Reli I C7I OIKS i v\ us l<^ FROM THE LIBRARY OF REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON, D. D. BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO THE LIBRARY OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY Religious ill TWO DISCOURSES THE FIRST BY HORACE BUSHNELL. THE SECOND BY 1/ THOMAS M. CLARK. PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. HARTFORD: F. A. BEOWX, PUBLISHER. 1852. m I > m Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by F. A. BROWN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Connecticut. PRESS OF CASE, TIFFANY fc CO. HARTFORD, CONN. ADVERTISEMENT. The authors of the two following discourses on religious music, having been requested to allow their publication together, have the more readily consented, that the dis- courses are found to have so little in common one with the other, and because they are alike willing to make any contribution, in their power, to the advancement of an art that is the common interest of all Christian assemblies. The first discourse was originally delivered in the North Church, Hartford, at the opening of a new organ, erected by the Messrs. Hook of Boston ; and afterwards, with some variations, before the Beethoven Society of Yale College, at their twenty-fifth anniversary. It is published as last delivered. The second discourse was delivered in Christ Church, Hartford, on the evening of Trinity Sunday, 1852, and is now published with some additions, which were not spoken from the pulpit. I. DISCOUR SE. A quarter of a century since, in the year 1826, at which time I was a member of this venerable university, the Beethoven Society was organized, having for its object the cultivation of music as an art, but more especially of sacred music. It was designed to be perpetual, though I am obliged to acknowledge that we had, at the time, but a slender faith in its perpetuity. Still it has continued for so long a time maintaining, I believe, a general advance in the noble art it was designed to foster, till now, at last, having become able to furnish a better pledge of its continuance, in the erection of a fine, classic-toned organ from one of the best builders in the world, it has seemed fit that the occasion of its opening should be signalized in some public man- ner. In this view, and I suppose principally be- cause I was connected with the society in its ori- gin — certainly not because I have any special com- petence for the task — I have been requested to offer 6 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. a discourse such as I may deem appropriate to the occasion. Accepting your invitation, I derive my subject from — 1 Cor. 14: 7. And EVEN THINGS without LIFE GIVING SOUND, WHETHER PIPE OK HARP, EXCEPT THEY GIVE A DIS- TINCTION IN THE BOUNDS, HOW SHALL IT liE KNOWN WHAT IS PIPED OR HARPED ? Every thing for a use and every thing in its place, is a rule, the apostle is saying, that holds in spirit- ual gifts and exercises, as in every thing else. If you speak with tongues, let it not be as making only strange noises, but let some one interpret, that the tongues may edify and not be sounds without a meaning. It will not do for Christians to be more unmeaning and idle in spiritual gifts, than even things without life themselves, the pipes and •harps and trumpets and drums of music ; for these, when they give a sound, give it with distinctions that have a meaning and a power, else they are nought to us. The war trumpet has so great sig- nificance and authority that, by the sounding of sig- nals, it commands the squadrons of armies, right and left, front and rear, to advance or to retreat ; but if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound or a false signal, if instead of sounding the charge it sounds the giving of alms, who shall prepare him- self for battle? Trumpets are not used in this way. Are voices and tongues to be less intelligent or sig- nificant than tubes of unconscious horn or metal ? DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 7 This reference of the apostle to instruments of music, you perceive, is a reference simply of illus- tration ; he is discoursing of spiritual gifts, not of music. But he touches, in the way of illustration, two points of so great religious interest, that I pro- pose, this evening, to make them topics of my dis- course. They are these, viz : the very wonderful fact that God has hidden powers of music in things without life ; and that when they are used, in right distinctions, or proprieties of sound, they discourse what ire know, what meets, interprets and works our feeling, as living and spiritual creatures. Of these I shall speak in their order, only endeavoring to confine the subject, in great part, to its religious import and applications. This world of outward being has a fixed relation to all the five senses of man and especially to the two nobler of these, the senses of sight and of sound; the senses of touch, taste and smell being applicable only to small portions of the material world and having as much less to do with the spir- itual economy of life, as an intellectual and relig- ious experience. The senses of sight and sound are preeminently conversable or social, therefore moral and religious in their connections. And then of these two, the sense of sight is more especially connected with the understanding or intellectual power, and the sense of sound with the feelings, emotions and affections. 8 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. God has made the world to be a fit medium for both — to use the dryest figure possible, a black- board for the mind and a sounding board for the heart. In this manner, it results that we have two languages, the language of thought and reason formed in words, which are the names principally of visible objects; and the language of feeling, which is made by tones of sound different in time, pitch, quality, inflection — in a word by music : which, for a longtime, was not a written language, but is now more exactly written than the other. In speech, or vocal utterance, both languages are blended ; words, which are mostly based in visible objects, and spatial relationships, being, when spo- ken, gifted with additional meanings and powers from the qualities and inflections of the voice, in- stinctively toned or modulated by the feeling of those who speak ; for it is not the words only of speech that have so great power, but quite as much the liv- ing notes of music in which they are spoken ; notes that vary with the quantity and quality — the vol- ume and depth and beauty, or the dearth, dullness, hollowness, coarseness of feeling in the speaker. Hence too the amazing difference of power in speak- ers, who may speak, or read, or recite the same words. One does it without the true distinction of sounds, the other with : even as our apostle himself observes, apart from any thought of becoming a critic or professor of elocution : There are, it may DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. V be, so many kinds of voices in the world and none of them is without signification. Hence also the very great difference you observe between the tones of utterance employed in a mere argument to the understanding or judgment of men, and those which are used, for example, in prayer addressed to God. We think nothing of it proba- bly, but nature teaches us to make a distinction of sounds unawares. Meantime the musician who is able to catch and write down the tones we use in both cases, will show that we speak, in the former case, more in full-tone intervals, and these coarsely measured ; in the latter more in half tones, and closer to the principle of musical notation. Just as we properly should, because we are not dealing here with mere notions of the understanding, but offering to God sentiments of penitence and love and worship. And yet, since preaching is so much a matter of address to the feelings or senti- ments of our religious nature, this kind of speak- ing will have a distinction of sound, compared with other forms of public address in the senate, or at the bar. And so far has this distinction prevailed in the Christian sense of some nations, as in Italy, and particularly in Wales, that preaching takes the form of a distinct, musical recitative. And on this account, it is said, that there is no tongue in the w r orld, in which preaching has so great advantages, or exercises a power so resistless, as in the Welch ; because it speaks in the music of love and sorrow. 