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 Ministers and Music 
 
 PRINCETON LECTURES 
 
 BY/ 
 
 REV. JOHN BARBOUR. D. D. 
 
 3CC 
 
Printed for the Author 
 
 BY THOMAS A. DAVIS 
 
 Maysville. Ky. 
 
 A lew copie? of tKese Lectures can be ordered of the Author at 
 Maysville, Ky. Price, 50 cents a copy. 
 
preface 
 
 N October, 1908, I gave a sKort series of 
 lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary 
 on "The Importance of Music to the Cul- 
 ture and Work of the Ministry. " In putting these into 
 print, I have not undertaken to eliminate repetitions 
 of ideas, which pervade them like a prophet s burdens ; 
 nor to change the personal style of address incidental 
 to the simple character and purpose of the performance. 
 The " Opening Words " of the course sufficiently 
 denne the talks as the plea of a pastor with his brother 
 ministers for more attention to the musical service. 
 The following valued appreciations of the Lectures 
 have been volunteered to the Author : 
 
 The late ReV. SYLVESTER F. SCOVEL, D. D., 
 LL. D.: " The whole discussion is fresh and sug- 
 gestive. It repeats to me some thoughts along this 
 line which I have never met elsewhere expressed. 
 The style is crisp ; the movement rapid. Th^re is 
 here and there a flash ot humor. 
 
 *' The language itself shows more acquaintance with 
 music, by its allusions and technical correctness, 
 than IS ordinarily possible to any but a professional 
 musician. 
 
 "There is a dignined conception of music as an 
 intellectual art which few have cherished. 
 
 " The practical suggestions are wise and fully corre- 
 spond with whatever experience I have had m a long 
 ministry which succeeded experience as a chorister. 
 
 *' The closing thoughts on ' The Place of Music in 
 the Scheme of Redemption are elevating and in the 
 best sense of the word edifying.' 
 
 Rev. J. R. Miller, D. D.: " I am dehghted with 
 it. I believe a book of this kind will prove a great 
 help to ministers.' 
 
 JOHN BARBOUR 
 Maytville, Ky. 
 
 Page Three 
 
ContetiU 
 
 Patfe 
 
 Opening Words 7 
 
 I 
 Music as a Brancli of Theological Learning- • • • 9 
 
 II 
 
 Music as an Element of Ministerial Culture- - • 27 
 
 III 
 Music as a Factor of Congregational Power • - - - 41 
 
 IV 
 
 Music as tKe Vehicle of the Church's Praise • - - 53 
 
 V 
 
 The Pastor s Relation to the Music 65 
 
 VI 
 
 The Leading of the Musical Service 77 
 
 VII 
 
 The Development of Congregational Singing - - - 97 
 
 VIII 
 
 The Use of Music in Pastoral and Other Per- 
 sonal Work in the Community Ill 
 
 IX 
 
 The Place of Music in the Scheme of Redemp- 
 tion 120 
 
 Page Five 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/ministersmusOObarb 
 
Opening Words 
 
 Brethren of the Seminary: 
 
 AM to Have tlie privilege of speaking \.o 
 you on a subject of great interest from 
 many points of view. I will be under- 
 stood, of course, to speak as a Pastor. I am no 
 Doctor of Music, and wbat I do not know about 
 Church Music would fill many volumes. Indeed, I 
 have no such call to speak as many pastors of 
 larger experience and better gifts. But they are not 
 speaking, and it may be that my words will be more 
 level to the experience and the needs of the average 
 preacher. 
 
 It is not for any one an easy topic to treat. To 
 borrow the lines of Richard Watson Gilder : 
 
 " Words praising music, what are tney but leaves 
 Whirled round the fountain by the wind!" 
 
 Besides, the gifts of pastors and the conditions of 
 pastorates are so various, that it is hard to nt to so 
 complex a situation suitable suggestions. 
 
 Let me say that my purpose is to propose some 
 general prmciples that underlie church music every- 
 where, and to drop a few hints as to methods which 
 may be fruitful in your after-experience. It is in 
 short, rather to exhort, than to instruct, — I am an 
 exhorter on Church Music! — to arouse lethargic 
 pastors to their duty, and especially to remonstrate 
 with the student or minister — quite a numerous indi- 
 vidual, I fear me — who neither knows nor cares to 
 know very much about church music. For him 
 have I offended ! 
 
 My nrst effort, then, will be to vindicate for music 
 a better place in the average ministerial estimation. 
 
 Page Seven 
 
Mluslc as a ^raticl) of ^l)eolo$ical 
 learning 
 
 "See deep enough and you will see musically. " 
 
 — Carlyle 
 
 N a recent publication on tKe importance 
 oi musical knowledge to the ministry 
 the chair dealing with this subject was 
 described as equal, if not superior, in practical 
 importance to any in the theological faculty. 
 
 I shall not, however, undertake to fix the 
 relative importance of the topic, nor to settle 
 what can be accomplished in this direction in 
 the seminary years. Just now everything is 
 being loaded upon the theological seminaries. 
 It IS being demanded that they turn out men 
 ready to take hold at once of all the depart- 
 ments of the Church s work. This is certainly 
 unreasonable. I insist, however, that a student 
 should not be allowed to leave the semi- 
 nary without a realization of the importance or 
 music to his work, or without a fair start in the 
 preparation for what should be a life-long study. 
 
 Page Nine 
 
Let me suggest a few considerations, nxing 
 for tnis subject a place in a minister s studies. 
 
 1. The intellectual interest attaching to the 
 world-wide phenomena oi music. 
 
 I do not now speak oi music as a branch or 
 physics, but of music as an art originating in 
 the depths of man s sentient nature and affect- 
 ing marvelously his life. The study of this 
 belongs of right to that calling which serves 
 humanity most deeply of all. In this view, I 
 know of no subject broader in its scope. No 
 other art is so purely ideal in its origin and 
 content, yet none has so touched the life of 
 universal man. It is at once the most abstruse, 
 and the most human, of the nne arts. 
 
 It seems to have taken its rise in man s fond- 
 ness for rhythm, and in his efforts to nnd 
 expression for his feelings, its purpose at the 
 beginning having been to enhance the effect of 
 some ceremonial of war or of religion. It was 
 at nrst little more than chant or intonation. 
 Not until well down into the Christian Era, 
 indeed, did music enter seriously upon its 
 struggle for an independent life. A study of 
 that struggle affords us cause for perpetual 
 astonishment. The nxing of the scale, the 
 alphabet of music, was a work of exceeding 
 difficulty — many great races having not even 
 yet found the natural scale. India has built the 
 Taj Mahal and has developed a powerful philos- 
 ophy, but what beyond the simplest rudiments 
 
 Page Ten 
 
of song has she given the world? Our mis- 
 sionaries take to India and China and Africa 
 the true musical scale and with it the melodies 
 of the heart. Music is the art of Christen- 
 dom and bespeaks the flower of her social and 
 intellectual culture. 
 
 So familiar now to us are the results of 
 musical discovery that we can with difficulty 
 retrace the way along which man s stumbling feet 
 have walked. The nrst musical art was almost 
 "without form and void, a chaotic world de- 
 void of life or beauty. What would you think 
 of tuneless music? What of timeless music, 
 a music without regularity of time or structure ? 
 The evolution of the art, however, passed 
 through these very stages. One can poorly 
 imagine how much of that early music could 
 have given any pleasure, or, indeed, how it 
 actually sounded, since musical notation, the 
 writing of the staff, was not perfected until the 
 Eleventh Century. This fact, alone, might ex- 
 plain the slow progress of the art. It illus- 
 trates, too, the essentially subtile character of 
 the task. To transcribe in a visible record 
 something transpiring in the world of sound, 
 "to see with the ear and to hear with the eye, 
 as one of the popes phrased it ; this, which can 
 be taught a modern child in a few weeks, is the 
 product of many centuries study of learned 
 men. The invention of letters and writing 
 may seem equally wonderful, yet these were 
 
 Page Eleven 
 
achieved at a very early time ; whereas the 
 production of melody, as we know it, was not 
 accomplished until the later ages of civilization. 
 Not until John Sebastian Bach arrived was there 
 reached even a working adjustment or musical 
 keys, or the perfection of musical time. Victor 
 Hugo has said that music was born m the 
 Sixteenth Century, but it was only after a 
 gestation lasting many centuries, the long travail 
 giving little intimation of the wondrous popular 
 art it was bringing to the birth. For a good 
 portion of this period it was almost withdrawn 
 from the outer world in the absorption of 
 music-workers in the perfectation of its form. 
 During the middle ages it was little more than a 
 branch of mathematics, the chords and progres- 
 sions being based upon certain principles laid 
 down and inexorably worked out by rule. 
 Some of this is, as a consequence, intolerable to 
 our ears. A learned writer in chronicling the 
 close of the first great period with Hucbald says 
 "the extreme of ugliness in music was reached 
 in the system of Hucbald. There were signs 
 of rebellion, however, even then — one of the 
 wits of the day having characterized the current 
 music as " a form of penance devised by church- 
 men. It was upon this barren waste that the 
 great genius of Palestrma burst forth in deathless 
 song "putting a soul under the ribs of death. 
 You have read, no doubt, of the Troubadours 
 and Trouveres in France and of the Minnesingers 
 
 Page Twelve 
 
and Meistersingers in Germany. In these 
 movements, as well as m tne earlier rolk-songs 
 oi Nortnern Europe, tne popular mmd was 
 asserting its freedom and its longing for tne 
 beautiful in tne world of sound. Tne value 
 of this Luther was quick to see, and ere long he 
 was sending the principles of the Reformation 
 everywhere on wings of song. The outnower- 
 ing of this wondrous art was thus timed to the 
 general awakening of the human mind. But it 
 could not then have appeared or have done its 
 popular work if the science had not been 
 preparing for centuries by musical scholars. 
 This underlies musical art as a knowledge of 
 anatomy underlies painting. 
 
 We have lost no time in this review if we 
 have come better to realize what a marvelous 
 intellectual creation music is, and what a large 
 place it has nlled in human history. No man, 
 I insist, can rightly claim to be an educated 
 man who has not in mind the outline, at least, 
 of this wonderful story. 
 
 2. The place which all religious systems, 
 especially the Christian, give to music. 
 
 Its importance to a Minister of the Gospel 
 arises, chiefly from the intimate connection that 
 has always obtained between music and religion. 
 Music appeals to and serves man s religious 
 nature as does no other art. 
 
 Cousin has called it "the most penetrating, 
 the profoundest and the most intimate of the 
 
 Page Thirteen 
 
arts. Both painting and poetry have dealt 
 witn religious tnemes. Architecture, too, has^ 
 been shaped by and has helped m turn to 
 enhance the appeal of religion, but music has 
 spoken to man with a voice more closely 
 congruous to religion itself. Cowper had this 
 clearly in mind when he wrote : 
 
 "There is in souls a sympathy with sounds: 
 Some chord in unison with that we hear 
 It touches within us, and the heart rephes. 
 
 It IS in reality a language no less than speech. 
 Nay, it goes deeper and rises higher than speech, 
 voicing at times soul-experiences that words 
 could not utter. It is this magic dealing with 
 our deepest feelings, this suggestion of mystery, 
 this ministration to the subconscious soul, if you 
 please, that gives to music its unspeakable 
 witchery and charm. " It leads us to the edge 
 of the innnite, as Carlyle has strikingly said, 
 "and lets us for a moment gaze into that. It 
 IS because of this inner character, both of music 
 and religion, that so much of their career has 
 been passed together. They have certainly had 
 a marvelous ainnity for each other. Dickinson, 
 in his " Study of the History of Music, says 
 "Music in its primitive forms is not a free 
 independent art, but is connected with poetic 
 recitation and dancing, usually under the stimulus 
 of religious emotion. 
 
 Much of music s own development is thus 
 traceable to its religious association. Among 
 
 Page Fourteen 
 
tlie Egyptians and Greeks, from wnom we 
 derive the basis of our musical system, it was 
 essentially a religious art. T ney ascriDed its 
 origin to heaven ana the nrst musical science 
 w^as in tne service oi religion. 
 
 In the early Churcli music seems to have 
 been little more than declamation, or a form of 
 chanting, following the impulses of the wor- 
 shippers until Ambrose and Gregory levied 
 upon Greek musical science to systematize and 
 enrich, the service of the Church. It is interest- 
 ing to notice that in the rejection of the rhapsodic 
 and gesticulatory music of the heathen, as 
 unsuited to the deeper and quieter moods of the 
 Christian life, music began to attain for itself a 
 more thoughtful and beautiful character. 
 
 The Church now took it in hand to develop 
 it for her own uses. A vast deal of effort in 
 monasteries, in quiet singing groups and in 
 the schools of the day was spent in perfecting 
 it for the service of religion. 
 
 Take one salient instance, the development 
 of the organ. This was of little value as an 
 instrument until the Church laid hold of it. 
 Christian worship required the sounding of the 
 tones together ; out of this was born harmony 
 and counterpoint. To continue the sounds 
 required a suitable instrument ; this was found 
 in the organ enlarged and perfected. For a 
 century or two the organ, thus developed by 
 the Church, was almost the only dependence of 
 
 Page Fifteen 
 
musicians. Consider, too, that it was long 
 beiore tne orchestra appeared and trie violin, 
 as we know it, was far away. In tnat pre- 
 paratory time the organists and musical scholars 
 of tne Churcn developed the science which lies 
 at the basis of all our music, secular as well as 
 religious. 
 
 Think, too, of the service rendered by choirs 
 and choruses of the Church during all these 
 centuries. Reflect also on the mighty work our 
 Christian worship is doing to-day in training 
 the masses to sing. Multitudes of our people 
 owe all their ability to sing to the Sunday- 
 School and the Church. 
 
 On the other hand, music has done much for 
 religion. The Hebrew Psalter, the great classic 
 of religious experience, evidently sprang out of 
 the exigencies of the praise-service, and in the 
 modern Church it is the Psalms and metrical 
 hymns, poems made to be sung, which have 
 drawn out and nurtured the religious affections 
 of Christendom. Music has always been needed 
 for the deepest impressions and expressions of 
 worship. How ineffective for instance, would 
 be our grandest Doxology "Praise God from 
 whom all blessings now, simply recited by the 
 congregation, compared with the effect produced 
 when the majestic accompaniment of Old Hun- 
 dred IS added ! As you have stood and sung 
 that strain have you ever felt that anything was 
 lacking to express your emotions? Without 
 
 Page Sixteen 
 
doubt music has carried the soul to heights 
 or rehgious perception, and engagedness, that the 
 average man could not have attained without 
 it. It has voiced for you what was in your 
 heart. Indeed, there are " reaches of the soul 
 that you yourself did not know were possible 
 until the composer revealed them to you by 
 his magic wand. 
 
 Religion, too, has given to music its highest 
 themes. What conception of the sublime m 
 music would we have if Handel and Beethoven 
 had not produced their sacred oratorios and 
 masses? The composer has taken the words 
 of Scripture and has borne them into the heart 
 of man as even they would not otherwise have 
 appealed to him. 
 
 Let one read the words of the " Te Deum, 
 "We Praise Thee, God; we Acknowledge 
 Thee to be the Lord, then let him hear these 
 words lifted upon the mighty pinions of Han- 
 del s, or Stainer s, or Dudley Buck s music and 
 he will have some measure of the ineffable serv- 
 ice of music to religion. The ecstasy of the 
 soul, its triumph in God, or the comforting as- 
 surances of our Saviour s love, these nnd their 
 most sufficing, most delightful, expression in 
 song. 
 
 I am trying now to avoid the language of 
 rhapsody. I speak but the words of truth and 
 soberness, as I appeal to what we have all felt 
 under the stimulus of music in the House of 
 
 Page Seventeen 
 
(jod. Nor have we been merely recipients in 
 this. Thousands or people publish abroad in 
 this way the doctrines of the cross where a 
 preacher s voice will not reach. It is the peo- 
 ple s art, and the people s sublime part in the 
 propagation of the Kingdom. A thoughtful 
 minister must surely have a scholarly interest 
 in such an art, even if he be incapable of more. 
 If Plato and Aristotle were impressed with its 
 ethical value, how much more should it awaken 
 the interest of a Christian scholar, alive to all 
 that IS artistic and rehning in the field of truth ? 
 
