The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1899-01-06

Me sa4e from danger while sleep.
lay me down to rest me,
And pray the Lord to bless me:
If should sleep, no more to wake,
pray the Lord my soul to take.
A more modern variant that still survives
among the old Catholic families of rural
England and Scotland runs as follows:
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
God bless the bed that lie ohl
-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 asleepI
And should die before / wake,
| pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take,
For my Redeemer Jesus sake.
1t is evident that Professionalism gradu-
ally rejected the saints and angels from
the ilyoca ton, and remodeled the lines
into the form that is now familiar to
us. Iii the original form, or something
like it. the White Paternoster appears in
the hymnology Of every country. Thus,
in provincial France it comes down from
immemorial antiquity in this fashion:
Dien Ia fait, je la dit,
''ai IT. tronve quatre anses e0uchees mon
Eft Ia bon Dieu au milieu,
De quot puis-je ayOir peur2
lie bon Dieu est mon pere.
La Vierge ina mere;
Les Saiuls. ines fferes;
Les Sainte mes SOeufS,
lie bon Dieu ma dit
Leve tot, couche tot;
Ne Grains rien; lie feu, Forage ct la tenn
Ne peuvent rien contre tot;
Saint Jean: Saint Marc, Saint Luc ct Saint
Out met les ames en- repos
Mettez In mienne 81 Dieu lie veut.
A variant in the Loire approximate s
more closely to our own quatrain:
Jesus m'endort,
81 je tfepasSe, mande mon corps,
81 je trtspasse, mande mon anne,
81 JIG vie; mande mon esprit.
Other variants may be found in other
parts of France, in Italy, in Germany
''1 Dr.. isaac Watts the fainous English
hymnologist. evidently had the whole of
the White Patern6ster iii mild when he
paraphrased it thus:
+ lay MY body down to sleep,
Let angels guard my head,
And through the hours of darkness keep
With cheerful heart close my eyes,
Since thou wilt not remove,
And In the morning let me rise
e. Rejoicing in thy love.
There seems also to be some faint rem
lmscence of the first part of the original
White Paternoster in the grewsome nurs-
cry song which many of us have sung in
our youth with SILVER:
Ding! dong! passing bell;
Fare thee we'll my mother.
Put me in my chip-chlp-chap
Beside my darling brother.
Ny coffin shall be black,
kix angels at my back.
EW6 to Sing,
Two to pray,
And two to take my soul away.
When I am dead and gone,
And all my bones are rotten.
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 printed appearance in the New
England primer, along with such met
rical masterpieces as:
Did climb the tree
Our Lord to SEE.
In Adams fall
We sinned all.
10 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 five or six gen.
temen We're talking together, when one of
them offered to bet with each of the others
that not one Of them could write down cor
rectly the child's prayer, beginning, Now,
LORD, lay me down to Sleep The Of
fer having been taken, each man wrote
his, version of the prayer, and each one
failed to write, 1t correctly. as they all adj
mitteq when the proposer of the bets SUBJ
mitted to them the following version:
Now, Lord, lay me down to sleep.
pray, Thee, Lord, my soul to keep,
/ pray, fhee, Lord thy soul to take.
The Boston Globe neglected to give it's
authority for this version, and probably no
incontrovertible authority exists. Yet
there is intrinsic probability that the
Globe, or rather the ingenious gentleman
whom it quotes, was correct in his emen-
dation over the form printed in the New
England Primer. Certainly the use of
the personal pronoun "Thee' expresses
more immediate presence than does the ar
ticle "the,' and not only more imme
date presence, but, also, more imme-
date recognition. It is like the commun.
ion of Moses in the olden time, talking
with his Maker, "face to face" Further,
as mere matter of good taste, it is impos-
sible to repeat these lines as heedlessly,
as rapidly, or, it might be added as irrev-
erently;, when we use the pronoun as we
can when we 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 Catho-
lie variant quoted above with its line:
pray, Thee, Lord, my soul to take
In conclusion, the hint is not out of
place that the White Paternoster was
originally suggested by Psalm w., s:
Il will lay me down In peace, and sleep,
for Thou, o Lord only illakest me dwell
i'll safety. New York Herald.