10 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. and fitly interprets, in that manner, the divine pas- sion of the cross. You perceive, in these suggestions, how closely our spiritual nature, as creatures of feeling, is rela- ted to the element of sound, wanting this in its dis- tinctions for a language, as truly as it wants the language of words for intellectual discourse. Even as the poets, who are nature's best oracles, sing : Music ! O how taint, how weak. Language fades before thy spell ; Why should feeling ever speak. When thou eanst breathe her soul so well ? Accordingly, as we are wont to argue the invisi- ble things of God, even his eternal power and God- head, from the things that are seen, finding them all images of thought and vehicles of intelligence, so we have an argument for God more impressive, in one view, because the matter of it is so deep and mysterious, from the fact that a grand, harmonic, soul-interpreting law of music, pervades all the ob- jects of the material creation, and that things with- out life, all metals and woods and valleys and mountains and waters, are tempered with distinc- tions of sound, and toned to be a language to the feeling of the heart. It is as if God had made the world about us to be a grand organ of music, so that our feelings might have play in it, as our un- derstanding has in the light of the sun and the out- DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 11 ward colors and forms of things. What is called the musical scale, or octave, is fixed in the original appointments of sound, just as absolutely and defi- nitely as the colors of the rainbow or prism in the optical properties and laws of light. And the visi- ble objects of the world are not more certainly shaped and colored to us, under the exact laws of light and the prism, than they are tempered and toned, as objects audible, to give distinctions of sound by their vibrations, in the terms of the mu- sical octave. It is not simply that we hear the sea roar and the floods clap their hands in anthems of joy; it is not that we hear the low winds sigh, or the storms howl dolefully, or the ripples break peacefully on the shore, or the waters dripping sadly from the rock, or the thunders crashing in horrible majesty through the pavements of heaven ; not only do all the natural sounds we hear come to us in tones of music as interpreters of feeling, but there is hid in the secret temper and substance of . all matter a silent music, that only waits to sound, and become a voice of utterance to the otherwise unutterable feeling of our heart — a voice, if we will have it, of love and worship to the God of all. First there is a musical scale in the laws of the air itself, exactly answering to the musical sense or law of the soul. Next there is, in all substances, a temperament of quality related to both ; so that whatever kind of feeling there may be in a soul, war and defiance, festivity and joy, sad remem- 12 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. brance, remorse, pity, penitence, self-denial, love, ado- ration, may find some fit medium of sound in which to express itself. And. what is not less remarka- ble, connected with all these forms of substan- ces, there are mathematical laws of length and breadth, or definite, proportions of each, and reflect- ive angles, that are every way as exact as those which regulate the colors of the prism, the images of the mirror, or the telescopic light of astronomic worlds — mathematics for the heart as truly as for the head. Accordingly we find, so close is the hidden music of substances to the sympathy and feeling of man, that he begins, at once, instinctively, to try them by his voice and feeling, and learn what distinctions of sound they will make. And so instruments of music begin to be invented and used, even before the flood ; as early indeed as the keeping of herds and cattle and the comforts of the nomadic life are introduced. Jabal is the " father" of these, his brother Jubal of the other ; that is, " of the harp and the organ ;" one a stringed instrument, and the other, not an organ in our modern sense of the term, but a pandean or shepherd's pipe, the principle of which is the same. From that time to the present the silent music or musical property of things without life, has been more and more fully opened to dis- covery, till at last we find that every known sub- stance, wood, shell, horn, glass, copper, iron, steel, brills, silver, strings and skins and pasteboard DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 13 and even India rubber, wait to be voices of feeling and sing the passions of the human spirit. Nay, even the very stones of the field have their notes, hid within them, and are ready to break out in song. For we hear that the stroke of flints upon each other has been actually managed so as to make an instrument of music and discourse in strains of liv- ing melody — suggesting the probable fact that the mysterious laws of crystallization have a secret affiance with the powers of music, and so with the passions of the human heart. There's music in the sighing of a reed, There's music in the gushing of a rill, There's music in all things, if men had ears, Their earth is but an echo of the spheres. Neither can it be said that all these substances without life have simply a power to make sounds or aerial vibrations, taking advantage of which fact we ourselves arrange them so as to make sounds of a given pitch, and that so the music they yield is really of man alone. For though it be true that a given shape and arrangement is necessary to the effect, the laws of that arrangement and of mu- sical rhythm are first established^in souls and in the air as related to souls, and then, besides, all these substances without life are so constructed as to make distinctions of sound as to quality, wholly apart from distinctions of pitch, and it is the mys- terious quality of sounds that makes them interpre- 2 14 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. ters of human feeling, quite as much as their varie- ties of pitch. Hence it is found, that in instru- ments of wood, the different woods have all distinct qualities of sound, and that in some of them only a given kind of wood, carefully selected, will produce the quality of sound most desired in that particular instrument. Thus, down to the time of David, the harp had been made of the berosh, or cedar wood. But in Solomon's time, it was found that the aiming or algum wood gave a better quality of sound, and all the harps of the choir were accordingly made of it. So it is affirmed that the Cremona viol has its rank of estimation, as a precious instrument, from the singular and musically soul-like quality of the wood selected for its construction. It is also found that the different woods, in friction upon each other, scream in distinct qualities of sound, and a key- board instrument has been constructed on this prin- ciple of friction, that discourses in the woods, by vibrations that answer to the sentiments of souls. Even as that most wonderful organ, the human throat, is gifted with a power to utter all the feeling of a soul, by distinctions of sound, so there is a throat of utterance in all created substance voiced to serve its uses, tfnd prepared by some mysterious quality of sound, to be its interpreter. It cannot therefore be said that music is a human creation and, as far as the substances of the world are concerned, a mere accident. As well can it be said that man creates the colors of the prism, and DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 15 that they are not in the properties of the light, be- cause he shapes the prism by his own mechanical art. Or if still we doubt, if it seems incredible that the soul of music is in the heart of all created being, then the laws of harmony themselves shall answer, one string vibrating to another, when it is not struck itself, and uttering its voice of concord simply be- cause the concord is in it and it feels the pulses on the air to which it cannot be silent. Nay the solid mountains and their giant masses of rock shall an- swer ; catching, as they will, the bray of horns, or the stunning blast of cannon, rolling it across from one top to another in reverberating pulses, till it falls into bars of musical rhythm and chimes and caden-* ces of silver melody. I have heard some fine mu- sic, as men are wont to speak, the play of orches- tras, the anthems of choirs, the voices of song that moved admiring nations. But in the lofty passes of the Alps, I heard a music overhead from God's cloudy orchestra, the giant peaks of rock and ice, curtained in by the driving mist and only dimly visible, athwart the sky, through its folds, such as mocks all sounds our lower worlds of art can ever hope to raise. I stood (excuse the simplicity) call- ing to them, in the loudest shouts I could raise, even till my power was spent, and listening in compul- sory trance to their reply. I heard them roll it up through their cloudy worlds of snow, sifting out the harsh qualities that were tearing in it as demon screams of sin, holding on upon it as if it were a 16 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. hymn they were fining to the ear of the great Crea- tor, and sending it round and round in long redu- plications of sweetness, minute after minute, till finally receding and rising, it trembled, as it were? among the quick gratulations of angels, and fell into the silence of the pure empyrean. I had never any conception before of what is meant by quality in sound. There was more power upon the soul, in one of those simple notes, than I ever expect to feel from any thing called music below, or ever can feel till I hear them again in the choirs of the an- gelic world. I had never such a sense of purity, or of what a simple sound may tell