 The place of music in the Old and New 
 Testament Church I need only allude to here. 
 We are certainly assuming nothing when we 
 cite this as a measure of the value which God 
 Himself attaches to music in worship. 
 
 3. The increasing importance of the argu- 
 ment from Aesthetics among the Christian 
 evidences. 
 
 It IS remarkable that Christian thinkers have 
 not oftener followed the philosophic mind of 
 Plato in this direction. The Christian revela- 
 tion has certainly made more clear, and has 
 vastly enriched, the vision which this most 
 gifted mind of the ancient world had of the 
 spiritual reality underlying all material phe- 
 nomena. That the same wonderful race dis- 
 covered more both of the beautiful and of the 
 spiritual in nature is itself mightily suggestive 
 of their interior connection. It is true that 
 
 Page Eighteen 
 
Greek civilization perished in its worship of the 
 Deautiiul, but its greatest thinkers ghmpsea the 
 deeper truth which it is now given to Chris- 
 tianity to develop. 
 
 I earnestly commend to you, then, a deeper 
 investigation or the whole territory of Aesthet- 
 ics. In such a work as John Harrington Ed- 
 wards "God and Music, you will nnd most 
 suggestively expanded the argument from order 
 and rhythm in nature as leading up to the source 
 of all in the bosom of the Christian s God. I 
 do not know a work which urges more power- 
 fully than this the spiritual side of this subject. 
 Its author not only nnds in a world of beauty 
 an argument for the Divine Artist, as it has 
 impressed the greatest thinkers, but the proof 
 also that God is Himself the greatest lover of 
 beauty. This, of itself, should consecrate the 
 beautiful to us. 
 
 The witness, too, which the beautiful affords 
 to man s spiritual nature and his adjustment to 
 the great soul of things, the essentially altruistic 
 nature of all great art, and the evidence of de- 
 sign in the auditory apparatus of man, fitted 
 as it IS to the appreciation of the most deli- 
 cate and most tremendous effects of music long 
 before the art-forms themselves had been created 
 in the toiling centuries, — ponder these suggestions 
 carefully and you will not think them fanciful. 
 
 It is time that Christian thinkers were follow- 
 ing more vigorously the leading of the Duke of 
 
 Page Nineteen 
 
Argyle, and BusKnell, and Martineau in this 
 direction. 
 
 We do Christianity a vast disservice by 
 abandoning tbe field of art to a worldly phil- 
 osophy. Art IS, at last, the assertion of man s 
 spirituality. It came out of the soul of the 
 artist and it speaks through its material charms 
 to the waiting soul that can discern its deeper 
 message. The final function of art is undoubt- 
 edly to refine and elevate, to suggest the vision 
 which was "never yet on sea or land. It is 
 God s signature on all the works of His hand. 
 
 There is no more convincing argument for 
 the Divinity of the Bible than its surpassing 
 literary beauty. It is from the same source as 
 the violet and the sunset. How bald will be 
 our Christianity and how lame our apolegetics 
 if we abandon the argument from the beautiful ; 
 and not to use it practically is to abandon it. 
 In an age impressed with evolution in nature, 
 the upward trend of man s soul toward the 
 beautiful, as recorded in the story of music, is 
 especially valuable in meeting a materialistic 
 philosophy. Dr. Chalmers voices his apprecia- 
 tion of the ethical value of music when he says : 
 "the power and expression of music may well 
 be regarded as a most beauteous adaptation of 
 external nature to the moral constitution of man, 
 for what can be more adapted to his moral 
 constitution than that which is so helpful, as 
 music IS, to his moral culture? 
 
 Page Twenty 
 
No tnoughtiul minister then can undervalue 
 the testimony from this realm of the Creator s 
 world, nor will he regard as a merely "orna- 
 mental accessory that which is concededly the 
 most delightful, as well as the most powerful, 
 expression of religious leeling. 
 
 4. The insurgent demands of Liturgies upon 
 the attention of pastors at this time. 
 
 Two causes have conspired to produce this. 
 
 One IS the growing culture of our people, 
 which leads them to look for the same taste in 
 their worship which they demand in their secular 
 life ; just as David could not be satisfied in a 
 house of cedar whilst the Ark of God dwelt 
 within a tent. In a great civilization there is 
 an outreaching in every direction for what is 
 lovely in form as well as noble in Spirit, and 
 this craving cannot be kept out of religious 
 worship. The field should not then be yielded 
 to the ritualists. We will not concede that the 
 usual Protestant service is barren or dry. It is 
 not so to one who loves the truth and sees a 
 certain beauty in it wherever found, but this is 
 not to forget that the true and the good ally 
 themselves normally with the beautiful and that 
 truth itself may suffer if there be not symmet- 
 rical development of all. "The beautiful is the 
 splendor of the True, wrote Plato. When the 
 Maker lodged the love of truth in the soul of 
 man He put hardby an instinct for beauty. 
 We are not then to be stampeded from the 
 
 Page Twenty-One 
 
vantage-point wKich the God of Beauty has 
 given us. In our rear or the Sirens we nave 
 gone too often upon tne bare rocks or monk- 
 ery and a fanatical Puritanism, forgetting that 
 tne cure for error is the truth. We can meet 
 current paganism in the use of the beautiful 
 only by seizing its nne spiritual content and 
 delightful in that. 
 
 The other fact is the necessity for a greater 
 uniformity in the worship of the churches. A 
 veritable ferment, not to say confusion, is 
 showing itself in churches which have not a 
 stated service. You will have this precipitated 
 upon you when you go from congregation to 
 congregation hardly able to follow, let alone 
 direct, the worship of many of them. It is a 
 serious condition which confronts our pastors, 
 and you will have to put your best thought 
 upon it. It will be charged that this is the 
 necessary outcome of Protestantism working to 
 confusion and contradiction. It will then be 
 yours to show that Protestantism is a spirit of 
 order as well as of independence. In due time, 
 if I mistake not, we will come together to solve 
 this problem. 
 
 It ought to be possible, profiting by past 
 experience, to devise a more lovely and impres- 
 sive form of service than has yet appeared. 
 We can recognize the commanding place of 
 preaching in New Testament worship, yet 
 provide for the peoples part more adequately. 
 
 Page Twenty-Two 
 
That construction will gather, I helieve, about 
 the great Music of the Past; the Hymns and 
 the suhlime prose forms of Praise which have 
 sprung out of the Church s heart. In the mean- 
 time, as Mr. Beecher well said years ago, the 
 great Hymns of the congregation constitute the 
 Protestant Liturgy. 
 
 As ministers you will have to bear your part 
 in whatever comes of this. Here emphatically 
 you will have " to face the music. If matters 
 are to continue as they are, and you have, as 
 one has said, " to form a Liturgy for yourself 
 every Sunday you will certainly need to be 
 well furnished for the task. If on the other 
 hand, because of the inability of many clergy- 
 men, the direction of the musical service be 
 relegated to trained singers and choirs, as in 
 the Jewish Temple, you will still have need for 
 considerable musical knowledge to assume your 
 proper guidance of all. In any event, the 
 Praise of the Church cannot be remitted to the 
 choir or even to the congregation. It cannot 
 be specialized out of the hands of Him, who is 
 the "Master of Assemblies. It is too vitally 
 connected with the conduct and the profit of 
 every religious service. 
 
 5. The lesson afforded by religious experi- 
 ence. Let me emphasize in this connection the 
 part ministers of religion have taken in past 
 musical development. For centuries the chief 
 work of musical discovery and advance was 
 
 Page Twenty-Three 
 
the task of churchmen. I miglit use this fact to 
 appeal to your professional pride, but it has a 
 still deeper suggestiveness. 
 
 It was not simply because ministers were 
 the learned class, but because of the value of 
 musical expression to religion that they thus 
 led in musical discovery. That perpetual con- 
 nection, surely, challenges the interest of every 
 reflecting minister. As watchmen on the walls 
 looking out for everything affecting the religious 
 life of our people one cannot be indifferent here. 
 Bishop Potter has said that, "the history of 
 music IS in one aspect of it, almost a history 
 of religion. One of the nrst historical evi- 
 dences of the worship of Christ as God is found 
 in the singing of Hymns to Him mentioned in 
 Pliny s famous report to Trajan. From that 
 time a close connection can be traced between 
 the musical service, and the spiritual character 
 of any period. The early piety of the Church 
 perpetuated the songs of the people in the sim- 
 ple synagogue service, and one of the nrst marks 
 of usurpation in the Church came in the Edict 
 of the Council of Laodicea (367) restricting 
 the praise-service to the clergy. Henceforth, 
 the mass stands for Roman Catholicism. But 
 the music of the mass will never become the 
 music of the masses ! With the Reformation 
 of Luther reappeared popular singing. 
 
 The glorious music of Palestrina had marked 
 a mighty artistic advance, but it could not 
 
 Page Twenty-Four 
 
bespeak the deeper religious needs oi the people 
 which became embodied in the Hymns of 
 Protestantism. Luther and Calvin stood as 
 much for a certain style of Psalmody as for 
 particular doctrines of religion. Knox and his 
 associates, in England and Scotland, also car- 
 ried the Reformation into worship, and Scotch 
 Psalm-singing has always gone with a certain 
 sturdy religious character. 
 
 I need not enlarge upon the use of music by 
 Wesley and by Moody, nor its service in the 
 Welsh revival. Everywhere there has been a 
 vital connection between the music and the cur- 
 rent religious ideas and habits of the people. 
 
 It should be evident, too, that your own 
 religious life is at stake in this matter ; and 
 that, whether you can sing or not. You need 
 the fellowship which one may have who sim- 
 ply follows the words of praise. You need, 
 also, the studies in experimental religion em- 
 bodied in the great Hymns of the Church. 
 
 Church history has recorded for us the im- 
 pression made by the music of Ambrose on the 
 sensitive soul of Augustine at a critical time. 
 Instances of this sort can be multiplied, but I 
 close by simply citing m this connection the 
 striking testimony of Dr. Channmg: "I am 
 conscious of a power in music which I want 
 words to describe. It touches chords, reaches 
 depths in the soul which lie beyond all other 
 influences. It extends my consciousness and 
 
 Page Twenty-Five 
 
notning in my experience is more mysterious. 
 An instinct has always led me to transfer it to 
 heaven, and I suspect that the Christian under 
 its power has orten attained to a singular con- 
 sciousness of his own immortality. 
 
 Page Twenty-Six 
 
II 
 
 ^uslc as an TEUment of ^ittlsterlal 
 
 "And therefore I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more potent 
 instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their 
 way into the secret places of the soul, on which they mightily 
 fasten, imparting grace, and making graceful the soul of him who is 
 rightly educated, or ungraceful who is ill-educated." — Plato. 
 
 man, in tnese modern days, more 
 needs to levy upon all the means of 
 culture withm His reach than a min- 
 ister or the Gospel ; and I am conndent that in 
 no study will he nnd nner discipline, or hetter 
 preparation of the whole man, body, soul, and 
 spirit, for his work than in music. 
 
 Were it only to give him recreation from 
 severer studies, and from exacting pastoral 
 cares, there could he nothing more delightful, 
 nothing more becoming to him than music. 
 Many ministers get from nction, and from 
 magazine reading, what they might better get 
 from music. It would be at once diversion 
 and inspiration to them. 
 
 "To know the cause why music was ordained! 
 Was it not to refresh the mind of man 
 After his studies or his usual pain? ' 
 
 — Shakespeare 
 
 Page Twenty-Seven 
 
Moreover, singing is of positive benent to 
 tke liealtli. It may be tbat tbe longer lives ot 
 tne ministry, as life insurance tables witness, 
 are partly due to tbe fact tnat as a class, tney 
 sing more tnan otner men. Singing Helps to 
 preserve tne mind s tone and temper, as well 
 as to keep the body well. Tne effect of music 
 on the nervous system is coming to be more 
 and more recognized. Every physician recom- 
 mends singing tor tbe lungs. It bas been ob- 
 served that fewer pastors are laid aside witb 
 " preachers sore tbroat wbo are in tbe babit 
 of singing. Tbe "breakdown is often due to 
 ignorance as to bow tbe voice should be used 
 in speech or song. In reality the praise service 
 should not tire, but should rather prepare one 
 better to preach. The vocal organs regularly 
 used in singing are strengthened and thus made 
 ready for the supreme draughts made upon them, 
 at times, in speech. There is a right place m 
 the mouth at which the tone should be made, 
 and a right way to utter it. The voice must 
 be rightly "placed. A great many ministers 
 have never bestowed one hour s thought in 
 learning the use of the instrument with which 
 they must do their work. The voice comes 
 forth with a strain, and at a pitch, that tires an 
 audience as much as it wears upon the speaker. 
 Is there anything more important for a profes- 
 sional talker than to learn bow to talk ? 
 
 Page Twenty-Eight 
 
It IS certain, that learning to sing aright ad- 
 vances tne use or the speaking voice. It trains 
 the Dreathing and, by increasing the ease oi 
 speaking, adds to the satisfaction of both speaker 
 and hearer. 
 
 At the basis of all natural and telling elocu- 
 tion lies the proper formation and enunciation 
 of the vowels. This cannot better be learned 
 than in lessons from some competent singing 
 master. One of our pastors testifies that he 
 never received the slightest help in speaking 
 until he had gotten hold of this method. His 
 college professor of rhetoric told him he " had 
 no ear. More than one teacher oi elocution 
 turned him aside as an unpromising pupil. 
 Afterwards, going to a professional teacher of 
 singing he was put upon the right path. In ad- 
 dition to certain vocal exercises given for purity 
 of tone, he was made to stand at the end of a 
 large room and simply read aloud so that every 
 syllable and letter of the word could be dis- 
 tinguished. By this method every vocable was 
 strengthened and made to play its appropriate 
 part. Beginning very slowly, and exaggerating 
 at nrst the stress upon each separate element, 
 the mouth came in a little while to do its work 
 without effort, or even consciousness of the task. 
 As a result, the speaker found his own style and 
 the people, without knowing what to attribute 
 it to, felt a new power in the preaching. It 
 was because the trained voice was responding 
 
 Page Twenty-Nine 
 
naturally to the thought, and making the proper 
 nexus between the speaker and his hearers. 
 
 Now it may be asked why this is not rather 
 the work of the teacher of elocution ? The 
 answer is that few teachers oi elocution will 
 take the trouble to give this analytical drill. 
 Besides, your singing teacher follows up the 
 analytical work with vocal exercises which de- 
 velop purity and smoothness and strength and 
 proper enunciation of the tones. Hundreds of 
 young men become discouraged in the study 
 of elocution simply because the organ itself 
 has not been trained to give the expression 
 demanded of it. 
 
 It will be seen, at once, that this training 
 conduces also to facility of thought. When the 
 vocal organs respond strongly and sympathet- 
 ically to their master the mind is freer to com- 
 pose its message. The trained voice reacts upon 
 the thought itself and upon the capacity of ex- 
 pression. The process becomes eventually al- 
 most automatic, as a bird s wing takes the bird 
 just where it wants to go. 
 
 More educated clergymen fail from inatten- 
 tion to this than from almost any other cause. 
 The people are clamoring everywhere for a bet- 
 ter elocution in our preachers ; and there is a 
 measure of justice in their demand, trying and 
 unreasonable as it may seem to men who have 
 the more important, spiritual, furnishing for 
 the work. Somebody comes along with not 
 
 Page Thirty 
 
one-hall their capacity or their learning and 
 " takes the people s ear, and we thereupon fall 
 to commenting upon the wretched popular taste. 
 "How do you like young brother Blank? one 
 of our prominent divines was asked. " I think 
 he has a very large voice, was the answer ; 
 and it was not in this case an ill-natured com- 
 ment. The sermon might almost have been 
 described as "vox et preterea nihil. Never- 
 theless, it observed one element of the direction 
 given by Martin Luther to preachers : 
 
 " Stand up promptly. 
 Speak out boldly. 
 Sit down quickly." 
 
