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Anthem

The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia

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American Church Dictionary
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Charles Buck Dictionary
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1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
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• National Anthems or Hymns
McClintock and Strong's Bible Encyclopedia
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Originally the same as Antiphon; "anthem" being simply the Anglicized form of the word. Later, the terms "anthem" and "antiphon" came to stand for two different ideas. Anthem is any musical setting of words bearing upon the services of the day, other than a hymn or canticle, although the canticles are sometimes called anthems, as in the rubric before the Venite in the Morning Prayer. The rubric in the Evening Prayer provides for an anthem after the Collect beginning, "Lighten our darkness." Antiphon has come to mean a verse of Scripture which is sung wholly or in part before and after the Psalms or Canticles, and designed to strike the key-note of the teaching of the day.