of purity, by its own pure quality ; and I could not but say, O my God teach me this! Be this in me forever! And I can truly affirm that the experience of that hour has consciously made me better able to think of God ever since — better able to worship. All other sounds are gone, the sounds of yesterday heard in the si- lence of enchanted multitudes are gone ; but that is with me still and I hope will never cease to ring in my spirit, till I go down to the slumber of silence itself. What I here say may probably enough seem ex- travagant. That such a power of music dwells in the ragged rocks and granite masses of the world may be inconceivable. And yet if this visible crea- tion of matter is made for the habitation of souls, made for human hearts as well as for human under- DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 17 standings, why should not the language of the heart and the rhythm of the heart's feeling be in it. I am a little apprehensive that in these illustra- tions I may have seemed to some of you to be so much occupied with properties of matter, as to be leaving the domain of religion. To such as think it nothing to religion that God has made the world for it and hid a language in all fibres, grains and masses of substance discoursing of love and pure feeling and adoring joy, it doubtless will. But to me there is nothing in any of the arguments for God from things visible, that seems to prove as much or have as deep a meaning as this from things audible. It transforms the world itself into a tem- ple of worship and fills it with voices waiting to utter and kindle a celestial love in all that live. This conviction, I think, will be strengthened as we go on to speak of the second topic proposed, viz : of those distinctions or proprieties of sound by which it may be made to serve most effectively the purpose of God in its appointment as an instrument of religion. I say the purpose of God in its ap- pointment, for we have it by a double appointment, that which fills the material creation with it as a residence or temple of religion, and that which makes it, by express direction, an ordinance of wor- ship to men. How carefully this part of the wor- ship was ordered in the temple service of Israel, is known to every reader of the ancient scriptures ; 9* 13 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. how exactly also the choirs of singers and of play- ers on instruments were arranged, one to answer to another in the deep wail of grief or penitence, the soft response of love, the lively sweep of festive gladness, or all to flow together in choral multitudes of praise that might even shake the rock of Zion itself. And this divine service of music was ordered by God himself through his own prophet : And he set the Levites in the house of God, with cymbals and psalteries and harps, according to the command- ment of David, and of Gad, the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet ; for so was the commandment of God by his prophets. And the Levites and the priests praised the Lord, day by day, singing with loud instruments unto the Lord. And to this divine ordinance of song it is that David calls, when he says, offering to his nation the hymns he has written for their anthems of praise : " O come let us sing unto the Lord, let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.'' " Sing unto the Lord with a harp and the voice of a psalm. With trumpets and sound of cornet, make a joyful noise before the Lord the king." Or perhaps you may hear him alone there in the temple weeping out his shame and sorrow, in tears of sound, and crying to his harp, " Have mercy upon me, O God ! according to thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions." DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 19 And if any one wishes to know what power there may be in music, as an instrument of religion, let him ask what effect the songs of this one singer have had, melted into men's hearts age after age by music, and made in that manner to be their consecrated and customary expressions of worship. Suppose, instead, he had written a treatise of theol- ogy and given it to the head of mankind : what tenth part of power would he thus have exerted over the race ? And you will remember that these compositions of his have their life in the principles of music. Without this they would not have been preserved, without this they could not have been set as they are in the depths of human feeling, and? what is more, they are in fact musical constructions ; for all poetry is deep in the rhythmic power of music. Indeed you may see as you read these composi- tions, line answering to line, the balancing and res- ponding of choirs, and hear their confluence in the repetitions of the chorus — nay, you may almost hear the ring of the cymbal, the blast of the cornet and the wail of the harp. Besides it is a fact that the inspirations of proph- ets and seers, and probably those of David himself, were connected as improvisings with religious mu- sic. Thus Elisha said, bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him. So also we read that when Saul was seized with the spirit of prophecy, it was upon meeting a school of the proph- 20 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. ets coming down a hill with a psaltery and a tabret and a pipe and a harp before them — a fact in which we see that prophetic vision itself, in the schools of the prophets, was a state of higher consciousness opened and kindled by the elevations of religious music. Nor is this any thing remarkable, if we recognize the fact that God has made the substan- ces of the world to crystallize and grow under laws of music ; so that strings and tubes of metal and wood and voices opening in sound, shall speak a panharmonic language for whatever feeling strug- gles in the depths of the human bosom. Indeed, what human being, I may almost say, though it were better to say, what soul not closed against God by a life of sin, could hear the 24th Psalm properly delivered, in the grand choir of the temple service^ without beginning to feel himself raised above him- self, as if some power of prophecy were in him ? So great, so mysteriously powerful is the sway of music over the soul. We see this in things not re- ligious. Many a song like the Marseilles Hymn has revolutionized an empire, or supported even for ages the nationality of a people. And what is it but the martial beat of music, acting on the yielding and thin element of common air, that lifts every foot of an army and rolls it onward with the precision of mechanism and the force of destiny through the fiery hail of death. Or what is it now that gives to a single person, a woman, greater power of im- pression over the feeling of mankind, power to sway DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 21 more deeply the sense of whole nations, than any living man possesses, whether statesman or poten- tate, however distinguished by talent, however ab- solute in dominion. It is in facts like these that we are to see what sway God designs to exert in hu- man bosoms, through the medium of this mysteri- ous force, this language of the heart, which he has appointed and set in a connection so immediate with our religious nature. But, in order to the high result intended, the mu- sic of religion must be religious. There must be a distinction of sounds. As this language is given for the heart, it becomes a first principle that it must be of the heart, else it is an unknown tongue. And so true is this, that nothing can really fulfill the idea of religious music, which is not the breath- ing of true love and worship. Even instruments without life, will not speak the true notes of power, unless the touch of faith is on them, and the breath of holy feeling is in them — how much less the voice itself, whose very qualities of sound are inevitably toned by the secret feeling of the spirit. We speak of music as a science, which in one view it is. It is science in the arrangement, but in the execution more. The understanding or head can utter no proper music, least of all religious mu- sic. The notes may be sounded in time and pitch and power, and yet the music will not be there. It might as well be imagined that a man can be an eloquent speaker, because he has the science of 22 DISCOURSES OX RELIGIOUS MUSIC. speaking and gesture in his head, with all manner of facts, images and arguments at command, as that one can pour out the true inspirations of wor- ship before God, because he knows the gamut of music and the fingering of its instruments. A cer- tain counterfeit may be made in this manner, but it will be a counterfeit — an uncertain sound that has not the true distinctions. You may say, it is well, it is beautiful music, but for some reason it will not find you. Never will it be the proper language of feeling to the heart, till the spirit of adoration is in it. There will be a false quality in the sounds, something which says, ; - this is execution/' some token of amrjition, or affectation, or eagerness of impression ; the solemnity will be hollow, the soft- ness will be flat, the loudness a strain of the flesh. By one