 It was Spoken out boldly, and the confident 
 manner and voice awakened expectation. It 
 raised a presumption, too, that the speaker had 
 something to say. Instead of inveighing then 
 against the taste which can discard a thoughtful 
 address for such a performance, let us rather 
 criticise the culture which will not appropriate 
 for itself that which the most uneducated man 
 may make an element of success. A conse- 
 crated minister will strive to train, and attune, 
 the mstrument he must use by the study of, 
 elocution, poetry or any other art that will 
 make his message more acceptable. The Master 
 Himself did not ignore these methods. " He 
 opened His mouth and taught them, we are 
 told. Dont forget, reverend sir, to open your 
 
 Page Thirty-One 
 
mouth. " He stood and cried to the multi- 
 tudes — tnat IS, ne took tne proper posture and 
 tnen He exerted nimselr to be Heard. We can- 
 not learn from Jesus Christ to undervalue any- 
 thing, which may speed the thought, more 
 quickly, to the heart oi the hearer. 
 
 So much, as to the training of the voice for 
 expression. 
 
 But a knowledge oi music may even improve 
 one s style of composition and delivery, giving 
 a sense of rhythm and balance, and teaching 
 the use of pause and climax. There is undoubt- 
 edly a sympathetic connection between all the 
 arts. One whose ear is trained to Shakespeare s 
 later blank verse, or attuned to the music of the 
 sonnet form, in which "the thought constructs 
 the tune comes to feel the subtile connection 
 between form and content in all good writing 
 or speaking. Music, the twin sister of poetry, 
 has a similar influence over taste in expression. 
 Why do we speak popularly of the music of 
 the orator s eloquence ? We certainly do not 
 refer simply to the quality of his vocal tones. 
 Do not we mean that his thoughts, also, come 
 forth musically, i. e., rhythmically and harmoni- 
 ously? Besides, why do great orators so often 
 have beautiful voices ? Is there not here a 
 suggestion of something beneath molding all 
 the man s being and speaking, harmoniously 
 together ? That execrable style of speech we 
 call " sing-song can come only from a defective 
 
 Page Thirty-Two 
 
ear, or from lack oi training in the distinguish- 
 ing of musical sounds. 
 
 Moreover, preposterous as it may seem to 
 some, the mental discipline of music is not to 
 be despised. 
 
 Philip Gilbert Hamerton affirms that music 
 "has an important influence on the whole of 
 our emotional nature and indirectly upon ex- 
 pression of all kinds. " He who has once 
 learned, says he, " the self-control of the mu- 
 sician, the use of piano and forte, each in its 
 proper place, when to be lightly swift or ma- 
 jestically slow, and especially how to keep to 
 the key once chosen until the right time has 
 come for changing it, he who has once learned 
 this knows the secret of the arts. No painter, 
 writer, orator, who has the power and judgment 
 of a thoroughly cultivated musician, can sin 
 against the broad principles of taste. This 
 cannot be altogether fanciful. The subtile har- 
 monies of Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, and 
 Schumann, certainly tend to train the mind in 
 the powers of abstraction and concentration. 
 Who that listens thoughtfully has not felt that 
 music resembles a process of pure reasoning, 
 every melody being a kind of syllogism with 
 its premises and its conclusion? There is cer- 
 tainly something like a logical progress from the 
 beginning to the end in a strain of music. It 
 is, of course, to be understood that the ideas 
 suggested by music are what are known as 
 
 Page Thirty-Three 
 
"musical ideas, — the motifs, pKrases and elab- 
 orations or musical tnemes. But tne invention 
 and development of these is as distinctly intel- 
 lectual a (eat as the demonstrations of the 
 higher mathematics. In one case, the mind 
 works with the symbols of the sound-world ; 
 in the other, with the symbols of the number- 
 world and the space-world. 
 
 Then, it IS not amiss to urge — in view of a 
 contrary impression in certain quarters — that 
 some degree of skill in vocal or instrumental 
 music IS quite compatible with the highest intel- 
 lectual powers. It IS true that Thornwell had 
 little musical taste, and Robert J. Breckenridge 
 IS known to have loathed an organ; and if some 
 other noted divines have any musical faculty 
 whatever they have hitherto given no sign. Of 
 one of our distinguished Professors this incident 
 was told me: He had confessed to my inform- 
 ant that he could distinguish no difference be- 
 tween tunes. Just then a cow bawled in the 
 street. " Now, can you not, he was asked, 
 "tell the difference between that sound and 
 your wife s voice? "Yes, said he, in his 
 measured way, " I perceive a difference, but 
 one is as musical to my ear as the other. 
 
 On the other hand, Joseph Addison Alex- 
 ander, the Coryphaeus of Biblical scholarship in 
 America, was noted for his aesthetic tastes, and 
 played quite skillfully upon the flute; and Joseph 
 H. Duryea, one of the most charming preachers 
 
 Page Thirty>Four 
 
on the Continent, could delight a cultivated 
 Boston audience by his mastery of the organ. 
 President Scovel, or Wooster, when a pastor, 
 displayed a similar versatility and the musical 
 accomplishments or the lamented Dr. Maltbie 
 Baocock, also, are well known. 
 
 Many cases of apparent defect are probably 
 due to the non-cultivation from childhood oi 
 a quite sufficient gift. One is not, then, too 
 hastily, to assume that he cannot learn music. 
 The celebrated Thomas Hastings, who has writ- 
 ten some of our most valuable church tunes, 
 learned to sing only by the most laborious 
 perseverance. Dr. Lowell Mason used to say 
 that any one who could speak could learn 
 to sing. I have known only one or two per- 
 sons, with an ardent desire to sing, who did not 
 meet with some success. They failed after 
 many strenuous efforts even to sing the scale; 
 but they never found it out, and for aught I 
 know they sing with as much pleasure to-day 
 as though they could do it perfectly. It is not 
 every man who knows when he knows ! 
 
 If a minister of the Gospel may cultivate an 
 accomplishment, what finer accomplishment is 
 there for him than music ? How wonderfully, 
 too, it may be turned to account in his work ! 
 I am inclined to think that if some of our 
 clergymen, who are diverting their energies and 
 destroying their pastoral spirit and efficiency in 
 reading up for professorships, would develop in 
 
 Page Thirty-Five 
 
their spare hours, some practical talent like 
 music, they would be happier and more success- 
 ful in their nelds. 
 
 It will help the preacher sometimes also to 
 commend the truth, as I endeavor in the follow- 
 ing lectures to show. The most hardened heart 
 will at times be touched by music. I could 
 multiply incidents and testimonies as to this. 
 
 We know what a power music was in Luther s 
 hands: "Many a wild unutterability, says 
 Carlyle, 'ne spoke forth in the tones of his 
 flute. He used himself to say that he drove 
 the devil from him with his flute. You remem- 
 ber that a Catholic opponent once compared him 
 to Orpheus, drawing men as he would. " Music 
 is a discipline, said Luther. " It softens us. 
 It makes us temperate and reasonable. I would 
 allow no man to be a schoolmaster who cannot 
 sing, nor would I let him preach either. We 
 are hardly ready, however, for that. It would 
 rule out some of our greatest preachers. 
 
 There is still another consideration of no 
 small importance to a cultivated man. 
 
 A minister, whether he sing and play, or not, 
 needs some knowledge of music to keep him 
 from making indiscreet and unintelligent refer- 
 ences to it. There is nothing necessarily intel- 
 lectual in tossing music aside as fit only for 
 nddling youths of amatory propensities, and 
 German professors of bibulous tastes. In this 
 day of general information an educated minister 
 
 Page Thirty-Six 
 
assuredly may be supposed to know that music 
 is, in some respects, the most mtellectual of the 
 arts. This is true even ii it be described as 
 the language of feeling. " Rightly understood, 
 as John S. Dwight has said, " there might not 
 be a higher definition. The poet truly sings: 
 
 Thought IS deeper than all speech 
 Feeling deeper than all thought! 
 
 But, then, he means the feeling which is deep, 
 and which relates us to the highest universal 
 ends of being. It is certain that music belongs 
 more than any other art to the inner world. 
 It plays upon man s nature, too, through a 
 greater range than any other. It can lead him 
 in a Bacchanalian revel; it can voice the wor- 
 ship of the soul to God. Joined with poetry, 
 it can take for its subject God Himself, and the 
 highest, deepest, subtlest religious conceptions, 
 whilst it vies with poetry in ministering to 
 man s inmost self. 
 
 Music is, in fact, as insisted before, the product 
 of science as is no other art. Professor Leslie 
 pronounces sound the subtlest and the most diffi- 
 cult department of nature. So that music is 
 emphatically the gift of science to the world. 
 It has taken longer to develop, though one of 
 the nrst arts to begin its career. Only after the 
 most patient and learned investigations have the 
 treasures of song been brought from nature s 
 store; so that contrary to popular impression, 
 it is the least spontaneous of the arts. The 
 
 Page Thirty-Seven 
 
do close reproduction oi a flower or fruit may 
 make a beautiful painting, but wbere are tbe 
 sounds in nature wbicn may be copied to make 
 a melody ? I bave sometimes been startled by 
 a few notes from a rare bird tbat suggested and 
 migbt bave given tbe bint for a well known air. 
 But tbe full, rounded melody, witb its rise and 
 fall, its climax and its anti-climax, and its dis- 
 tributed cadences, wbere is tbat to be beard in 
 nature ? It is tbe result of tbe patient experi- 
 ment, and growing tastes, of musical scbolars for 
 ages. Even tbe diatonic scale, wbicb I bave 
 known a cbild to sing before two years of age, 
 IS, as I bave already said, tbe product of science. 
 It is now believed tbat tbe Egyptians and tbe 
 Greeks bad tbe diatonic scale, but melody in 
 any modern sense seems to bave been unknown 
 to tbe ancients. We could better comprebend 
 tbe music of tbe Greeks and tbe Romans if but 
 one melody survived to us. Did tbey know 
 music in our modern sense, at all ? 
 
 I bave lingered somewbat upon tbis tbat I 
 migbt lay a basis for urging my bretbren not to 
 join in Ignorant flings at " classical music. 
 Classical music is music at its best. It is tbe 
 creation of tbe masters of musical taste : — Wbo 
 IS more likely tban tbey to know tbe beautiful? 
 Wbo sbould be followed if not tbey? Let me 
 urge you tben to be careful bere. Surely a 
 profession wbicb makes sucb frequent reference, 
 and pays sucb deference, to tbe acbievements of 
 
 Page Thirty-Eight 
 
Raphael and Rubens on tne canvass, and which 
 decks its puhhc addresses with elegant allusions 
 to the great Cathedrals, should hold itself respect- 
 ful, at least, toward that art which even more 
 wonderfully than painting or architecture evinces 
 the creative power of man. Now, classical 
 music is not only the perfection of music itself, 
 but it IS the source of practically all the musical 
 phrases circulating among us in more popular 
 productions. Recently, I came across " Shoo, 
 Fly ! in a Schubert symphony. The well- 
 known college song, " Have you no feeling, 
 to see me kneeling ? is cribbed from Von 
 Weber s "Concertstuck. The "Boom de Ay, 
 so madly rife among us a few years since, is a 
 transcript in part from one of Mozart s Concerto 
 themes. The "0, Ye Tears, of Abt, is plainly 
 suggested by Beethoven s lovely "Andante 
 Favori, for the piano. Such exceptions as 
 the popular melodies of Stephen C. Foster are 
 to be found, but these are hardly exceptions. 
 The most beautiful phrases of the song can often 
 be traced to the older forms of the Masters, and 
 the spirit of these, at least, has entered into the 
 studies of our popular writers. Recent investi- 
 gators suggest the connection of the so-called 
 Ethiopian melodies of our Southern negroes 
 with strains brought over by the Scotch-Irish 
 and the Huguenots. Whatever the value, how- 
 ever, of our native themes they will not take 
 their place as musical art until gifted musicians 
 
 Page Thirty-Nine 
 
ior them what Liszt did for the Hungarian 
 melodies. Music is not indigenous in any chme, 
 except in very elementary forms. The music 
 of our day, I insist, is the result of men s labors 
 and thoughts for centuries, and should be cher- 
 ished as such. When, therefore, I hear culti- 
 vated men — as ministers nowadays are pre- 
 sumed to be — when I hear such men setting 
 aside the best music because they cannot com- 
 prehend it, I think of Turner s reply to the lady 
 who protested that she had not seen a certain 
 familiar landscape as he had painted it, — " Don t 
 you wish you could. Madam? It seems to 
 me that a cultivated man would wish to say, 
 at least, with Charles Lamb, " Sentimentally, I 
 am disposed to harmony, though organically I 
 am incapable of a tune. 
 
 Now, one only needs to listen and submit 
 himself to the spell of good music, and he will 
 come to love it as we love, after fuller acquaint- 
 ance, all the great art and literature of the 
 world, and as the simplest peasants oi Germany 
 and Italy accustomed to it, come to love classic 
 music. But m any event every minister owes 
 it to his own culture and to his public influence, 
 to have correct ideas upon this, as well as upon 
 other subjects ; and as I have endeavored to 
 show, he will augment his power largely if he 
 have not only some musical information, but if 
 he have acquired some skill in singing or play- 
 ing on an instrument. 
 
 Page Forty 
 
Ill 
 
 Mtusic as a '^^aclov of (ton^r^Qationai 
 'power 
 
 "As some to cliurch repair 
 Not for tne doctrine, but tne music there. 
 
 — Pope 
 
 LL other tilings being equal, the congre- 
 gation wnose musical service is most 
 worthy and best conducted, will reach 
 the people and will serve their needs most 
 effectively. 
 
 It will generally have a greater number in 
 attendance, for nothing draws people in such 
 crowds as music. Like all good things this 
 may be, and often is, abused. So often is the 
 music put forward as the principal thing, or 
 employed for artistic, rather than for religious 
 results, that careful people sometimes draw back, 
 fearing that its elaborate use may positively 
 harm the church s standing and testimony. But, 
 as has been well urged, the very anxiety upon 
 this point comes from " an intuitive perception 
 that music has a real moral and religious 
 power. The very fact that the enemy uses it 
 
 Page Forty-One 
 
for his purposes, makes it vitally important that 
 the church seize and direct it aright for her own 
 designs. Rowland Hill s oft-quoted insistence, 
 that the devil be not allowed to have all the 
 beautiful music, touches, then, the true philos- 
 ophy of this matter. " Every creature of God 
 is good, says the Apostle. 
 
 The church has from the beginning sought to 
 levy upon every power which could extend, or 
 deepen, her influence over the people. She has 
 subsidized architecture, painting, sculpture and 
 poetry, as well as music. Of all these arts, it 
 may fairly be urged that music is at once the 
 most indispensable and the most congenial to 
 the experiences and expressions of religion. 
 Nowhere, in either dispensation, or under any 
 form of administration, save among the Quakers, 
 and for a time among the Independents, has 
 music ever been absent from religious worship ; 
 and never did the exceptions more perfectly 
 prove the wisdom of the rule. When the 
 church has aroused herself to call the multitude 
 together, she has put the silver trumpet of music 
 to her lips ; and she has been consistent in so 
 doing. One would nnd it hard to frame an 
 argument legitimating the ngures of sacred 
 rhetoric, and the adaptation of the beautiful in 
 architecture, whilst rejecting the glorious minis- 
 try of music. " I have taken you with guile, 
 says the Apostle. This declaration of Pauline 
 policy echoes one of the Master s own most 
 
 Page Forty-Two 
 
suggestive commands : " Be ye wise as serpents, 
 and^narmless as doves. He, Himself, argued 
 on this line to His disciples, and rallied them to 
 an equal diligence with the worldling in the 
 service of their Master. 
 
 If the children of this world, then, gather 
 crowds and win attention hy the appeal of 
 music, it becomes the Children of Light to be 
 as wise. The employment by the enemy of 
 "sacred concerts and similar questionable en- 
 tertainments on the Sabbath should not then 
 deter us, but should rather make us strive to be 
 as shrewd as he, in appealing to the whole 
 nature of man. 
 
 Now, Mr. Ruskin, in his " Queen of the 
 Air, pronounces music as "the first, the 
 simplest and the most effective of all instru- 
 ments of moral instruction, though, in the failure 
 and betrayal of its functions, it may become 
 the subtlest aid of moral degradation. 
 
 Objectors to the use of music so largely in 
 congregational work do not apprehend, I think, 
 the breadth of Christianity as a working force in 
 the world, nor its operation of all the agencies m 
 sight, as the leaven exploits and transforms the 
 the meal into which it falls. Our Saviour s 
 parables of the "Tares and of the "Net" 
 rebuke purists of every sort — artistic purists, as 
 well as religious purists. 
 
