II. The Sacramentary of Gelasius (who was Pope of Rome 492 to 496) had provided much material which Gregory adopted. From this ancient source we have our _Second Collect, for Peace_ in the Morning Service; and the _Third Collect, for Grace_: the _Second Collect, for Peace_ in the Evening Service: the _Third Collect, for Aid_: the Collect _for the Clergy and People: Assist us mercifully_, at the end of the Communion Service: the Confirmation Collect, _Almighty and everlasting God_: a Collect in the Visitation Service: _O Lord we beseech thee_, in the Commination: and 21 of those which are placed with the Epistles and Gospels.
III. We go back still further for seven of the Sunday Collects, which are taken from the Sacramentary of Leo the Great (Pope of Rome, 440 to 461).
Thus, five-sixths of our Sunday Collects are from these three Service-books: although we do not purpose here to say much of the Collects used in the Communion Service, and ranking as the "First Collects" of Morning and Evening Prayer, we think it useful to note their derivation from the 5th and 6th centuries. Even those which are not so derived owe their form and manner to the same models.
This last remark applies to all the prayers which have the Collect form. We may suppose that, in the years which preceded Leo the Great, the Collects were being made. Perhaps the dignity of their { 137} diction grew by the survival of the simplest and best; by the falling away of superfluous words; and of words of effort: in any case the absence of small auxiliary words, in Latin sentences, contributed much to their tone of modest dependence on God, as well as to their poetic force.
To take an illustration, our Second Collect at Mattins is translated from the following Gelasian Collect: _Deus auctor pacis et amator, Quem nosse vivere, Cui servire regnare est, protege ab omnibus impugnationibus supplices tuos; ut qui defensione tuâ fidimus, nullius hostilitatis arma timeamus: Per &c_.
These 27 Latin words are equivalent to the 51 English words which we use. We do not, however, suggest that the tone has been altered in the translation. On the contrary, our Translators had so learnt the right tone of the old prayers, that they not only translated them and the tone, into a language of a very different sort; they also composed new prayers, in English, which rank with the old ones, and have the same great excellences. The Collects for Easter Eve, and Christmas Day, may be taken as good examples of this.