sign or another, what is done out of mere science will reveal its weakness and falsity. The true power of worship will be felt only as the true life of worship in the heart flows out through all notes and movements, and bathes the music in dews of heavenly moisture. AVhen the soul is simple and God is templed in the inmost recesses of its feeling, then is there a quality in the voice and the touch, that reveals and communicates the inspired joy of the heart. And this is power. Even the most simple inartistic performance, full of love to God and the unaffected devotion of worship, will carry a more profound impression, one of higher sublimity, than the highest feats of execution and DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 23 the finest strains of amateur propriety, unkindled by the heavenly fire. There is great reason to suspect that the office of a choir and of choral music is badly conceived in our modern assemblies of worship. The true idea of Christian music involves what no mere drill or teaching can reach ; a choral consciousness, inward elevations, rhythmic sweeps of feeling, as if the music were using the choir and not they performing the music. Poetry can as well be written without in- spiration, as any song of the heart's faith or feeling sung by the will and the written concert of the book. It requires something back of the voice, which is higher in quality, a feeling chastened, softened, raised, purified, glorified, and this beating as a com- mon pulse, a common inspiration, shall I say, in the whole movement. To imagine that music of any kind can have its genuine power, without the feel- ing or above the feeling, is absurd. It supposes that music may be good as a lie — good as an ex- pression when there is nothing to be expressed. Would that a choir could once be heard again on earth, like that of the school of the prophets ; a choir that, with all the advantages of modern sci- ence, and the more perfect instruments of modern invention, could improvise, in its feeling, the sub- ject and sentiment of its song ; pouring out a world's anthem — voices of life and things without life giving sound — to Him that made them all and hid in their mysterious mold powers of harmony to 24 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. feel his touch and utter his praise. O the deep senses of God and the soul and the soul's yearnings after God, that might be kindled thus and in awful joy expressed — kindled also as certainly as they are expressed in the listening multitudes who hear. This, at least, is the true idea of Christian music ; It is the music of the Spirit. It is not a something given secundem artem, a touch of this and a flourish of that, or an indefinite piping and harping which no one can tell whether it be this or that, but it is the voice of truth, love, duty, worship ; a dis- coursing of heaven in the language of the heart. It streams into feeling as it streams out of feeling, and is to the spirit a holy baptism of sound. We read the singular'history of David, when he takes his harp to comfort Saul and soothe his mad- dened brain, and perhaps, we say it is impossible. But we do not conceive the truth. It would have been impossible, with so much wood and so many strings, if that were all, to accomplish any such re- sult. The best overture most artistically played? would have been powerless. But David is not here as an amateur player, he is here in a conscious- ness glorified by holy trust, playing forth his prayer of healing, and his love is in the wood and the strings, and the spirit of God is sweeping as a gale through both him and them. Hence the power. In drawing this subject to a conclusion, I can- not forbear to say a few words in regard to the very DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 25 intimate connection of the sense of music and the cultivation of that sense with the highest powers of genius and literary excellence. The talent of music, though in one view not intellectual, is yet in another even the more divinely intelligent. The language of the soul's feeling we have seen, is in it, and nothing had ever yet any great power over man that was divorced from feeling. This divine prin- ciple of music breaks into the style of every good writer, every powerful speaker, and beats in rhyth- mic life in his periods. Even if he is rough and fierce, as he may be and as true genius often is, it will yet be the roughness of an inspired movement ; a wizard storm of sounds that rage in melody, not the dead jolting of cadences that have no inner life back of the wind-force that utters them. The talent of music is the possibility, in fact, of rhythm, of inspiration, and of all poetic life. A man may plod, plot, speculate and sneer, who has no fibred harp of music hid in his feeling ; he may be a quali- fied atheist, usurer, demagogue, dogmatist or hang- man ; but he cannot be one that stirs men's blood divinely, whether in song or in speech, and is very little like to be much of a Christian. Is there a heart that music cannot melt ? Alas ! how rugged is that heart forlorn. Is there who ne'er those mystic transports felt Of solitude and melancholy born ? He needs not woo the muse, he is her scorn. 3 26 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. The sophist robe of cobweb he shall twine, Mope o'er the schoolman's peevish page, or mourn And delve for life in mammon's dirty mine, Sneak with the scoundrel fox, or grunt with glutton swine. In these rather violent terms of the poet Beattie we have nevertheless a very certain truth, and one that with proper allowance may be said to hold generally. The finest fibre of soul and the highest inspiration of feeling can be formed only in some con- nection more or less intimate with a musical suscepti- bility and nurture. Hence it is the more remarkable that our universities make so little of music. They labor at the rainbow and neglect the deeper mystery of the musical octave. They teach the laws of acous- tics, but the laws of music as related to what is deep- est and finest in the soul's feeling, they do not at- tempt. They investigate the crystallization of a salt, but these wondrous and mysterious crystallizations of the air, in the notes of music, they commonly pass by ; greatly to the loss, it seems to me, of those who are most concerned to receive what most pertains to the culture of the imagination and the heart. But I must not occupy too much time with points that are separated from the religious interests of my subject. Some persons have a very decided pre- judice against instruments of music, and even fancy that, on that account, they are more spiritual and more strictly Christian in their views of religion. Such a prejudice is greatly hurtful to themselves, because it takes them off in a kind of schism,' from DISCOURSES ON RELIGWOUS MUSIC. 27 this part of the worship, and a share in its benefits. Can they imagine that they are borne out in their prejudice by the Scripture ; or have they never read the Psalms of David ? What instrument was there which he did not bring into the temple and command to open its voice unto God? Even the trumpets, after a week's battle, must come and change their note to an anthem of victory. Imagine this great singer of Israel and the vast company of the Levites hearing, for the first time, in the temple of God, a newly invented organ, such as the instru- ment now perfected by modern art, such as the beautiful instrument just now erected for your so- ciety. What emotions roll over his soul and the souls of his great choir of performers. No breath will blow ! No hand will strike the strings ! All the instruments and voices are dumb ! He rises, when the experiment is over and goes forth saying in himself, " I will alter now my Psalms, I will say no more of trumpets and cornets, I will call no more for psalteries, and instruments of ten strings. Pro- fane all these and trivial ! But this is the instru- ment of God!" And so, in fact, it now is. The grandest of all instruments, it is, as it should be, the instrument of religion. Profane uses cannot han- dle it. It will not go to the battle, nor the dance, nor the serenade ; for it is the holy Nazarite and cannot leave the courts of the Lord. What room is there for a reasonable prejudice against such an instrument? And if it be true, as I have been 28 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. showing, that God has voiced the dead substances of the world to sing his praise, if he has made the round earth and all things in it to be an organ of sound about us, what should more delight us than to bring into concert with our voices an instrument that is the type of an appointment so sublime ? A true Christian feeling, it seems to me, will ever turn thus to things without life giving sound, and hail their assistance in the praise of God ; finding half the sublimity of praise in the concert of the inani- mate works of the Almighty Creator. It will even cry with David to the fire and the hail, snow and vapors, stormy wind fulfilling his word, mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, to join their voice with his, and praise the Lord. And what harm will it