 Mr. Barnby — a great name in church music 
 — in copying the words of Pope, quoted before, 
 
 Page Forty-Three 
 
thus comments upon them: "Of all the errors 
 which cry aloud for a remedy, the worst to my 
 mmd IS perpetuated m the endeavor to draw a 
 new congregation to a church, or to fill up the 
 thinned ranks of a decreasing flock hy the 
 exhibition of startling novelties and what I 
 should term musical tours de force. 
 
 Another objector, an anonymous wag, has 
 served up the matter as follows : 
 
 "II pulpit utterance won't suffice 
 
 To win tke people from their sins ; 
 You 11 find a method more concise 
 Than preaching ; play on violins. 
 
 " Or, if you see devotion sinks 
 
 Beneath the organ's solemn tones ; 
 Increase the attractions of your jinks. 
 And to your fiddlers add tromhones. 
 
 " If still the people stay away. 
 
 And if to church you'd have them come; 
 There still is one effectual way 
 
 To catch them — try the kettle-drum." 
 
 How absurd to such ethereal souls must seem 
 the employment of any material agency to reach 
 a spiritual end ! We wonder how they can use 
 a hymn at all, since song is only vocalized 
 breath, and the working of the jaws. Why 
 should we be dependent at all upon such means ? 
 Let us all be spiritual at a leap ! Meanwhile, 
 human nature, like the Ten Commandments, 
 "will not budge. We have it always with us 
 and out of it the Kingdom is to be composed. 
 A much wiser man has said, " First, the natural, 
 afterward that which is spiritual. 
 
 Page Forty-Four 
 
I do not know how far Rev. Henry Ward 
 Beecher will be accepted as an authority by 
 you, but you will nnd in a sermon by bim 
 quoted in Hastings "Sacred Praise over fifty 
 years ago, an appeal witb characteristic elo- 
 quence for a recognition of the religious power 
 of music itself, as distinguished from the words. 
 He pictures the waking up of a congregation 
 when a new and "taking melody is joined 
 with a familiar hymn, and he follows in his 
 imaginative way that melody as it lingers in 
 the memory, recalled and whistled by the way 
 or sung over and over in the home. That 
 melody undoubtedly was a divine gift, to fix 
 the words in mind, and make them more relish- 
 able to the heart. The beautiful is a part of 
 God s own creation that is to be used by us in 
 the name and for the service of the Master. 
 And when I see multitudes plunging down to 
 death, led by the terrible fascinations of the 
 devil, I, for one, feel it incumbent to use every 
 rightful agency which can attract them to the 
 hearing of the Truth. There are some who 
 will not be drawn at all save by such methods. 
 We may not attract those who desire nothing 
 beyond sensuous entertainment, but there is a 
 yearning in every man for the beautiful that we 
 must satisfy, else we have not used one of the 
 soul s greatest powers in the service of the 
 Truth. Music does not belong to the devil. 
 Jubal invented the pipe and the organ, but he 
 
 Page Forty-Five 
 
and his line have not been able to keep them. 
 The organ is a ransomed instrument. It be- 
 longs to-day to the church, and there is not a 
 tyro in our midst who does not recognize the 
 incongruity when it is lowered from its greater 
 service, or who does not feel its power when 
 the church appeals to the people, through this 
 greatest of musical instruments. Pray tell me 
 for what use a magnincent voice or skill upon 
 an instrument is given to a man or a woman, if 
 not for the service of God s church ? 
 
 The music is, of course, not to be made an 
 an end in itself. The advertisement of musical 
 programs for Sunday services has seemed to 
 some of us like exalting the music above the 
 sermon, yet it need not operate thus if the 
 Word be given its proper place and authority 
 m the service. Meanwhile, we must deal with 
 human nature as it is. 
 
 "A verse will catch nim 
 Who a sermon flies,' 
 
 says good George Herbert. This certainly is 
 quite in analogy with other agencies used in 
 religious work. The display of a picture, or 
 the telling of a story, may be the turning point 
 in the salvation of a man. 
 
 We have in this matter, too, the best of all 
 examples. If Jesus Christ Himself would 
 preach to a multitude, drawn to Him chiefly 
 for the loaves and fishes, as He well knew, we 
 may not discard any agency, in itself innocent, 
 
 Page Forty-Six 
 
to cliarm tlie ear or to rivet the attention or the 
 listener. Missionaries in India go where tne 
 crowds gather and they hold them as they can. 
 We, too, must go to the people and must allure 
 them to the church. We must give them the 
 Gospel, sugar-coated with something they like, 
 if they will not hear it otherwise. We may 
 not yet he ready to approve the gifted whistlers 
 warhling, in some churches, or the use of the 
 phonograph or moving pictures, hut we recall 
 that there was a time when it was not good 
 form to allow a violin in the Sunday service. 
 It IS not yet permitted by those to whom a 
 violin IS only a riddle. 
 
 Now, IS not this the principle that should 
 govern us here — that whatever is decorous and 
 acceptable to good taste anywhere may be con- 
 secrated for religious purposes? It may hurt 
 the pride of some of us to see that people can 
 be drawn to our meetings by a good singer, 
 who would not come to hear us preach. Shall 
 we not, however, be glad ii we can even in this 
 way get them under the power of the Word ? 
 If Christ drew them by a loaf of bread, may we 
 not attract them by a song? "Notwithstand- 
 ing every way, says Paul. We are all 
 children to the end, and there is scarcely a 
 preacher in the land who would not, himself, if 
 a visitor in a strange city, be attracted to the 
 church where the praise of God was heartily 
 and beautifully sung, rather than to one where 
 
 Page Forty-Seven 
 
it was carelessly or formally offered. The 
 praise service may absolutely be an index to 
 tbe character and extent of a church s zeal in 
 reaching men. 
 
 The pastor, too, needs all the help that he 
 can get. There is no doubt that the employ- 
 ment of this agency has rescued many a pas- 
 torate from discouragement and defeat. How 
 can one preach effectively and heartedly with 
 never an unfamiliar face before him in the 
 pews? The new stream of people gathered, if 
 for no more than curiosity, " to see or hear some 
 new thing, like Paul s audience at Athens, 
 gives a zest and an air of reality to the occasion 
 which is often the only thing needed to turn a 
 lifeless sermon into a thing of power. Besides, 
 sometimes, those " who come to scoff remain 
 to pray. Zaccheus and the Athenians were 
 at nrst moved by curiosity; and there are 
 multitudes who attend worship every Sabbath 
 m obedience to convention, habit, fashion, or a 
 desire to be entertamed, who get something 
 better than they go for. If we are to be nshers 
 of men, we must bait our hook with something 
 the people like. 
 
 But I wish to emphasize the effect, on the 
 preacher s own soul and manner, of a little 
 popular success won in this way. The sense 
 of mastery that comes with the evidence that a 
 response can be evoked somehow from the 
 audience, if only to stand and sing, is very 
 
 Page Forty-Eight 
 
welcome and very stimulating to a pastor who 
 nas been completely "flattened out by minis- 
 tering, in stagnant and humdrum conditions. 
 The pleasure of seeing new people come in and 
 flood the regular congregation out or their 
 stereotyped sitting, thus breaking up the monot- 
 ony and stagnation which is akin to, ii not the 
 precursor of death, — these " trifles, react pow- 
 erfully upon both pastor and people. What an 
 aid to many a discouraged, collapsed preacher 
 a little musical revival m his church would be ! 
 
 There is also the impressive power of music. 
 It cannot be superfluous to remind my brethren 
 of the power of music to wing the truth to the 
 heart, so long as multitudes of our best preach- 
 ers have never learned it well enough to try it. 
 
 A writer: in one of our dailies, testifies to 
 the enect upon his own heart of a single solo, 
 sung by a young lady of the choir in a church 
 into which he had gone, out of curiosity, one 
 Sabbath morning, and he urges that music be 
 oftener used to make the heart ready for the 
 reception or the Truth. What pastor has not 
 observed the better preparation of the people 
 for his sermon, as well as the stimulation which 
 came to his own mind to speak, after a good 
 choir or a well-led hymn had girded the congre- 
 gation up to an attitude of expectancy? The 
 great example of Mr. Moody, whose methods 
 were to the last so spiritually conceived, should 
 be instructive to us. We may not be able to 
 
 Paige Forty-Nine 
 
duplicate his gifted singers and chorus choirs, 
 but we can wield a greater influence over the 
 people than we do, if we will use those within 
 our reach. We may never have his great 
 crowds waiting upon our words, but if we will 
 adopt like simple agencies we will have far 
 more hearers than we usually do to preach to. 
 We come back always from the great crowded 
 services with one reflection — how simply it was 
 done ! It IS always so. The masses will not 
 be interested in disquisitions, however profound 
 or orthodox. It is the simple thing — a song, a 
 story, a touch of nature, that reaches them, and 
 if we are willing to forego the reputation for 
 great intellectuality and to bring simple truth to 
 bear, either in sermon or song, we shall find a 
 response that will surprise us. In my child- 
 hood it was the singing of that old revival 
 hymn: 
 
 " Come, Kumble sinner, in whose breast 
 A thousand thoughts revolve ; 
 Come, with your guilt ana rear oppressed 
 And make this last resolve,' 
 
 With its weird minor melody, which threw a 
 spell around my young heart which I could not 
 resist. To this day, I cannot hear it without 
 being profoundly moved. My experience in 
 this is echoed by thousands. We forget the ser- 
 mons, the music " sticks. To neglect a power 
 like that, or not to consecrate it in the spirit 
 in which it IS conceived, is to despise the gifts 
 
 Page Fifty 
 
that God has given us, and to be recreant to a 
 power put into our hands to move men. Do not 
 imagme, then, that you have done all when you 
 have prepared your sermon careiully. Remem- 
 ber that you have somethmg to do m prepar- 
 ing the soil into which it rails ; something to do 
 in bringing the emotional, aesthetic nature of 
 your hearers into sympathy with the Truth. 
 
 Dr. Breed, in his sententious way, exclaims: 
 " How much easier it is to touch and move 
 souls already vibrant with holy emotion ! and 
 we have Dr. A. J. Gordon s opinion as to the 
 help which music may bring to the preacher, in 
 the following words: "Singing is the circulat- 
 ing medium of worship. It distributes the 
 fervor of each Christian among his brethren 
 and equalizes the devotion or the whole body. 
 The preacher cannot furnish both incitement 
 and susceptibility. What minister cannot feel 
 the difference in the touch of a congregation 
 that has risen just before the sermon and 
 poured itself out in an inspiring and hearty 
 hymn of praise, from that of an audience that 
 has been simply sitting and listening to a mu- 
 sical performance ? If any fact has been made 
 clear to me in my pastoral experience it is this, 
 that people who enter heartily and enthusiastic- 
 ally into the worship, as earnest participants, 
 can be inspired with interest and moved to duty 
 with half the labor which would otherwise be 
 required. To throw a word into hearts that 
 
 Page Fifty-One 
 
are all resonant with devotion, to touch chords 
 tliat are all vibrant with sympathetic feeling — 
 there is a real delight in this. 
 
 Study, then, for yourself, this amazing power 
 of music over the multitude, and thank God for 
 it, and use it as His gift to you, hy which you 
 may bring greater numbers unto Him. 
 
 Page Fifty-Two 
 
!Jltuslc as tl)<^ Vehicle of t^z (Tburc^'s 
 "praise 
 
 "There let the peahng organ blow 
 To the full-voiced quire below. 
 In service high, and anthems clear. 
 As may with sweetness, through mine ear 
 Dissolve me into ecstacies 
 And bring all heaven before mine eyes. " 
 
 — Milton 
 
 F we knew that He would hear us, we 
 would smg to Him ! In these pa- 
 thetic words, one of the Congo tribes 
 expressed their feelings to Shepherd, the mis- 
 sionary, when he told them of the true God 
 and His desire for their worship. 
 
 It was their own spontaneous thought — " If 
 we knew that He would hear us, we would 
 sing to Him. What an evidence of the heart s 
 own natural desire to offer something to God, 
 and of the intuitive perception in the simplest 
 minds of the function of music in winging a 
 message from man to God! Among the Hin- 
 doos, in their Vedic hymns, and among the 
 Greeks, in their songs to Apollo, the same great 
 instinct of Praise to the Creator broke forth 
 into song. 
 
 Page Fifty-Three 
 
Tne Praise oi God is undoubtedly the 
 supreme and ultimate runction oi music in tne 
 House of God. In insisting on other uses of 
 music, I would DC understood as holding them 
 ever subservient to, and promotive of, this 
 eventual purpose of our appearing before God. 
 Dr. B. M. Palmer has eloquently said: "It 
 would appear that worship must be the absorb- 
 ing employment of the creature. Everything 
 must flow into this in the end. All the obedience 
 of the Christian, all the active service which 
 he renders to the church, all the knowledge he 
 acquires of Divine things, all the grace minis- 
 tered to him by the Spirit, all the emotions of 
 love and joy which may lighten his experience 
 — all this must resolve at length into praise 
 and go up as the incense of acceptable worship 
 before God. 
 
 The Epistle to the Hebrews signalizes " the 
 sacnnce of praise, as the one oblation that now 
 remains to us, and this ever to be offered under 
 the leadership of the great High Priest of our 
 profession. With this very evident truth in 
 mind, we need no further proof that the offering 
 should be the very best that is possible to us. 
 I would as soon think it necessary to show the 
 permissibility of the highest offerings from the 
 seraphic host in heaven. What, but the best, is 
 good enough for God, or worthy of the creature 
 in heaven or earth ? It is only because it 
 IS the creature s best offering that it becomes 
 
 Page Fifty-Four 
 
true worsKip, and acceptable to God at all. 
 Now this principle leads straight to a conse- 
 crated art in the service or worship. An elo- 
 quent Scotchman urged, at one oi the Pan- 
 Presbytenan Councils, that art had ever been 
 a temptress, and an enemy to purity in wor- 
 ship. But it has been cogently replied that 
 the subtile danger from this source only neces- 
 sitates more imperatively the bringing or all the 
 believer s powers under the dominion of grace. 
 The remedy is not to be found in abandoning 
 the field. Besides, the worshipper is not at lib- 
 erty to withhold any gift he has. The offering 
 IS imperative. It is not what is permitted to 
 him, or what he chooses to bring. The pos- 
 session of a gift implies a duty. It is to reflect 
 honor upon the giver as he offers it to his 
 Maker. A bird glorifies its Maker by pouring 
 out a flood of song ; it is an unconscious, un- 
 trained act on the part of the bird. So a great 
 voice is given a man or woman, not only to 
 please themselves or to delight others withal, 
 but to train for the praises of its Giver. 
 
 We have beaten out too nnely, perhaps, 
 what was plain enough as a principle. It is, 
 however, not often enough recalled in connec- 
 tion with questions of worship and permissible 
 things in the House of God. 
 
 If I am asked, then, what kind of music we 
 should have in the church, I must answer — 
 good music ; all kinds of good music. There 
 
 Fage Fifty-Five 
 
should be the dedication of the highest taste 
 and talent oi the congregation in the service. 
 There is a place for every kind of offering, 
 whether from choir or chorus, or from the con- 
 gregation itself. Sometimes a congregation can 
 voice its own feelings best through a choir or 
 chorus trained to a musical expression impossi- 
 ble to the average audience. 
 
 There is a just and sanctined impatience with 
 practices which slight or stifle the general praises 
 of the people, But so-called congregational 
 music is often not a worthy exponent of the 
 theory. I have never heard poorer congrega- 
 tional singing than in some congregations which 
 have insisted most exclusively upon it. The 
 people need strong leading in this, as in every- 
 thing else. A great deal can be done, as I 
 believe and know, in the way of developing 
 the singing of the people, but it is not by slight- 
 ing other forms of musical service, nor by set- 
 ting aside the members of the congregation best 
 endowed to lead the praise. We will not 
 further the people s singing by cutting off the 
 special service of choir and solo and chorus. 
 
 There is besides this, a New Testament 
 breadth which many good people have not 
 apprehended. The Apostle exhorts us (in 
 Eph. V: 15-19): "Be not drunk with wine, 
 wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, 
 speaking to yourselves (or, rather, one to an- 
 other) in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs. 
 
