If a person were praising the sun for its light, the more he lifted himself towards it in praising it, the more praiseworthy he would find it, because he would still discover more and more brightness in it. And if, as is very probable, it be the beauty of this light which provokes larks to sing, it is no marvel that, as they fly more loftily, they sing more clearly, equally raising their voice and their flight, till such time as hardly being able to sing any more, they begin to fall in voice and body, bringing down by little and little their flight and their voice. So, Theotimus, while by benevolence we are rising towards the divinity to intone and hear his praises, we see ever that he is above all praise. And finally, we learn that he cannot be praised according to his worth save only by himself, who alone can worthily match his sovereign goodness with sovereign praise. Hereupon we cry out: "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:" and that every one may know that it is not the glory of created praises which we wish God by this ejaculation, but the essential and eternal glory that is in himself, by himself, of himself, and which is himself, we add: "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen." As though we expressed a wish that God should be glorified for ever with the glory which he had before all creatures, in his infinite eternity and eternal infinity. For this we add the verse Gloria to every psalm and canticle, according to the ancient custom of the Eastern Church, which the great S. Jerome begged Pope S. Damasus to institute here in the Western; to protest, that all the praises of men and angels are too low to praise worthily the divine goodness, and that, to be worthily praised, itself must be its own glory, praise and benediction.
 

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