be if they join him in the shape of an organ ? Let me also suggest, in this connection, the very great importance of the cultivation of religious mu- sic. Every family should be trained in it ; every Sunday or common school should have it as one of its exercises. The Moravians have it as a kind of ordinance of grace for their children ; not without reason, for the powers of feeling and imagination, and the sense of spiritual realities, are developed as much by a training of childhood in religious music, as by any other means. We complain that choirs and organs take the music to themselves, in our churches, and that nothing is left to the people, but to hear their undistinguishable piping, which no one DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 29 else can join, or follow, or interpret. This must al- ways be the complaint, till the congregations them- selves have exercise enough in singing to make the performance theirs. As soon as they are able to throw in masses of sound that are not barbarous but Christian, and have a right enjoyment of their feeling in it, they will have the tunes and the style of the exercise in their own way, not before. En- tering one day, the great church of Jesus in Rome, when ail the vast area of the pavement was covered with worshipers on their knees, chanting in full voice, led by the organ, their confession of penitence and praise to God, I was impressed, as never before, with the essential sublimity of this rite of worship, and I could not but wish that our people were trained to a similar exercise. The more sorrowful is it that in our present defect of culture, there are so many voices which are more incapable of the right distinctions of sound than things without life, and which, when they attempt to sing, contribute more to the feeling of woe than of praise. I cannot close without carrying your thoughts forward, a n:oment, to the scenes of the future life. It is sometimes made a question, how far the feli- city of the blessed hereafter will consist in this par- ticular exercise of worship. I allude not here to the low-minded and barbarous sneers of infidels, scoff- ing at the Christian heaven as a paradise of perpet- ual psalm, but to the serious doubts of Christian interpreters. It is not to be denied, as many of 30 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. them suggest, that our current representations of this subject are derived, in great part, if not wholly, from the Apocalypse or book of Revelation. Nei- ther can it be denied that the anthems of praise heard in heaven by the seer of Patmos, are visional anthems, as the beasts and four and twenty elders are visional beings — representations above that her- ald and connect with scenes of history to come on earth. And yet they encourage, it seems to me, the common impression, even if they do not reveal what is actually transacted in the world of the glo- rified. This, at least, we know, that souls are organs still of feeling, and if they have great feeling to express, it will be strange if they have not the language of feeling too. As to what we call sound in our grosser and more material sense, we of course know nothing of it as of the spiritual body itself And yet there may be and is like to be a finer me- dium of sound, a more spiritual music, which the music of the earth only images or represents, just as there is to be a finer organ of body, which our grosser body represents. And then, again, what have we in the fact that a law of music penetrates and fills this whole empire of being, making the known universe itself an organ voiced for the ex- pression of the heart, but a prophecy given, or a plain inference, that as hearts are eternal, so all realms of God to which the blessed go, are forever to thrill in ecstacies of sound. Besides, what is the joy of the glorified, but a joy of society ; that is, of DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 31 feeling expressed, society in pure and great feeling, immediate, spontaneous, universal ; propagated, of course, by some fit medium. By what other unless by voices of feeling whose speech is music, voices angelically tempered by the inward love and purity, flowing into choirs of harmony and improvised an- thems that as waves of sound, are but the ocean beat and swell of bosoms conscious of God. And I heard the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God om- nipotent reigneth. Many waters — mighty thun- derings — chorus of sea and air, deep and wide as both ! in the clearness of purity, the fullness of love, the tremendous emphasis of righteousness swearing its Amen to God and his judgments. II. DISCOURSE. Psalm cl. 3, 4, 5. Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet: Praise Him with the psaltery and harp: Praise Him with the timbrel and dance: praise hlm with stringed instru- ments and organs i praise hlm upon the loud cymbals ! praise Him upon the high-sounding cymbals. Praise is the highest act of worship. It calls into exercise the loftiest class of emotions. It is an expression of gratitude, confidence, and solemn veneration. There is less of self-regard in this part of our religious services, a more direct going forth of the soul towards God, than in any other. There are certain states of mind, in which it is hard for us to sing praises. The psaltery and the high-sound- ing cymbal do not express the prevailing emotion of our hearts. " Out of the deep we cry unto the Lord." The heavy atmosphere that we breathe is not elastic enough to give a free vibration. If we strike the note of joy, it dies off into a sob and a wail. But this is only when we are shut up within the narrow range of our own personal wants and 34 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. woes, or when the sense of personal ill-desert un- tunes the harmonies of the soul. All emotions and feelings have their peculiar lan- guage : despair utters itself in moans of agony, or- dinary sorrow relieves itself in sighs, and when the heart is glad, we are impelled "to sing, rejoice and give thanks." We pray with the common articu- lations of speech ; but, when we would "praise God in the sanctuary," we start to our feet, and shape our words to the sweet tones and cadences of music. We do this, because such is the law of our nature ; beyond this we can give no explana- tion. Why it is, that one sound is musical, and another unmusical; that one combination of notes is concordant, and another discordant; that the minor key awakens tender thoughts, while the ma- jor is jubilant; we cannot tell. We can resolve music into a complete science ; we can analyze the wonderful combination of sound, which so entran- ces us, into its primary elements ; we can adjust the scale with mathematical nicety and distinguish all its fractional intervals ; but we have not detected the secret of its magic power. We feel that different emotions are excited by different movements in music, and by the tones of different instruments ; the clangor of the drum, the peal of the trumpet, the crash of the cymbal, fire the blood and brace the nerves and stir the soul to heroic deeds; the liquid breathings of the flute calm the fevered brain and are associated with the twilight and the stars ; the rapid DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 35 tinkling of the wires provokes to merriment ; the slow tolling of the bell strikes against the heart with the pulsation of agony ; the full, majestic roll of the organ lifts us above the world and makes all human and earthly things to be absorbed in the divine. There is no emotion that is not capable of being expressed in music. But it naturally denotes joy and triumph, and it indicates a refinement upon its normal state to make it expressive of tender and melancholy feelings. The character of the earliest musical instruments illustrates this ; they were gen- erally pulsatile, or instruments of percussion, which are incapable of exciting or expressing any of the more delicate emotions. Although the first use of music was religious, it was soon perverted, especially among the Greeks, to the purposes of licentiousness, sensualizing and debasing the national character ; and yet it may be observed, that no musical note in itself ever ex- presses or suggests an inhuman or a debasing thought. The sound may become associated with unholy words and occasions, and from this contact acquire a sort of taint ; but the language of music itself is always pure and elevating. The two con- ditions of musical expression are melody and har- mony ; and these are typical of the loftiest state of the soul and the most advanced period of society. Discord is the emblem of evil: concord is the very essential principle of good. 36 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. Music, considered as a science, opens a wonder- ful field of study. It is, in every particular, subject to the most rigid and subtle law; and it sustains certain strange analogies to other departments of nature. As there are but seven primary colors, so there are but seven primary notes of music. As certain combinations of the prismatic hues produce darkness, so certain combinations of sound nullify each other