 Page Fifty-Six 
 
singing and making melody m your hearts to 
 the Lord. 
 
 Now, there is here, as some thmk, a general 
 warrant to use music as the worldling uses wine, 
 to heighten the spirits, and to produce effects 
 upon the emotions, hy music, which draw 
 people to the service and hold them under its 
 spell. I, myself, hold to this interpretation of 
 the text ; hut if this be rejected, none can dispute 
 the allowance here of concerted music in the 
 sanctuary. We are to sing "one to another, 
 as well as in the chorals of the entire congrega- 
 tion. This is in line with the antiphonal ser- 
 vices of the Temple, and it justifies the modern 
 congregational and evangelistic methods, which 
 employ the solos and choruses of a choir, as 
 well as the singing of the people. We may sing 
 " one to another as well as directly to God. 
 
 Now, IS there not too little discrimination in 
 the way that many excellent people dispose of 
 this matter? Is there not, sometimes, an un- 
 conscious selfishness in the demand that our own 
 conscience, or our own taste shall control in the 
 character of the music ? If music were only a 
 matter of taste, it should still be amenable to 
 the law of love ; for we are to regard one 
 another s tastes. But it is a matter of con- 
 science, as well, and of service. Should not, 
 then, the consciences of all be respected, if there 
 be those who do not feel that they can worship 
 God becomingly, except with the best? 
 
 Page Fifty-Seven 
 
But why, upon any ground, should fine art 
 be decried in our cnurcnes? Is not art a 
 development oi God-given instincts ; and, if so, 
 IS not musical art as legitimate in the sanctuary 
 as pictorial and sculptural art ? What better 
 right have we to appeal to the eye than to the 
 ear? Why may we have, as urged before, the 
 most exquisite and varied architectural designs, 
 and deny music, the very daughter of the 
 Temple, her opportunity? Why is a comfort- 
 able cushion more allowable than a delicious 
 chord, or an edifying succession of sweet 
 sounds? Because it can be abused, is music 
 not to be used at all, in its highest forms, and 
 most elaborate combinations ? Mr. Beecher s 
 comparison of a fugue to "a cat running around 
 after its tail, and Dr. Talmage s travesty on 
 the choir s rendering of the " ointment running 
 down Aaron s beard, down — down — down — to 
 the skirts of his garment, are very diverting, 
 and are very justly aimed at extravagant and 
 irreverent musical performances ; the remedy, 
 however, is not to be found in the rejection of art 
 altogether, but in a truer, better-conceived art 
 for the sanctuary. Besides, the needs of all 
 classes of worshipers, I repeat, are to be re- 
 spected here ; and some of us are more depen- 
 dent on the music than on the architectural 
 surroundings. There is, I am pleased to see, 
 an increasing number of persons who can dis- 
 cover no reason for tolerating insipidity and 
 
 Page Fifty-Eight 
 
bad taste m our churcK music if they can be 
 avoided. They regard it as a matter of con- 
 siderable consequence that tne music of our 
 cnurcbes be improved. 
 
 All this is said, whilst conceding, of course, 
 that music has in itself no religious character. 
 Dr. J. G. Holland well says that " there is no 
 more reformatory power in music than m the 
 lowest of menial pursuits. The farmer who 
 lives half the time among his brutes, is likely 
 to be a better man than he who, successfully 
 interpreting some great master, bows nightly 
 before the storms of popular applause. This 
 may be granted. It must also be confessed that 
 there may be a very artistic production of the 
 greatest sacred compositions without much sug- 
 gestion of devotion in singers or people. The 
 finest rendering of Handel s " Hallelujah 
 Chorus, I ever heard, surpassing festival 
 choruses heard in Cincinnati and New York, I 
 heard at the Salt Lake City Tabernacle, from 
 a Mormon choir. At the same time, in com- 
 pany with a large number of members of the 
 Presbyterian General Assembly, there present, 
 I heard a most skillful address dedicated to the 
 praises of Mormonism. But do we decry 
 rhetoric, because it can be so abused? Why, 
 then, nx a stigma upon classical music, because 
 its most skillful performers are not always its 
 worthiest representatives? 
 
 Page Fifty-Nine 
 
Musical art, like every other, Kas no character 
 in itself. We have, however, to account for the 
 fact that the greatest music somehow is reverent. 
 Over much oi even the highest instrumental 
 music might be written " religioso. The slow 
 movements of Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn 
 and Spohr adapt themselves wonderfully to the 
 expression of reverent feeling in the sanctuary. 
 They represent the deeper insight of great 
 natures into the world of beauty. They prove 
 that all the creation of God is pervaded with 
 thought and beauty, and that, by association with 
 suitable words, music can be made promotive 
 of religious sentiments in the soul. The history 
 of art well sustains this view. The first works 
 of the Greek artists, as you know, were chaste. 
 Standing close to nature, their art had not 
 become a panderer. The great harmonies in 
 the natural world, likewise, are co-ordinated to 
 man s deepest being, and in the highest art these 
 are brought together. It is a fact, too, that 
 however unworthy the lives of many great 
 musical artists may have been, great composers 
 like Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven 
 and Mendelssohn, have been men ot decided 
 religious character and life. 
 
 Hundreds could testify that instrumental 
 music, alone, is edifying at times in public wor- 
 ship. The opening chords of the organ, that 
 king — or rather that " Parliament of instru- 
 ments, as it has been called — tend to subdue 
 
 Page Sixty 
 
tne spirit and bring it into reverent and atten- 
 tive mood oetore God, I, tor one, bear wit- 
 ness to the service of a nne organ-opening in 
 putting me into the spirit of worship. 
 
 Nevertheless, music should undoubtedly be 
 kept secondary. It is interpretative. It is 
 adjuvant. It is to honor and advance some- 
 thing beyond itseli ; and, there is, it must be 
 confessed, too much forgetfulness of this, even 
 m our Protestant worship. The opening mu- 
 sical service or a certain Presbyterian church 
 in one of our cities consumed twenty-two min- 
 utes. There sat the pastor, surcharged with his 
 message, impatiently crossing one knee over the 
 other. He was not allowed even to offer the 
 Invocation until the concert was over. I 
 thought that that was too much of a good 
 thing. 
 
 Music may lift the soul as on wings to God, 
 but when a choir usurps in the people s mind 
 the place of God, it has no more right in the 
 sanctuary than so many cackling geese or howl- 
 ing dervishes. It is an impertinence that should 
 somehow be abated or rebuked. 
 
 I will not undertake to advise you now as 
 to what music should be sung, what hymnals 
 used, what composers principally honored. 
 
 There are several very good hymnals in use. 
 Of one or two, however, I have thought that if 
 either happened to be the particular one de- 
 voured by the cannibals of Timbuctoo, when 
 
 Page Sixty-One 
 
they "ate the missionary and the hymn-book- 
 too, the poor man got a swift and terrible 
 revenge. There are, however, a great many 
 things, and a great many tastes, to be taken into 
 account in making a church hymnal. There is 
 call not only for a scholarly acquaintance with 
 church music, but for a recognition of what will 
 please the people. I believe as Benson, Breed, 
 Dumeld, and others have urged, that the general 
 usage of the churches determines at last the best 
 hymns for congregational use. When this seal 
 has been put upon them the worshipers should 
 not be arbitrarily deprived of them, nor should 
 they be annoyed by ill-considered changes in the 
 words, nor by the introduction of unfamiliar 
 harmonies to familiar tunes. There are some- 
 times more ways than one to harmonize a pas- 
 sage. Too often our learned doctors give us 
 an exquisite harmonizing that better befits an 
 organist s nngers than the voices of a worship- 
 ing congregation. The bass should be simple, 
 and flowing and singable ; the tenor not too 
 high. I hear a great many give as reason for 
 not singing that the tunes are pitched too high. 
 I do not, however, think that this is generally 
 true. I have a feeling, though, that the Church 
 of England hymns are dominating too largely 
 our hymnology. Many of these sound more 
 like an elegant four-part song than the strong, 
 sturdy, and impressive hymns of a congregation. 
 We need some of these, of course, but it is my 
 
 Page Sixty-Two 
 
opinion that, after all, the Gregorian hymn, and 
 hymns of that cast and spirit, should furnish a 
 larger part of our church singing. I am clear, 
 too, that we pastors should use our own denom- 
 inational hymnals, if possible. It makes for 
 uniformity of worship and it operates ultimately 
 to develop the best hook for our own particular 
 needs. 
 
 I am urging throughout these talks that the 
 best music — most classical, if you please, — 
 should be held before our congregation as a 
 standard and goal; meanwhile, that a pastor 
 should select the music that the people will 
 "take to most heartily. It is necessary, first 
 and chieny, that God be praised. The vehicle 
 used, the degree of taste or culture attained, 
 must vary with the cultivation and musical 
 knowledge of the singers. I do not myself 
 hesitate to use often in song-services, and in 
 night-meetings, the Gospel Hymns, or similiar 
 popular songs, because the general acquaintance 
 with these assures greater unanimity and heart- 
 iness in the singing; at the same time, I am 
 ever trying to introduce the greater, more 
 worthy devotional music, and it is my experi- 
 ence that the people come to love this when 
 they are patiently and skillfully led up to it. 
 
 There are times when only the older tunes 
 like Dundee, Mear, Antioch, Arlington, Lisbon, 
 Trinity, Hebron, Dennis, Downs and Solitude 
 voice the deeper feelings of the masses ; whilst 
 
 Page Sixty-Three 
 
our beautiiul modern tunes by sucn composers 
 as Barnoy, Dykes, Monk, Gilchrist, Gower, 
 Hopkins, Smart, Stainer, Sullivan and others 
 are getting, more and more, a hold upon the 
 popular heart. 
 
 It IS seli-evident, I insist, to the devout mind 
 that only the best in any art or department is 
 good enough tor God s worship, i. e., the best 
 which the individual himself can render. Let 
 us ever remember that back of the gift is the 
 giver, and that " the gift without the giver is 
 bare. 
 
 Page Sixty-Four 
 
I3be 'pastor's delation to tl)<i ^uslc 
 
 " If tne trumpet give an uncertain souna. 
 Who shall prepare himself to the battle?" 
 
 —St. Paul 
 
 HE pastor IS the leader of the praise, as 
 of all tne otner work and worship of 
 the congregation. It is not meant 
 that upon him rests the decision of everything 
 connected with the musical service. He is not 
 to supplant the responsibility of officers and 
 people, especially those of musical gifts. That 
 would put the worship of the congregation at 
 the mercy of every passing pastor ; this is too 
 much the case at present. He is, however, in 
 charge of all, and he is ultimately responsible in 
 this department, just as tor the financial and 
 spiritual interests of the church. Except in the 
 smaller churches he will take little direct control, 
 even if he have great musical gifts. In churches 
 however test furnished musically, he can be 
 greatly helpful. He can be at least " the 
 animating center of all. 
 
 He can " make much of this part of wor- 
 ship. He can emphasize the importance of the 
 
 Paee Sixty-Five 
 
hymn-singing and the spirit oi praise in the 
 cnurcn s worship, though he may, himself, be 
 without special musical taste. The people will 
 always take their key and cue from him. If he 
 slight, hurry over or make nothing of the praise 
 services, the majority of the people will treat 
 them m the same way. It is not enough to say 
 that the people should sing. He should see 
 that they sing. He should listen for their 
 singing and call attention to neglect or slovenli- 
 ness in congregational worship, and he should 
 commend them when they sing with zest and 
 heartiness. Above all, a pastor should himself 
 sing, or, if he cannot, he should at least follow 
 the singing attentively with book in hand. One 
 who ever saw Dr. W. M. Taylor at the Broad- 
 way Tabernacle, standing reverently and taking 
 part fervently with the people in the singing, 
 has an indelible lesson always in mind on the 
 importance of the minister s example. He will 
 also suspect that something more than the 
 eloquence of that Prince of preachers called the 
 multitude together. Good music is one of the 
 conditions, now-a-days, of pastoral success. 
 The most popular and eloquent of preachers, — 
 Henry Ward Beecher — confessed his indebted- 
 ness to John Zundel and his chorus choir, and 
 Dr. Talmage, too, was careful to have a great 
 organ and a fine cornetist to lead the singing of 
 the people. All of our great modern "Masters 
 of Assemblies have thus magnified the musical 
 
 Page Sixty-Six 
 
part of the service, and Have given their per- 
 sonal attention to it. 
 
 The habits of some ministers, however, dur- 
 ing this part of the worship amount almost to 
 an indecorum. The hymn is hstlessly an- 
 nounced, with no indication that the pastor 
 personally cares very much ahout it, and the 
 learned brother takes his seat and begins to 
 survey " the makeup of the congregation, or 
 to study his notices, or to complete his toilet 
 by rubbing his spectacles, or by blowing out 
 his nostrils like an engine on a switch blowing 
 out her flues. If this ordained and consecrated 
 gentleman has never suspected that he is the 
 leader of the people s praise, why has he never 
 learned to show respectful deference to other 
 people s efforts to praise God, or how to behave 
 himself in the House of God during that 
 exercise. God did not make all good people 
 competent musicians, but He did give them the 
 ability to honor the Church s ordinances, and 
 thus to take part spiritually in them. 
 
 But this IS not the worst. It is no slander 
 to assert that certain of the clergy treat the 
 musical features of worship with a virtual con- 
 tempt. They not only do not ever themselves 
 try to sing, or urge others to sing, but they 
 speak, sometimes, with levity of musical gifts 
 and musical people, and of the incidents and 
 necessities of the praise service. In their whole 
 ministerial life they never give so much as one 
 
 Page Sixty-Seven 
 
earnest thought as to how the praises of our 
 Redeemer are to be rendered more general, or 
 offered more worthily by the people. Such 
 brethren should ponder the telling words of Dr. 
 Waldo S. Pratt in his "Musical Ministries:" 
 " If downright work for the sake of the parish 
 music is not worth the time it takes, then no- 
 thing can justify the extensive use of music that 
 we make in our parishes. If should be abolished 
 or else taken hold of in a way that the Head 
 of the Church evidently intends it to be of- 
 fered. From the same author we commend 
 the insistence that " the whole subject of church 
 music is no mean subject to be casually or 
 flippantly dallied with in a light-hearted and 
 superficial spirit, and that the care of it and the 
 steady pressure towards the highest ideals in it, 
 are responsibilities entrusted most of all to the 
 minister. It will not rise higher than it stands 
 in the average ministerial estimation. 
 
 Let me, in this connection, commend the 
 estimate Richard Baxter placed on music in the 
 worship: "I have made a psalm of praise in 
 the holy assembly the chief delightful exercise of 
 my religion and my life, and have thou helped 
 to bear down all the objections which I have 
 heard against church music. 
 
 We prescribe a Bible Reading to these thought- 
 less brethren on the place of music in both 
 Testaments, from the elaborate musical arrange- 
 ments m the Temple services, to the reverent 
 
 Page Sixty-Eight 
 
singing of our Master with his disciples in the 
 most critical hour of His life. It is certain, 
 too, from the quotation we have already made 
 that Paul, the redoubtable theologian and the 
 ardent missionary of the church, did not slight 
 or underrate the religious meaning and uses of 
 music. 
 
 It may be said again, for your encourage- 
 ment, that there is no better, nor simpler, 
 method by which to arouse interest, and awaken 
 an earnest spirit in stagnated congregations, 
 than to work upon this tack a while. In no 
 other way can you so easily infect them with 
 your own spirit. The people enter the church 
 often with a listless and preoccupied manner ; 
 they sit back in the pews, the body relaxed, and 
 in the posture of waiting. They are in the 
 attitude of recipients watching what the leader 
 IS going to ask them to do. You are in a 
 commanding position, rising and speaking in an 
 active, aggressive way. You are there to elicit 
 whatever response you can from the people. 
 What better way offers itself to establish an 
 understanding at once with your audience, than 
 in the hymn singing? That is something they 
 are all to do, and do in the church before you. 
 They will sit or they will stand, they will turn 
 the leaves to something grave or something 
 joyful, as you select. In this part, above all, 
 the leader makes the service. You can, your- 
 self, give to it the character desired. If it is to 
 
 Page Sixty-Nine 
 
be a joyml triumphant service, you can make it 
 so. If you wish to induce a more reflective 
 serious spirit, you can do that. God has given 
 you, in the hearts of your people, a lyre to 
 play upon. In no way, I repeat, can you 
 better or more quickly establish personal rela- 
 tions with your hearers. What does a minister 
 mean by throwing away such a power as that ? 
 
