority for this version, and probably no
incontrovertible authority exists. Yet there
is intrinsic probability that the Globe, or,
rather the ingenious gentleman whom it
the form printed in the New England Prim-
err. Certainly the use of the personal pro-
noun Thee expresses more immediate
presence than does the article the" and
not only a more immediate presence, but.
also, a more immediate recognition. 1t is
like the communion of Moses in the olden
time, talking with his Maker face to face"
Further, as a mere matter of good taste, it
is impossible to repeat these lines as heed
lessly, as rapidly. or 1t might be added,
as irreverently, when we use the pronoun
as we can when use the article We
seem compelled to hesitate for a moment
in order to give emphasis to the former.
1t may be added that little light Is
thrown upon the matter by the old Catholic
variant quoted above with it's line:
II pray Thee, Lord my soul to take"
Ia conclusion. the hint is not out of place
that the White Paternoster was originally
suggested by Psalm iv, s:
for Thou, o Lord, only makest me dwell III
safety"