and produce silence. It has long been known that music was occasioned by aerial vibra- tions ; and now it is a prevailing opinion that light and heat and magnetism are also the effect of vi- bration. All motion has the necessary effect to pro- duce sound, provided that it takes place in an elas- tic medium ; although the motion may be so slow, that the vibration produces no impression upon our senses. If these senses were more acute, we might distinguish sounds, where now all is stillness. It was a magnificent conception, that of the morning stars singing together, at the moment of creation : all these planets and stars and suns, as they revolve in their mighty orbits, with varying but harmonious speed, giving out one great anthem, which fills the universe with melody ! And this poetical concep- tion of the ancients, science would now indicate to be an actual truth : for it is demonstrated that there is no vacuum in space : beyond the grosser atmos- phere which we breathe, there lies what is sometimes termed a luminiferous ether, the most refined and elastic of all substances, the medium of light and DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 37 heat and attraction; and why not, therefore, of sound ? If so, the rushing of these worlds through space, resolves the universe into one great instru- ment of music : " Forever singing as they shine, The hand that made us is divine." Music is older than man. Before an articulate word was ever spoken here, before a man was found to till the earth, from morning till evening, the air was vocal with melody. The ocean, breaking on the solitary shore of continents ; the cataract, pour- ing its tremendous volume over the precipice ; the thunder, ever and anon rending the dark heavens ; the winds, sighing among the pines, eddying down in the deep valleys, beating against the high gla- ciers ; mingled their deep base with the fluting of the sweet-voiced bird, the tinkling of the pebbly brook, the soft flow of the river, the bubbling of the fountain, the light pattering of the rain upon the leaves, the wild hum of countless insects, the lowing of the herds, and all those other minor strains of nature, the ringing of the flower-bells, the vibra- tion of the crystalline rock, the spiritual melody of that electric power that encircles the earth ; which only God and the angels can hear. Nature was thus full of music, before man was made. And now that he exists, music is as natural to him as speech. Every nation has something, 4 38 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. which it calls music. But it is only where the race has become highly cultivated, that the scientific laws of harmony have been detected, and the prac- tice of the art been carried to any high degree of advancement. When we contrast the loftiest ef- forts of modern music with the barren and monot- onous strains in which our barbaric fathers de- lighted, it is difficult to feel that there is any anal- ogy between the grandeur of the one and the pue- rile jingling of the other; but let us remember, it is possible that a future age may draw a like compar- ison between our present performances and the transcendent melodies in which they will luxuriate. ' For music, above every other art, seems to be capa- ble of unlimited advance. We can conceive of perfect sculpture, but not of perfect music. What- ever art is purely imitative, must have a limit ; but music is not imitative : it is, in its higher forms, the expression of a thought, and it is strangely, in* comprehensively, powerfully suggestive of thought. Where there are no words used, it suggests words to the mind, or rather, the material out of which words are made ; it enkindles emotions, which no language can stir. Why it is, we cannot tell ; but we find it to be the fact that certain qualities and combinations of sound open the flood-gate of mem- ory, revive what was long forgotten, excite the deep- est thought, make the blood tingle, lift the soul out of the body, carry it above the clouds, and bring us close to the great throne of the Almighty. DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 39 And yet, some will ask, what is the use of music ? They might as well ask, what is the use of color, or of any thing which makes the world a glory and a beauty? Why was not the landscape clothed in drab ; and the evening cloud always of a leaden hue ? Why are there any flowers in the fields, or birds in the air with crimson plumage? Why is the shell of the beetle so radiant with glory ? Why is there so much of magnificence in nature, even where the eye of man never penetrates ? Gorgeous grottoes hidden in the earth ; fragrance and splendor in the solitary wilderness; things animate and in- animate in the bottom of the sea, exquisite in form and glistening in gold and vermilion ? It should be a part of our religion to appreciate the beautiful, and that religion which separates itself from these symbols of God, is so far forth a defective and a false religion. Whatever tends to elevate man, to unsensualize him, to lift him out of the domain of mere appetite, to take him away from himself, and give him grand emotions, high aspirations, good thoughts ; whatever makes him feel — what I fear very many do not feel — that he is a soul and not a body, created for something more than to make money and feed himself and become a man of note in society ; whatever impresses him with the feeling that he is immortal, that he cannot die, that he has capacities which ten thousand worlds like this could never fill, powers which assimilate him with the angels, with the sons of God on high, with God 40 DISCOURSES OX RELIGIOUS MUSIC. Himself ; whatever does this belongs to religion, and cannot be despised, without casting contempt upon the Author of all things. And this is done by music : it refines, elevates, spiritualizes, widens the range of vision, and binds this existence to the eternal. For music will out- last speech. Articulate language may be needed no longer after we have done with the body ; but the essential elements of musical expression are eternal. Language is arbitrary and therefore tem- porary : music is the product of fixed laws, and therefore must be permanent. Even in our present state, we find that it can express more than words ; and the fact that it is composed, before it is ren- dered, and that one skilled in music may read this composition with pleasure, without hearing an au- dible sound, shows that it is essentially independ- ent of instruments and voices. I say then, here we have an argument for immortality; for here is a power, belonging to us, which is independent of the body; you can sing without the mouth and hear without the ear and have music in your soul, when there is no movement in the air ; and the melody may therefore continue and grow more full and sweet and entrancing, after this earthly instrument has turned to dust ! We shall now briefly sketch the history of music, as a sacred art, in its connection with the Jewish and the Christian church. Vocal music is probably coeval with the history of our race. Nature would DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 41 dictate song, as early as speech. Instrumental mu- sic, in some rude form, has nearly the same anti- quity. In the seventh generation from Adam, we read of one as distinguished among performers upon the harp and organ. Five hundred and fifty years after the deluge, we find both vocal and instrumen- tal music in use ; for Laban then reproaches Jacob because he did not announce his departure from the house, and thus be sent away "with mirth, and with songs, with tabret and with harp." The Hebrews derived their ideas of music from. Egypt; a country to which they were indebted for many other things besides the stern discipline of servitude. The Egyptians, who were the pioneers of ancient civilization, were probably the first peo- ple who gave to music any thing like a scientific form. It is to the Egyptian Mercury, or Thoth, that the invention of the three-stringed lyre is attrib- uted. The single flute, called Photinx, is also as- cribed to this people. Before these inventions, it is supposed that music consisted in little more than a mere metrical movement. That the Hebrews were accustomed to the per- formance of music in Egypt appears from the fact, that, on the very morning after their escape, Moses and the children of Israel sung together a song of thanksgiving; Miriam, the prophetess, w r ith the women, responding to the anthem, with timbrels in their hands. If the music corresponded with the 4* 42 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. magnificent diction of the song, the performance must have been transcendently sublime. On several occasions during the wandering of the Jews in the wilderness, there are references to the use of music; and we read that Moses caused silver trumpets to be made, by the notes of which the movements of the camp were regulated. It was not, however, until they were quietly set- tled in Judea, that this part of Jewish worship was carefully cultivated. The reign of David was the era of Jewish music. This monarch introduced a variety of new