 I am anxious, too, to meet the objection that, 
 because one is not a singer, he cannot inspire 
 and direct the music. Mr. Beecher was not a 
 great singer but he made himself felt, somehow, 
 in this department of worship. He protests 
 against "the idea abroad that the preacher is to 
 teach and preach, and another man is to sing, — 
 the music farmed out and the unity of the 
 public service marred by two systems of exer- 
 cises conducted by different persons. 
 
 I do not know what Mr. Spurgeon s musical 
 gifts were, but Mr. Curwen, after a visit to his 
 church, says that "Mr. Spurgeon evidently 
 takes delight in the service of song and is 
 anxious above all things that every man, 
 woman and child in the place should sing. 
 Occasionally he will stop the congregation and 
 make them sing more softly, or more quickly, 
 when the effect is felt in a surprising degree. 
 
 The leader of a congregation must lead. It 
 is better for him sometimes to make mistakes m 
 time or taste than to be retired from the direct 
 
 Page Seventy 
 
control of all. The people must feel his heart 
 in all the service. 
 
 It should not need to be said that we advo- 
 cate no meddling dictatorial spirit towards the 
 church's music. It is to be presumed that one who 
 can be discreet and tactful elsewhere, as every 
 successful pastor must be, will try to sway and 
 influence, rather than to force, his people into 
 the desired channels. 
 
 As to the use of your own musical gifts, I 
 would say : If you have a decided musical 
 talent, by all means use it. You will not sing 
 a solo, of course, unless it be in an occasional 
 familiar service, and when your people, whose 
 intuition here is to be trusted, evidently approve 
 it. Few men sing as well as they think they 
 do. Besides, you must not be a factotum. 
 Let your singers surpass you. Do not outsing 
 your tenor or your bass, even if you can ! It 
 is enough for any man to preach the Gospel. 
 It IS well to know how to save a falling cause, 
 sometimes, by a prompt note, but do not 
 appear to lead the choir even when you are 
 guiding all. No choir can like that, and no 
 choir should be set aside in that way, but a 
 little direction, such as a slight inclination of 
 your head, or the motion of your hand, or the 
 gentle throbbing of your book may be needed to 
 keep the congregation with the choir. 
 
 It may seem that we are devolving too 
 much upon a pastor even to suggest this gentle 
 
 Page Seventy-One 
 
guidance. I do not see, liowever, how a mass of 
 people, witn choir and instrument, are to keep 
 together without a leader. I attended, recently, 
 the services of one of the best appointed 
 churches, musically, in the country. The 
 organist was capable, the quartette choir made 
 up of artists, and the pastor had specially ex- 
 horted the people to sing. Yet, I, with the 
 mass of the congregation, had difficulty in keep- 
 ing with them in the hymn-singing. The choir 
 were singing with taste, but there was not that 
 steady, almost mechanical leading needed to 
 keep a mass of people together. The pastor, 
 with good sense of time, could have made them 
 move together, and without calling attention to 
 himself at all. 
 
 The minister must, however, be discreet in 
 assuming to direct the singing. Be careful, too, 
 in your public references to the choir. Once 
 in a while in an unstudied, delicate way, ex- 
 press appreciation of faithful service, and thus 
 rally your people to their leading. It should 
 be remembered that with all the defects of 
 choirs, the faults of congregations towards them 
 are possibly as great, especially the lack of 
 appreciation of well-intended efforts. 
 
 Another thing : Do let us, as preachers, be 
 awake to the distinctive faults of our class. A 
 recent paper comments on "the preacher- voice 
 in singing. It seems they can tell our twang 
 not only in speech, but m song. But why 
 
 Page Seventy-Two 
 
should tliere be this " Holy tone, this unctious 
 mouthing of the notes in song any more than in 
 speech ? 
 
 Ministers havmg good musical capacity will 
 find their best opportunity in the prayer meet- 
 mg. Leadership there will generally be ac- 
 corded you, and your singing will not be judged 
 as art. Something is to be said on the other side, 
 but I like to lead my prayer-meeting music, 
 and insist upon doing so if it be dull and life- 
 less, and I am glad to fortify my own judgment 
 about this with the authority of Dr. Abbott E. 
 Kittredge. He says: "It is unwise to have 
 the choir lead the singing in the prayer-meeting, 
 as it gives the appearance of a musical perform- 
 ance. A better way is for the pastor to lead, 
 and every pastor should know how to sing. 
 
 I prefer, also, to select my own hymns for the 
 prayer-meeting, and I dislike to have to furnish 
 them to an accompanist beforehand. They 
 should be announced as the service goes for- 
 ward, following the changing spirit of the meet- 
 ing. If the player cannot play readily any- 
 thing that the people can sing readily, you 
 should try to get a better player at the instru- 
 ment. This does not forbid the occasional 
 calling for a hymn by one of the congregation, 
 but rather contemplates and provides for that 
 very freedom in the meeting. 
 
 A few words more as to your relations to 
 the choir: The pastor and the choir should be 
 
 Page SeTenty-Three 
 
the best of friends, and the heartiest of co- 
 laborers. The choir is, after all, your principal 
 dependence in the service oi praise. I may 
 have a very tender regard for the choir, from 
 having begun as a small boy at the pump- 
 handle of the organ, and passed through smging 
 the bass in the choir up to playing the organ a 
 little. But my experience as a minister has 
 even increased my previous estimate of the 
 value of faithful choir service. Some of the 
 most devoted people in many churches are 
 serving God by the dedication of their musical 
 talents. Make, then, much of the choir. What 
 if it have faults ? You are not presiding over 
 an ideal institute ; you are taking the men and 
 women at your command and making what 
 you can of their service. 
 
 To make this valuable arm of service enec- 
 tive, certain simple methods may be resorted 
 to. You should speak of the choir s anthems 
 sometimes, and you should always listen to 
 them. Meet with them, also, at times and 
 exchange views with them about the music. 
 Give them your hymns promptly for the Sab- 
 bath services and have them occasionally select 
 their own favorites. In short, you should deal 
 with them as friends of the cause, even though 
 this may be a pretty violent supposition m 
 some cases, requiring the strong effort of a 
 charitable imagination. 
 
 Page Seventy-Four 
 
You must succeed with the cKoir. You have 
 your own proper leaaersnip, and your august 
 responsiDinty, out I forewarn you now to be 
 careful now you dmer with the choir, or slight 
 them, or interfere with them. There is as 
 much human nature to the square mch m the 
 average choir, as is anywhere to be found upon 
 the surface of the earth. If I were asked to 
 name the most condensed and varied assort- 
 ment of human nature anywhere present at one 
 time, I would say, at once, — a choir! 
 
 But it IS to he treated as an existent fact. 
 More than one minister has been unhorsed by 
 tilting at the choir, and has left behind an un- 
 necessary quarrel m the church. The choir is 
 far deeper grounded in the affections of the con- 
 gregation than most pastors are. It is well for 
 some preachers to remember this. As a general 
 thing, then, save for a little shaping, choirs 
 should run themselves. They are growths. 
 This IS true even of paid choirs. If you do 
 not think so try to make a choir, out and out, 
 sometime. After the experiment I think you 
 will wish you had borne with the one you had, 
 and that you had prayed for it a little more. — 
 Query: How many times did anybody ever 
 hear a choir prayed for? 
 
 I say all this, believing, as a jure divine 
 Presbyterian, in the full power of the authori- 
 ties of a church over the music ; but knowing, 
 also, that the members of the session, with the 
 
 Page Seventy-Five 
 
most pious intentions, are not often capable of 
 giving directions here. Tney are not usually, 
 themselves, selected for their musical knowledge. 
 It behooves them, then, and it is, in every way 
 best for the cause, for them, to bear with the 
 choir as they can, and to make the most of 
 them. With whatsoever defects, it should be 
 remembered that they are, after all, the fair 
 counterpart of the congregation. If there were 
 more people of consecrated gifts in the audience, 
 there would be more of such in the choir. 
 
 Page Seventy-Six 
 
■VI 
 ^l)e "Xea5lng of tl)e Musical Service 
 
 " I will sing with the Spirit, and I will sing with the understand- 
 ing also." — St. Paul. 
 
 |HE leader makes the meeting. — No- 
 where IS this saying truer than in the 
 musical part of the service. It is 
 astonishing how ready the people are to follow 
 here. "The people love a master, said a 
 shrewd old pastor, — meaning no douht that 
 they loved to follow one who could lead them 
 wisely. 
 
 Now, as intimated before, it is in the musical 
 service that the rapport between the leader and 
 the worshipers is quickest and best established. 
 They unite in prayer together, but in the praise 
 the mouths of all are opened and thus, too, 
 they open their hearts to God and to each 
 other. 
 
 The pastor should strive to impress it upon 
 all that they are to offer something as well as 
 to receive. He should insist that if one cannot 
 smg, he can at least stand with others and 
 
 Page Seventy-Seven 
 
speak the words of praise. " Let all the people 
 say, Amen. One can say it if he cannot sing 
 it. He can intone it. He, also, can offer to 
 God the music of his soul through his opened 
 lips. This has an importance, too, beyond the 
 musical service. I think we do not realize 
 sometimes how much the backwardness of 
 service in some persons is due to the fact that 
 they have never heard their voice in the public 
 worship in any way. They have had no train- 
 ing whatever in expression. In this necessity 
 of the soul life, if for no other reason, I would 
 found an argument for responses m the public 
 service. Those who do not sing or respond in 
 any way are losing an invaluable training in 
 soul-expression. They are failing, too, to re- 
 ceive the help, one from another, which the 
 joining in the song will bring them. Dr. 
 Gordon, as already quoted, called singing, 
 happily, "the circulating medium of worship, 
 distributing and equalizing the fervor of each 
 throughout the mass of worshipers. It brings 
 about such an " equality as Paul saw in another 
 exercise of worship (2 Cor. VIII: 14, 15) by 
 which those who have a superabundance of 
 fervor share it with those in whom there is a 
 lack of it. 
 
 In this fellowship of worship, then, we nnd 
 our nrst suggestion : It will influence the selec- 
 tion of the hymns. The people should be 
 given to sing what the mass of them can sing, 
 
 Page Seyenty-Eight 
 
and what they like to sing. The best music is 
 at last the music which summons forth most 
 heartily the praises of the people. A skillful 
 leader can in time train them into the enjoy- 
 ment of the very best music. In the meantime, 
 the best available is the best. 
 
 We are not to be finical, either, in our de- 
 mands. I have been struck with the contempt 
 which great artists, in every department, have 
 for mere " exquisites. Mendelssohn, we are 
 told, sat down in the most unaffected way and 
 played for his friends on whatever instrument 
 was at hand — often a very poor one. Joseph 
 Hoffman says that Rubinstein, his master, 
 "never seemed to care whether the piano was 
 in tune or not. The technical critic often 
 loses the soul of the thing. Besides, if we 
 wait to have everything perfect, we will never 
 get practical results. Let us use, by all means, 
 the music that the people love, and gradually 
 train them to love the best. 
 
 It is well, too, to remember the peoples 
 rights in this matter. It is their service. It is 
 what they are able to bring to God. Nor will 
 a reflecting man despise the peoples judgment 
 about the music. Ordinarily what a respectful 
 audience will not take up with readily, is not 
 the best for the sanctuary. There are hymns 
 and tunes which appeal to people. The senti- 
 ment touches, the rhythm moves them. A 
 doctor of music may prefer something else as 
 
 Page Seventy-Nino 
 
nner Harmony, but I am prepared to mamtam, 
 tnat valuable as is bis opinion, in its place, tbe 
 instinct of a devout and well-intentioned con- 
 gregation IS usually truer for worsbip. Dr. 
 Samuel W. Duffield well insists tbat " wbat tbe 
 cburcb universal adopts and cbensbes is, by 
 tbat fact, removed botb from tbe control of a 
 picking pedantry and a cold-blooded correct- 
 ness. 
 
 Tbe service is not for tbe salvation of tbe 
 bymns, but for tbe blessing of tbe people. A 
 godly man of our acquaintance was burt to tbe 
 quick on being told by Dr. Cbarles S. Robinson 
 tbat " My Days Are Gliding Swiftly By was 
 not a bymn but a religious poem, and sbould 
 not be used as a bymn. Tbe Doctor looked at 
 it from tbe standpoint of bymnological tbeory. 
 Tbe otber believer bad beard it sung in bis 
 cbildbood by Dr. Nelson bimself and by people 
 wbom Dr. Nelson bad taugbt, and it always 
 came to bim as tbe expression of tbe devoutest 
 religious sentiment ; so it bas to multitudes of 
 worsbipers. Our definitions must quadrate 
 witb tbe findings of religious experience. 
 
 Wbat tbe people, tben, do not take to and 
 will not sing after a fair trial, sbould be discon- 
 tinued. It IS well, tberefore, to watcb for tbeir 
 response, and let tbem see tbat you want to 
 know wbat tbey tbink of a particular bymn as 
 an instrument of praise. Tbe greatest music is 
 at last tbat wbicb is tbe most singable. Wbat 
 
 Paee Eighty 
 
IS better music, and at the same time more sing- 
 able, than "Antiocb — Joy to the World, the 
 Lord IS Come? It is adapted from Handel; 
 yet the best evidence of its rank, to my mind, 
 is not the name of Handel appended to it, but 
 the way the people universally seize it and sing 
 it. The greatest artists in every department 
 are those who feel and voice the universal 
 heart. 
 
 It IS perfectly clear to me that the multitude 
 will not Sing songs which do not have a strong 
 melodic character ; and they are right about it. 
 Delicious as a nne progression of chords may 
 be to an instructed ear, it cannot be gainsaid 
 that at last the harmony exists for the melody. 
 If you will turn to any tune in our hymnals 
 taken from Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven 
 or Mendelssohn, you will notice that their 
 harmony only serves to make more clear and 
 beautiful the theme. It never exists for itself, 
 and never attracts attention to itself. We 
 must look through the body to the soul, through 
 the style to the thought which it bespeaks. 
 
 It IS not ours as pastors to determine what 
 hymns and tunes shall go into the books. Each 
 pastor, however, must cull from them for the 
 needs of his own church and for the particular 
 service. Besides, we have no occasion to 
 become partisans. We need all the grand 
 hymns which have come down to us ; we need 
 the Gregorian hymns and the syllabic hymns. 
 
 Page Eighty-One 
 
and a few of the fugal hymns. We need the 
 melodic hymns from the Wesleyan period, and 
 we need the Lowell Mason school of hymns. 
 We certainly welcome the devout and elegant 
 contributions of the Anglican composers, and it 
 would be strange ii the marvelous outbursts of 
 song called out by the Moody revivals did not 
 leave some treasures in our Hymnody. Any 
 tune surviving to us from the distant past is 
 presumably good, else it would not have lived; 
 but I believe that the present, too, has its own 
 gifts of inspired song. Mr. Barnby well says : 
 " It has always appeared strange to me that 
 musicians should be found who, whilst admit- 
 ting that Seventeenth Century tunes were very 
 properly written in the natural idiom of that 
 period, will not allow Nineteenth Century tunes 
 to be written in the idiom of their day. All 
 of these have been developed out of the needs 
 of the time, and an instructed pastor can em- 
 ploy each of these styles as needed. 
 
 I have already expressed the opinion that 
 the Gregorian hymn affords the best model for 
 our worship, but we crave at times something 
 else. I gave out at an evening service in a 
 Western city church recently, the hymn, 
 "Through the day Thy Love has spared 
 us. I had nxed myself to enjoy the tender and 
 worshipful music of Barnby, led by the nne 
 quartette choir. It is one of the most exquisite 
 things in the hymnal. The organist, however, 
 
 Page Eighty-Two 
 
played "Albert, and I was disappointed. The 
 latter is a sterling tune, out it did not do for my 
 religious emotions what Barnby s lovely setting 
 of the words would have done. At another 
 time Tallis Evening Hymn would have been 
 the most expressive. It is really a greater 
 hymn. 
 
 Now, why should we confine ourselves to 
 one style of hymn or tune, when we have such 
 treasures in all the styles, and can enrich our 
 services and minister to our people s needs 
 accordingly? It is amusing the contempt that 
 is being poured, by our "higher critics, on, the 
 fugal hymns, and this m the face of the fact 
 that the people are demanding simple songs in 
 that very style, as the popularity of the Gospel 
 Hymns attests. Antioch, and Geneva, and 
 Miles Lane, and Lenox, are popular examples, 
 in our hymnals, of this class of tunes, and 
 what better have we? 
 
 It is evident that elaborate fugal hymns can- 
 not be undertaken in the present state of musical 
 knowledge, but a few more or them m a sim- 
 ple style would gratify the people. I confess 
 that the syllabic hymns pall upon me at times. 
 I feel their grandeur, but my taste often yearns 
 for something more free and flowing. I dissent, 
 too, from the sweeping condemnation sometimes 
 passed upon all sentimental and subjective 
 hymns. They express occasional moods, just 
 as the autobiographical expressions of the 
 
 Page Eighty-Three 
 
Psalmist s best voice, at times, our own soul ex- 
 periences. Music is at last the language of 
 feeling, and the best people do not always feel 
 the same : our Saviour did not. 
 
 There are some general principles applicable 
 to all services. It should never be lost sight of 
 that the music is, in every part of it, to be 
 treated as an integral part of worship, and not 
 as one of the " preliminaries to the sermon or 
 address. 
 
 It IS not for stuffing — something put in to 
 " nil up. This advice may not bear so much 
 on the regular Sunday service lollowing a fixed 
 order. But we have known songs sometimes 
 thrown into meetings as a kind of stuffing — a 
 mere placebo — until the time rolls around for 
 something else. This is a grievous wrong 
 against God and good taste — "0! reform it 
 altogether. 
 
 Nor IS the music simply for entertainment, 
 though it may have that partial purpose. Paul 
 prescribed music (Eph. V, 18, 19) as men 
 drink wine to elevate the spirits. I think he 
 would, therefore, have approved the use, at 
 times, of a song which, by its very rhythm, 
 sings a sentiment or carries a telling religious 
 phrase into the memory and into the heart, or, 
 which, by its march-like movement, bestirs 
 the soul to action for God. We commend 
 these words of Paul, both to our religious 
 purists and to our artistic purists. We can be 
 
 Page Eighty-Four 
 
easily stricter than God himself in our theories. 
 We can be so artistic, or so severely correct, 
 that the heart s own hie will he crushed out. 
 " Be not righteous overmuch. 
 
 Something should he said, also, about the 
 place of particular hymns in the service. Many 
 ministers do not seem to think of this at all, 
 and I have been surprised to see how few 
 choir leaders, when left to select the hymns, 
 pay any regard to this. 
 
 There is, I think, a simple psychological law 
 nxing the place for the introduction of particular 
 hymns. Adopting the old division I may say : 
 We must have regard, nrst, to the intellect, then 
 the feelings, then the will. This general order 
 should underlie all the service — or more practi- 
 cally, hymns calling to praise naturally belong 
 nrst. These may of course be used for their 
 effect at any time. An eccentric evangelist of 
 my acquaintance used sometimes to break right 
 off in his address, saying: " Oh, I know what is 
 the matter! We have not yet praised God for 
 what He is going to do for us, and then he 
 would announce a hearty song of thanksgiving. 
 Such songs may thus be held in reserve by a 
 skillful leader and used at any time as a spur 
 for a jaded meeting. Early in the service, too, 
 come songs expressing the happiness of the 
 people in being together, and reciting the joys of 
 the religious life. Next may be invoked hymns 
 dealing with the graver sentiments or the 
 
 Page Eighty-Five 
 
deeper mysteries of religion — hymns embodying 
 some great doctrine or fact of experience or 
 presenting the omces of the Redeemer. Hymns 
 calling to action manifestly follow these appeals 
 to the reason, or to the religious consciousness ; 
 the truth of the sermon is to be applied or the 
 response of the people called out. This is the 
 culmination of the service, and a wise pastor 
 will rarely surrender this place to any choir 
 selection, unless it be one which he knows will 
 serve the desired end. 
 
 Dr. W. M. Taylor says very instructively : 
 " There is nothing so overpowering to me in the 
 public services of the Sabbath as the singing of 
 the last hymn. It gathers up into itself the 
 whole inspiration of the occasion and sends 
 pastor and people forth with the highest and 
 holiest aspirations. If that service of praise 
 drags, you may generally conclude that you 
 have failed in your sermon ; but if it rises into 
 the fervor of a devout enthusiasm and stimu- 
 lates every one to unite m its stram, that is 
 the attestation that the hearers have been bene- 
 nted and the prophecy that they will begin to 
 live out what you have been enforcing. 
 
 A word, now, as to the time in which hymns 
 should be sung : I am certain that many hymns 
 should take a slower tempo than is often given 
 them. It seems to be thought by some choirs 
 that all hymns are to go vigorously, even 
 rapidly. But should not that depend on the 
 
 Page Eighty-Six 
 
sentiment of tlie words? Tender hymns ad- 
 dressed to the Saviour, consolatory hymns, or 
 hymns in which reflection is more prominent 
 than the call to action, should, surely, follow a 
 slower pace. The hymn is not just to be gotten 
 through in some regulation way — however 
 artistic that may be supposed to be. Each one 
 has a special function in the service, and should 
 be chosen with that in view. 
 
 I doubt, too, II a large congregation of wor- 
 shipers gathered from all classes of the people, 
 should be expected to " attack a hymn as a 
 concert chorus or a "starchy choir would sing 
 it. I question if it is good art, not to speak of 
 good worship, There is a simple law of 
 physics that may be invoked here. The very 
 weight of a mass of people supplies the effect 
 by a slower movement sometimes, that a 
 smaller body like a choir, or chorus, must 
 quicken its pace to attain. We have good ex- 
 amples, too, in this. In Germany, the land of 
 classical music, the great chorals of the people 
 are sung with a stately and a lingering tempo. 
 That would be best here, often, if all of our 
 people sang. There is, besides, a movement and 
 a tone proper to sacred music, different from 
 what IS becoming to the conservatory and the 
 concert room. 
 
 I am glad to fortify these ideas, arrived at 
 in a pastor s experience, with the authoritative 
 words of our greatest modern musicians, cited 
 
 Page Eighty-Seven 
 
by Mr. Curwen in Kis "Studies in Worship 
 Music. Mr. Monk says: " Narrative hymns 
 should be sung quietly; contemplative hymns 
 slowly. He hesitated, when asked to put 
 metronome marks with hymns, because "speed 
 must always vary with the size of the congrega- 
 tion. A large congregation sings more slowly 
 than a small one, without the rhythmic sense 
 perceiving any difference. The lower the key, 
 too, as a general thing, the slower the singing. 
 Mr. Smart says: "Those who have had the 
 longest experience, as Goss, Hopkins, and such 
 men, are the authorities, and they take the 
 tunes slowly. I have heard certain tunes 
 rattled off like a jig. To think that people who 
 call themselves musicians cannot feel a thing 
 better than that ! 
 
 Oi course this does not apply to a congrega- 
 tion at the other extreme — singing everything 
 lifelessly or in the same time. I think, as a 
 general rule, city congregations are led too rap- 
 idly by their quartette choirs ; whilst country 
 churches usually sing too slowly and without 
 proper spirit. 
 
 It IS well, too, to notice the three types of 
 hymns. First, the grand old tunes like Old 
 Hundred ; then tunes of a more sweet and ilow- 
 ing style, like Melcombe. Now we seem to be 
 arriving at a third type in which harmony, not 
 melody, is regarded, and in which, if the com- 
 poser can delight the ear by one novel progres- 
 
 Page Eighty-Eight 
 
sion, he can die happy. The hrst type is awe- 
 inspinng ; the second gives pleasure ; while the 
 effect of the third is generally melancholy. 
 The tendency oi modern writers is to sacrifice 
 the melody to the harmony. The tune is in 
 the harmony, which at once removes it from 
 the use of many congregations. 
 
 We are evidently to connne ourselves to no 
 one style, and we are to use our taste and our 
 religious instincts, singing slow or fast, as the 
 sentiment or occasion demands. 
 
 I am glad to invoke the judgment of the 
 same experienced pastor quoted before. Dr. 
 Taylor, as to reading the hymns. He says : 
 " Read the hymns distinctly and appreciatively 
 as you give them out. That which is worth 
 singing well is worth reading well. If you are 
 careless or indifferent about the latter, the 
 people will be also about the former. Do not 
 name the hymn, and sit down, as if you were 
 in haste to get through the service. In public 
 worship nothing should seem to be huddled up, 
 — 'He that believeth shall not make haste. 
 If you believe that God is in the midst of the 
 people, you will be reverently calm. Many 
 leap over the reading of the lesson and the an- 
 nouncement of the hymns as if they were riding 
 a steeple-chase, and eager only to get as soon 
 as possible to the benediction. Take time, and 
 by your reading prepare the minds of the people 
 lor turning the poetry into praise. 
 
 Pace Eighty-Nine 
 
A pastor can, sometimes, m this way preach 
 a better sermon tlian he has prepared, and after 
 a careiul analysis oi the writer s thought one, 
 without great gifts as a reader, can fix valuable 
 truths in mind. If a minister take care to 
 study his hymns a little, before the service, he 
 will be able to do this. Indeed, hymnology is 
 a branch of literature that will repay for its 
 own sake all the study one can put upon it. Our 
 principal hymns, at least, ought to be so well 
 known to a pastor that he will be ready, at any 
 time, to read them with appropriate emphasis. 
 The farther one goes into this study the more he 
 will recognize that our great hymns are really 
 mspirations of the Spirit of God for the per- 
 manent use of believers. They are born of 
 great soul-experiences, and help to weld together 
 the universal host. Many of them are marvel- 
 ous statements of the Gospel ; little sermons 
 in themselves, and often suggestive of most 
 profitable lines of thought to the preacher. 
 There are many fine works on the hymns. I 
 know of none uniting so much valuable in- 
 formation about hymns and hymn-tunes, as 
 Dr. Breed s book. Every pastor should pos- 
 sess it. 
 
 When it IS necessary to omit stanzas, you 
 cannot avoid mistakes save by yourself reading 
 the hymn carefully beforehand. The annals of 
 the pulpit are rife with diverting and disastrous 
 episodes due to carelessness here. I give you 
 
 Page Ninety 
 
the effect oi the omission, by a certain minister, 
 ot a stanza from a well known hymn : 
 
 1. "When thou my righteous Judge shalt come 
 
 To take thy ransomed people home. 
 
 Shall I among them stand? 
 
 Shall such a worthless worm as I, 
 
 Who sometimes am alraid to die; 
 
 Be (ound at thy right hand? 
 
 ***** 
 3. " Prevent, prevent it by thy grace ! " 
 
 Another clergyman, whose attention was 
 nxed entirely upon his sermon, aid not realize 
 the incongruity felt by his congregation when, 
 on a brilliant June morning, he gave out these 
 lines : 
 
 " Lord, what a worthless land is this 
 That yields us no supply ! " 
 
 Another minister, who had read a forgotten 
 notice, after correction, fervently announced 
 this hymn : 
 
 " Lord, what a thoughtless wretch was I ! " 
 
 Enough has been cited to show what a 
 dangerous thing a hymn is in careless hands. 
 Even the Doxology is not always in taste. A 
 clerical friend told me of acting with other minis- 
 ters as a pall-bearer at the burial of a minister s 
 wife. The disconsolate widower, before they 
 parted, said with much feeling: "Brethren, 
 will you now sing, Praise God from whom all 
 blessings now. I add, in this digression, the 
 story ringing through the seminaries of the reply 
 of Prof. Austin Phelps, when asked by a 
 student what hymn should follow a sermon just 
 
 Page Ninety-One 
 
preached before Kim. He suggested: "Now I 
 lay me down to sleep. 
 
 Let these mcidents nx in mind the close con- 
 nection between the preaching and the praise. 
 
 I have spoken of omitting stanzas. It is im- 
 possible to adhere to the plan oi always sing- 
 ing all the verses, especially in the prayer-meet- 
 ing. Dr. Kittredge, in his practical directions 
 about that service, says: "Never give out an 
 entire hymn, except perhaps at the beginning of 
 the meeting. Have a great deal of singing, but 
 only one or two verses at a time, and let them 
 be appropriate to remarks ]ust made, or follow- 
 ing prayers for special objects. Thus the im- 
 pression IS deepened, for the hymn is often a 
 sermon in itself. 
 
 As to the selection of hymns, it is perhaps 
 best that there be one, and often two, in every 
 service, of the most familiar to be found. One 
 will have to move for a while in a very narrow 
 orbit to do this. You will be surprised after 
 making a list to discover how few hymns are 
 thus available, possibly only thirty or forty, 
 but the number can be gradually increased. If 
 a pastor is considerate of the capacities and 
 tastes of the general congregation, they will be 
 willing to follow his leading by easy stages into 
 newer nelds. 
 
 A remark is ventured, in closing, on the 
 custom of having the choir sing during the offer- 
 ing of the people s gifts. It strikes the speaker 
 
 Page Ninety-Two 
 
as both bad worship and bad art. If the choir 
 are entitled to a separate number, they have a 
 right lo the attention of the worshipers, and 
 their engagement with them. On the other 
 hand, the offering of the people has its own 
 proprieties, as no single part of the service is 
 more symbolically expressive of the people s 
 entire attitude to God. It should not, then, be 
 confused with anything else. The coalescence 
 of the giving and the praise is harmful to both. 
 Besides, it smacks too much oi an American 
 device to save time. It breeds confusion. Let 
 us praise when we praise and offer when we 
 offer. 
 
 It may be replied that the playing of an 
 organ offertory at the same time violates the 
 principle announced, but I think this is a 
 strained view of the matter. If, however, that 
 be true, the organ should be quiet and the noise 
 of the dropping of the gifts should make the 
 only accompaniment to the giving. I believe, 
 however, that an organ number at this stage 
 does a nne service in stimulating "meditation 
 which may thus happily be made a distinct 
 feature even of a public and general service. 
 
 This, too, can be overdone. I attended a 
 communion service recently where the organist 
 nlled in every moment of the time usually 
 reserved for quiet at the table, with an ornate 
 melody. It was tenderly and beautifully 
 played, but it distracted the communicants from 
 
 P«g« Ninety-Three 
 
their own meditations. I observed more than 
 one beating time to tbe music instead of trying 
 to nx tbeir attention upon tbe trutbs symbolized 
 in tbe ordinance. At tbe risk of being voted a 
 " back number, I protest earnestly against tbe 
 intrusion of anything upon tbe privileged 
 privacy of tbe soul at tbat bour, At tbe open- 
 ing of tbe seventh seal "there was silence in 
 heaven about tbe space of half an hour. 
 Silence is sometimes the most effective and 
 most helpful speech, and music is never more 
 impressive than after a season of quietness with 
 one s own soul. But it is more in this instance 
 than a question of taste. The Master has 
 selected the symbols by which He will Himself 
 speak to the people, and His message should 
 not be intercepted by either the preacher or the 
 choir. 
 
 At another service I found my prayer of 
 Invocation being accompanied by the organist. 
 In many churches tbe organ plays while the 
 minister is making the consecration prayer over 
 the offering. This is, to my mind, disrespect- 
 ful to God. A prayer is not a performance, 
 and no performance should be made a part of 
 prayer. Nothing can add impressiveness to tbe 
 soul s simple address to God, and nothing can 
 can be truly artistic which lacks in reverence to 
 Him. 
 
 If I am wrong in these strictures, it is cer- 
 tainly not, as the reader must see, because I do 
 
 Page Ninety-Four 
 
not magnify the exquisite function of music in 
 worship, but rather because I think I see more 
 clearly the subsidiary place of any art in the 
 House of God. 
 
 These suggestions are submitted with all defer- 
 ence. I am not so desirous oi having you 
 adopt any plan of mine as to have you realize 
 the importance of giving careful attention to 
 these details which, of necessity, are left finally 
 in the pastor s own hands. 
 
 Page Ninety-PiTc 
 
^^e "Pevelopment of (Tongresatlonol 
 
 " Both young men, and maidens ; old men and children ; 
 Let them praise the name o{ the Lord. " 
 
 —The Psalter. 
 