instruments, composed both poetry and music, and took the lead in its performance. He divided the Levites into twenty-four courses, as- signing to each its proper place in the musical ser- vice ; and these twenty-four bands, each with its own leader, and these in their turn subordinate to three chiefs, served in the worship by turns ; and this constituted their whole employment. Towards the close of his reign, David had trained nearly three hundred vocal, and four thousand instrumental performers. His successor in the throne enlarged this force ; and at the completion of the temple, not only intro- duced all the instruments of David, but added many others of a richer character. The art, amongst the Jews, was now at its height; and the effect produ- ced upon the multitude must have been intensely grand and exciting, when, at the morning and evening service of Mount Zion, amid the waving DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 43 of golden censers, and the smoke of burnt sacrifices going up to heaven, the responsive choirs chanted the glorious Psalms of David, the accompaniment of a thousand instruments of music sounding forth like the noise of many waters. It is doubtful whether the same music would produce a like effect upon us, in our present state of culture. When we consider the nature of the instruments then in use, most of them being capa- ble of emitting only a single, loud note ; the imper- fection of the musical scale, and the absence of any thing like our modern notation ; and the further cir- cumstance that there was no combination of parts, the laws of harmony being unknown, while the melody itself was of the plainest character ; we can readily infer that there was little in ancient music to gratify a refined and cultivated taste. It ac- corded, however, with the existing state of culture, and therefore it must have been effective.* After the reign of Solomon, the distracted condi- tion of the Jewish nation caused the forms of pub- lic worship to fall into disorder and neglect, and the national music degenerated ; and when at last * The story is told of an Asiatic prince, who was invited to an elaborate musical performance, with the expectation that he would be overwhelmed with its grandeur and beauty ; but, to the astonishment of his friends, the most delightful part of the entertainment to his ear was the discordant tuning of the in- struments at the commencement. This, he desired to have repeated. 44 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. Israel was carried captive into Babylon, for seventy- years, " they hanged their harps upon the willows." At the restoration of Judah, there were found scat- tered about the cities, two hundred performers and singers ; in the seventh month, these were collected at Jerusalem and assisted at laying the foundation of the second temple, and at the dedication of the new walls of the city. But, the splendor of the Jewish ritual was now dimmed, the song of sacred joy was sung with a fainter note, and the art of music never again regained the position which it had attained under David and Solomon. The music of the Christian Church was at first the same in form with the Jewish. It consisted of a simple recitation of the Psalms, all chanting to- gether in unison, and adapting the quality of the sound to the emotion designed to be expressed. The early Christians appear to have highly enjoyed their music, and to have made it a part of their stated worship. About the middle of the fourth century, Flavia- nus, Bishop of Antioch, established a regular choir in his church, which was divided into two parts, and sung the Psalms of David by alternate verses. Am- brose, Bishop of Milan, introduced the same prac- tice, with a higher style of music, into the Western Church, towards the end of the fourth century.* * " They still use these old austere chants of surpassing beauty, which have been handed down to them through centuries — the DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 45 The next important step in the progress of sacred music was made by Gregory the Great, who intro- duced what is called the Gregorian Chant ; in which he made the notes all of the same length. He en- couraged the cultivation of musical art, and founded a singing school, which existed for three hundred years after his death. From the time of the great schism in the Church, the Eastern branch made no progress in music. It was not till the beginning of the seventeenth cen- tury, that the Russians adopted the modern method of writing music. There was no material improvement in the West- ern Church, till the invention of counterpoint, or harmony. It may well seem strange to us, that be- fore the eleventh century, there is no evidence of any knowledge of parts in music. The chief dis- tinction appears to have been, between hymns sung by a single voice, and psalms chanted by the whole congregation, in unison or octaves. In the same century when this great improve- ment was commenced, there was also invented a Lydian and Phrygian tunes, first introduced into the western Churches by St. Ambrose. St. Augustine himself listened to them in the Church of Milan, when he represents himself as be- ing melted to tears, and even expressed the fear lest such harmo- nious airs might be too tender for the manly spirit of Christian devotion." — Kip's Christmas Holydays in Rome. 46 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. system of musical signs and characters, to imply different portions of time.* At the period of the Reformation, the only change at first attempted in the Church of England, bear- ing upon the music of the Church, was the substi- tution of English for Latin words in public service ; the music itself continued to be very complicated, as it had been before. In the reign of Edward YL, metrical psalmody was for the first time introduced ; Sternhold having made his famous version of the Psalms in metre, a few years before. During the reign of Mary, there was no great change in the musical portions of the service, excepting the re-in- troduction of the Latin tongue. But, while Eliza- beth was on the throne, — who was herself a practi- cal musician, — the subject began to attract consid- erable attention. The Council of Trent had repro- bated "the curious singing" that prevailed in the churches; and it was hardly to be supposed that such a style of performance would meet with greater favor among the reformed. Violent attacks were made in England upon the music then in use, and it was proposed in the Lower House that all organs should be removed from the church. The singing of metrical psalms began to increase in popularity, until, in 1643, all other kinds of ecclesi- astical harmony were suppressed by law. After the * Before this, the only signs used for this purpose were two, viz : — ^ DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 47 restoration of Charles II., great improvements were made in both melody and harmony ; since which time, the style of English church music has sustained a somewhat uniform and fixed character. But little can be said of the history of church music in our own country. Until a recent date, no general interest in the subject existed amongst us, and very little was done in the way of improvement. Our forefathers were more deeply interested in the metaphysics of dogmatic theology, than they were in " the beauty of holiness." They were but slightly concerned for the adornments of worship, and strip- ped their religion as clear as possible of every thing which would be likely to make it externally attrac- tive. They could tie and untie tough doctrinal knots with marvelous facility, but they could not make fringes for the curtains of the sanctuary. The cultivation of a refined taste in matters pertain- ing to public worship was abjured upon principle. No where has the working of this feeling been more strikingly manifested, than in our popular sacred music. If it had resulted in securing a rigid sim- plicity, a plain and natural expression of religious feeling through the medium of sacred song, we might have been content. But it has not been so. Musical ambition will find its way into the choir, as well as ecclesiastical ambition into the pulpit ; where the organ was excluded, other instruments of a less majestic tone would gradually intrude ; where the solemn voluntary before the psalm would have 48 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. been accounted an abomination, the simple pitching of the tune was gradually elaborated into the most extraordinary preliminary flourish of sounds, in which thirds, fifths and octaves seemed to be mis- cellaneously rambled over in search of the true key; and occasionally an anthem would be introduced, of which the interminable fugue constituted the leading ornament, in which, for the most part, each of the parts was occupied with a distinct set of words, and such a voluminous uproar of voices filled the place that u Milder thunders burst unheard above." More recently, a change for the better has com- menced. But it has only commenced. It is still the fact, that, in many of our churches, nothing but sacred associations render the music endurable. As it regards both the poetry and the music, our popu- lar psalmody is behind the secular standard of cul- ture. There is still a melancholy amount of poor prose split off into verse, and labeled as sacred hymns. There would be as much propriety in under- taking to sing a mathematical demonstration or an extract from i; Edwards on the Will," as there is in rendering into song some of our didactic and doc- trinal hymns. We would not assert that every hymn should be strictly lyrical, but it would seem to be proper that it should express some sentiment or emotion. As there is a style of poetical composition appro- DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 49 priate to worship, not only in respect of the subject, but also of the metre and rhythm, so there is of music- al composition and performance. There is an ecclesi- astical tone, which is altogether peculiar. It is hal- lowed by peculiar associations, and suggests pecul- iar thoughts, and has a peculiar sacredness. It has been used " in the ages all along/' and has nerved the souls of confessors and martyrs in ancient days. It has a majesty and a dignity which can never be imparted to music snatched from martial airs, or operatic strains, or the secular songs of the day, which some would like to sanctify with sacred words. It is most desirable that the improvement which has now commenced in our church music, should take the right direction. It may be questioned whether it is, in all quarters, taking that direction. It is thought by many that the modern tunes with which we are now flooded, are generally inferior to the simple and severe melodies which originated centuries ago. We would now propose the question, what is necessary, in order to the more rapid and general improvement of sacred music amongst us ? First, a deeper interest in the subject on the part of Christian ministers and people. Good church music is not of spontaneous growth ; it comes by cultivation. It can hardly be expected that the members of our choirs will subject themselves to that constant and patient drill, without which no 5 50 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. proficiency can be attained, unless they have the sympathy and support of our congregations. As a general rule, they now receive more of sharp criti- cism, than of encouragement. It is also to be desired that the refined and culti- vated youth of our parishes, if they are gifted with musical talent, should be willing to devote this gift to the service of God in the sanctuary. It is a strange idea to get possession of a creature's mind, that he is " too respectable" to engage in publicly singing his Makers praise. And yet in some of our churches, this notion has prevailed : the young woman, who spends the greater part of her waking hours in musical practice through the week, has too much personal dignity to open her lips in sacred song on the Lord's day and in the Lord's temple ! This ignoble exclusiveness, we are happy to see, is gradually melting away. But we need, not only a greater interest in sacred music, but a more general conviction of the need and the possibility of progressive improvement. The highest idea of church music is. with most peo- ple, that to which they have been accustomed. There is a certain set of tunes, with which they are famil- iar, and these they would like to hear constantly re- peated. This feeling is a natural one, and to be respected. It is indeed no real improvement, when the solid old tunes of ancient composers are all set aside, to make way for the lighter and more fanciful music of the day. But it can hardly be expected DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 51 that our choirs should be content to travel the same round of familiar chants and tunes, month after month and year after year; and every individual should try to remember that there are other tastes to be consulted beside his own. The art of sacred music is with us now in its in- fancy, and there are few people who have the slight- est conception of the improvement which it might receive. The popular taste is, in a great measure, formed after vulgar models, and it can be rectified only by slow degrees. A higher style must, if it can be done in no other way, be forced upon the community, and they will gradually learn to appre- ciate it. Our parishes must also be willing generously to contribute " material aid," if we would materially advance the art of sacred music ; there must be a sufficient pecuniary inducement held out to persons of musical taste, to induce them to discipline and cultivate their powers. In former years, there has existed a strong prejudice against the practice of music as a profession, and one was looked upon as throwing away his life, if he devoted his time ex- clusively to this science. With just as much pro- priety, we might object to the profession of a sculp- ter, a painter, or to the practice of any ornamental trade. We often make an improper distinction be- tween the elegant and the useful, as if the adorn- ments of life had not their use. Music is something more than an elegant accomplishment, it is no friv- 52 DISCOURSES O.N KLLlMOl.- wi-k. olous pursuit : it ought to have, and if rightly stud- ied, it would have a purifying, elevating, ennobling influence upon character. It has a power, which is peculiarly its own ; it can rind its way where noth- ing else can penetrate ; it can enkindle thoughts and feelings, which are impassive to every other touch ; it will outlive all other arts : it is the most profound of sciences, and perhaps the only one which is essen- tially eternal. And what is necessary, in order to the advance- ment of music, on the part of the performers them- selves ? They must have a deep and earnest en- thusiasm in their profession. It is not a business to be followed, as men work at a trade. They should feel that their powers are too noble and di- vine, to be degraded to the mere purpose of amuse- ment, and prostituted to the service of licentious- ness. They should appreciivv their responsibility to Him, who has endowed them with this wonder- ful gift. They should consider it as their mission to rescue the grand art of music from all the ignoble purposes which it has subserved. And, especially, when their gift is exercised in connection with those solemn services which are rendered directly to the Almighty, their whole soul should respond to the sacred sentiments which they utter with the lip. They should sing, as though they knew the angels heard them. It is as grievous an evil to sing with hypocrisy, as it is to preach falsely. There must be this genuine feeling, in order to a DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. 53 genuine expression. Why is it that there is so often such a strange incongruity between the nature of the sentiment which is to be rendered, and the mode of expression ? It is because the sentiment is nei- ther felt or understood. It cannot be understood, when it is not felt, because it is of that nature, that it must be interpreted by the feelings. Music ap- peals to the intuitional, and not to the logical con- sciousness. It goes straight to the heart, if it goes any where. We may not know why we are moved, or what it is that moves us ; we only know that we are moved. And this result comes, only when the tone is true, and not artificial. We may admire a skillful performance, mechanically execu- ted, and wonder how it can be done ; but it does not reach the centre of being. Let therefore your song of praise be baptized with the spirit of true religion ; consecrate to God the powers which he has given you ; and let His glory,, not your own, be the great end of all you do. You will then not only advance His glory, but secure to yourselves a rich and an eternal reward. You will be able, when your hour of departure comes, to go down into the dark river, chanting with triumphant exultation, " O grave, where is thy victory ! " And, after the short interval of unconsciousness, during which the soul extricates itself from the ma- terial body, you shall waken to a new life, in which every sense will be endowed with exquisite acute- 54 DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS MUSIC. ness ; and then there will steal upon your ear that music, which only angels can make : the silver notes of heaven ! It is but the rudiment of melody that we now enjoy : we are still in our infancy and can only lisp imperfect sounds as yet : it is the alphabet of the science that we study : our earthly mu- sic is only the symbol of harmony : but when the time comes, that melody and harmony shall be the very law of our being, — when every motion shall be rhythmical, and all hearts attuned to one key, and all thoughts in concord, then we shall breathe in music. Life will be all an anthem. In the city not made with hands, the very gates will be salva- tion, and the walls will be praise. Up in the high towers, soft chimes will ring from morning till evening, and in the green gardens, where the river of life sings gently as it flows, there will be heard the music of the immortals. ■Bfl mi i " -' ••••■' in n«» -■->■>. ^M . • • asia or 1?,'?S St IB &§ - -,