 E may, next, ask what can be done to 
 improve the smgmg m our churches ? 
 It cannot be so simple a matter as the 
 champions oi exclusively congregational music 
 would have us believe, else it would not need 
 so much effort to bring it about. It music be 
 the easy product of nature, why do not, and 
 why will not, the people smg? And, especially, 
 why will not some of those who are most ex- 
 acting, and most importunate, lor congregational 
 singing — why will not they sometimes try to 
 sing? 
 
 It seems to me that the explanation is very 
 simple: — The people at large cannot sing. 
 There is neither a very general ability nor, in 
 fact, a very general desire to sing. This sounds 
 very discouraging, I grant, and one may ask, 
 
 Page Ninety-Seven 
 
whence, then, is congregational music to come? 
 I answer that it must manifestly be the outcome 
 of general musical culture. It can never rise 
 higher than that. Whenever you hear good 
 churcn music, you may be sure that it is due to 
 the presence m the congregation of people who 
 love music, and who sing, and who study music 
 elsewhere. 
 
 I cite as a striking proof of this the worship 
 of tbe Welsh people. Among them you will 
 hear the finest congregational music, because the 
 mass of the people are students of music. You 
 will distinguish in their churcn-singing not only 
 the strong leading of the women s voices, but 
 the accurate taking of the tenor parts, and the 
 majestic movement of the basses as they supply 
 tbe foundation for the rich and varied harmony. 
 The effect of this upon the worshipers is mar- 
 velous. A God-given musical taste is satisfied, 
 and they realize at the same time that they are 
 bringing to God their worthiest offering from 
 the realm of music. This has come, however, 
 from the training of the people in their great 
 Eisteddfods where the most skillful part-singing 
 IS developed in public contests stimulated by 
 coveted honors and awards. 
 
 But Germany is the greatest case in point. 
 It IS the land of the people s choral because it 
 IS the land of the oratorio and the symphony. 
 The land of " Folk-song is the land of John 
 Sebastian Bach, the most learned of composers. 
 
 Page Ninety-Eight 
 
When musical culture becomes thus difFused 
 m America, we will have general singing in our 
 churches. Until the people at large outgrow 
 the ditties now so popular, we shall necessarily 
 have poor church music. 
 
 "The beauty of church music, (as a 
 visitor said of the music in Spurgeon s church,) 
 "is religious and spiritual. That is the highest 
 attribute of congregational singing. But its 
 musical improvement would not make it less of 
 heart singing; it ought to make it more. It is 
 said sometimes that it does not matter how we 
 sing, so long as we sing with our heart. But, 
 why should the service of praise be singled out 
 like this? In other things we do not say, 
 ' never mind how you do it so long as it is 
 done. 
 
 I say this, however, in hearty subscription 
 to the sentiment or Dr. Charles S. Robinson, 
 (who assuredly valued the worship that culture 
 can bring to God:) "What difference does it 
 really make what the people of God sing, if 
 only the hymns are good, and the tunes help 
 them on faster to Heaven? 
 
 But the people do not sing, and it must be 
 because music does not take a strong hold upon 
 them in their homes. Our musical culture has 
 not kept pace with our progress in other things. 
 We may concede that the simplest, most un- 
 classical music, if sung heartily by the worship- 
 ers, is worth all the contributions of the Pope s 
 
 Page Ninety-Nine 
 
selectest choir. As a fact, however, music has 
 never taken deep and general root except where 
 it has been deeply studied by the people at 
 large. 
 
 I would not, however, sound a discouraging 
 note about this. There is not the general sing- 
 ing once to be heard in our churches, partly 
 because the popular taste has outgrown the 
 popular capacity. The best judges are agreed, 
 however, that the Americans are a musical 
 people. There is an improvement m the music 
 demanded in popular concerts, and a betterment 
 IS already coming about in church music. The 
 very demand, too, for fine music in the 
 churches, whilst for the time it lays an embargo 
 on congregational singing by relegating the praise 
 so largely to the choir, argues at least an im- 
 provement m musical taste. Meanwhile, col- 
 leges and conservatories of music are springing 
 up, even in our smaller cities, and ere long there 
 will be more trained singers in all our towns for 
 the choir, and, as a consequence, more people 
 praising God in the pews. 
 
 The church cannot afford, however, to wait 
 for this musical raillenium. She must help to 
 usher it in, and she should labor directly at the 
 problem. With a competent leader, actively 
 encouraged always by the pastor, every church 
 could be made a little conservatory for the 
 study and extension of good music in the 
 community. What other body of people is so 
 
 Page One Hundred 
 
naturally ntted by its very organization and its 
 dependence on music, to carry forward musical 
 trainmg ? 
 
 Many people are asking, " Wny not resusci- 
 tate the old-fasliioned singing schools ? A 
 very natural question, this, but the days of the 
 peripatetic singing-scnool teacher evidently are 
 numbered, and tne people will not gather as once 
 they did to enjoy the simple pleasures of a sing- 
 ing school. Besides, so long as the average 
 Christian parent prefers to encourage the more 
 " stylish amusements of card-parties, theaters 
 and stage performances generally, we need not 
 look tor the return of the singing school. 
 Moreover, things do not return. New things 
 come in their place. New plans must, therefore, 
 be adopted to develop the popular taste. The 
 Chautauqua movements will aid somewhat. 
 Camp-meetings, and musical conventions, and 
 the popular Gospel hymns will do something 
 toward getting the masses to sing. Meanwhile, 
 the church that will spend money for a com- 
 petent music teacher, and the preacher who can 
 induce his people to come together regularly for 
 an hour of practice, will see great strides made 
 in the improvement of this part of worship. 
 We should also insist upon having both choir- 
 singing and congregational singing, and should 
 unite them so far as we can in the service. 
 The one should help the other. There is no 
 necessary antagonism between them, but a 
 
 Page One Hundred and One 
 
natural connection if choir and people have 
 the proper spirit. 
 
 Some ministers are drawing and training the 
 people by "song services, and these can be 
 made both delightful and profitable. A success- 
 ful song service, it is true, implies a good musi- 
 cal element in the congregation ; yet it is 
 astonishing what can be accomplished by utiliz- 
 ing the gifts of an average church. The thing 
 itself IS so simple, too, as to be within the 
 achievement of most preachers. Take familiar 
 topics, for instance, like the Christian pilgrim, 
 the promises, the life of trust, the stages of 
 salvation, the graces of the Christian life, and 
 grouping the hymns, embodying these in a 
 natural and progressive way, with now and 
 then a solo, or a Bible verse or other selection 
 read by some member of the Sunday School, 
 or Christian Endeavor Society, and the inter- 
 spersing of comment and illustration and in- 
 cident, by the leader, and the thing is done, and 
 the people go away pleased and helped. A 
 more familiar plan is to make it the occasion of 
 instructing the people in the older hymns — their 
 origin and the truths they embody. This will 
 endear these to our people, besides furnishing 
 them with the experience of the universal Chris- 
 tian heart so skillfuly delineated by them. 
 
 It will require some study, I grant you, to 
 accomplish this. One will often need to 
 carefully authenticate incidents running through 
 
 Page One Hundred and Two 
 
the religious press before using them. He 
 should keep out such myths as the story of 
 Charles Wesley s composing "Jesus, Lover oi 
 My Soul, after a bird had taken refuge in his 
 bosom. Yet the sources of many hymns can 
 be found in well-authenticated circumstances that 
 illustrate the truth and fix it in the memory, 
 and these should be used with discrimination. 
 
 I cannot see why the most rigorous Protes- 
 tant taste should object to this. You can 
 mingle Scriptural truth, personal appeal and 
 incident in a song-service as you wish. It is 
 in your own hand to make the impression you 
 desire. There is a liberty of the spirit, too, 
 guaranteed to us in worship as in all other things ; 
 we sometimes forget t lat the order and details 
 of our worship are not laid down in the Word. 
 Let not our caution as to novelties lead us, 
 then, to dogmatize where the Spirit has left us 
 free — "Quench not the Spirit! 
 
 Under this general remark I would also bring 
 the whole question of liturgies, although denom- 
 inational principles and customs settle this 
 matter to a large extent. It is worth consider- 
 ing, however, whether in our most unritualistic 
 systems there may not be room for some ex- 
 pansion of the service, at least in the way of 
 responses taken from the Word of God. The 
 Temple and synagogue service made provision 
 we know, to some extent, for this, and some of 
 our most evangelical congregations are introduc- 
 
 Pagc One Hundred and Three 
 
ing a system of responses, to the evident 
 increase of interest and profit. 
 
 As to using people of the world, or men and 
 women of unconsecrated life, in choirs and song 
 services, it is left for your own best thoughts, 
 in your own situation, to determine. We are 
 not to forget that God s grace operates some- 
 times through just such associations. Two or 
 three incidents have come to me lately of the 
 conversion of choir-singers through the hymns 
 they sang. Need for extreme measures will 
 not often arise. It is most likely to occur with 
 paid choirs, hut congregations thus served, it 
 would seem, are most able to require a becom- 
 ing character in their employes. 
 
 There are many ways in which a pastor can 
 stimulate congregational singing. It will be a 
 great thing if you can meet the children, now 
 and then, and sing with them. It would be 
 well to go to the Sunday School, quite often, 
 and encourage the learning of new music. I 
 could name pastors, of good-sized churches, too, 
 who lead, at least occasionally, their Sunday 
 School music. They thus unwittingly get a 
 hold upon their young people. How could 
 they better show that they love brightness and 
 cheer, and desire to see the young people 
 happy? I suspect, too, that if one will try 
 occasionally to lift the music out of its ruts, he 
 will have a novel and unsuspected confirmation 
 of the original perversity of human nature ! I 
 
 Page One Hundred and Four 
 
do not know how else to explain the persistent 
 tendency of young people to drawl and drag 
 Sunday School music, when they should sing it 
 hlithely and happily. Our composers are cer- 
 tainly not to blame for this tendency, in view 
 of the bright and beautiful music they have 
 added to our store, and, assuredly, the Gospel 
 of good tidings IS not. 
 
 Why should not a pastor devote an occa- 
 sional Sabbath service just to singing? Why 
 may we not have praise-meetings as well as 
 prayer-meetings ? Objectors to this must not 
 have noticed the frequent Scriptural references 
 to the coming together of the people just to 
 praise God, and the repeated exhortations to 
 praise Him as an end and object in itself. If, 
 too, as insisted all along, there is a message to 
 the people m the hymns as well as an offering 
 to God, the legitimacy of an occasional special 
 service for singing will fully appear. 
 
 It will be sometimes, also, a delightful relief 
 to the pastor as well as to his people. The 
 most versatile preacher at times longs to break 
 up the monotony of meetings conducted always 
 after the same model. The very regularity 
 and decorum of the Sabbath service may tend 
 to strangle the freer expressions of the heart. 
 
 The fear that the people cannot be gotten 
 back into " the regular service after such 
 exercises, is not justified, either by good sense 
 or by experience. The same reasoning would 
 
 Pace One Hundred and Five 
 
forbid any vacation or any variation from regular 
 engagements. It would rule out special evan- 
 gelistic services for fear the church will not fall 
 into the regular work again. Such efforts, 
 however, as we know, do not satisfy the people 
 as a constancy. They soon begin to long for 
 the familiar order of reading and preaching, and 
 praise and prayer. 
 
 I do not see why a small part of the time of 
 a regular Sabbath service may not be taken up 
 occasionally by a trained man in teaching the 
 congregation to sing. What better thing to 
 learn on the Sabbath than to sing, just as we 
 prepare for any other duty? New hymns, 
 however, can be introduced and taught the 
 people by the pastor himself in connection with 
 the ordinary service. Let him announce that 
 the choir will sing the hymn, and then that all 
 will try to sing it. Then let him select that 
 hymn or tune for a few Sabbaths until it goes 
 easily. The people s final verdict should be 
 decisive about it. Why insist upon what can- 
 not be made serviceable in that particular con- 
 gregation? 
 
 The choir can help in this very much, if they 
 will now and then sing, in place of an anthem, 
 one of the more elaborate tunes of our Hym- 
 nals. The pastor can then call special attention 
 to it, and have the people follow the choir with 
 their books open before them. Ail become 
 thus familiarized with the tune, and a common 
 
 Page One Hundred and Six 
 
standard o{ taste is set up for choir and people. 
 
 I am also an advocate or unison-singing as 
 a means of learnmg new music. Let all be 
 asked nrst to sing the air ; thus it is impressed 
 on tne memory. It is often, besides, tbe 
 grandest way to render some of the choral-like 
 hymns. In such case the organ, played strongly, 
 supplies the complete harmony for the hymn. 
 
 One very obvious thing is forgotten by many 
 a pastor ; that is, that there should be a good 
 supply of books, — books in good type and 
 with the musical score. In a few Sabbaths 
 spent in Glasgow and Edinburgh, nothing im- 
 pressed me more than the Bible and the Hym- 
 nal provided for every worshiper, and lying upon 
 the pew-shelf before him. It is an inexcusable 
 niggardliness to omit this, since no expense will 
 so easily take care of itself. 
 
 No experienced pastor would belittle the 
 dimculties attending an effort to improve the 
 church s praise. But dimculties oppose us in 
 other directions and we are not deterred from 
 going forward by them. 
 
 We should ever hold before our people that 
 singing God s praise is a duty. It might be well 
 to repeat occasionally to them Jonathan Ed- 
 wards s strong words on this subject: "As it is 
 the command of God that all should sing, so all 
 should learn to sing, since it is a thing which 
 cannot be done decently without learning. 
 Those, therefore, when there is no natural 
 
 Page One Hundred and Seven 
 
ability (as tliere seldom is) who neglect to 
 learn to sing, live in sin, as they neglect what is 
 necessary in order to their attending to one of 
 the ordinances or God s worship. The plea 
 oi inability will, oi course, be set up by many. 
 But the most experienced musicians do not 
 concede that such inability often exists. H 
 you are a doubter here, I would advise you to 
 get " Hastmgs s Sacred Praise and read his 
 testimony as to the development of the musical 
 faculty in scores of cases where it was supposed 
 to be entirely wanting. One man learned, after 
 he was sixty years of age, "to turn a tune, 
 but came to sing with pleasure after he had 
 been convinced of the duty and of the possibil- 
 ity of it for him. Dr. Hullah is never tired of 
 reiterating his disbelief in the common talk 
 about people having no ear and no voice. It 
 is impossible for so very small a minority that 
 we may say it is possible to practically all. 
 
 There is a charm, too, in the music of the 
 people which does not belong to the perform- 
 ances of selected choirs. Mr. Curwen says : 
 
 " Even from the musical point of view it is 
 remarkable that voices, when combined in large 
 numbers, become pleasant and even sweet in 
 effect, although individually they may be coarse 
 and out of tune. Like the noises of a busy 
 town, or of a forest, a thousand voices, each 
 of them tuneless, combine to make one harmon- 
 ious whole. Congregational singing, too, has a 
 
 Page One Hundred and Eieht 
 
charm quite distinct from tliat of artistic music, 
 a charm which the greatest musicians have 
 acknowledged. 
 
 When I heard the Presbyterian Brotherhood 
 sing in the Cincinnati Music Hall, sustained by 
 the mighty organ, I closed my hook and said to 
 my neighbor: " I must listen to this; it is too 
 grand to lose. The praise of God from ferv- 
 ent hearts is the greatest of all music. 
 
 We come again to the pastor s duty m view 
 of these possibilities. Is it not evident enough? 
 One of America's greatest pastors shall declare 
 it for us: "We do not think that congrega- 
 tional singing will ever prevail with power 
 until pastors of churches appreciate its import- 
 ance and labor to secure it. If they regard it 
 but a decorous form of amusement, pleasantly 
 relieving the more solemn acts of worship, it 
 will always be degraded. It is certain that 
 there will not be a spirit of song in the congre- 
 gation if the pastor is himself indifferent to it. 
 The first step toward congregational singing 
 must evidently be in the direction of the minis- 
 try itself. 
 
 Paga On* Hnndred mmI Nine 
 
"VIII 
 
 "Dbe XCse of ^uslc In 'pastoral anb 
 
 Otl)<ir "personal ^orK In l^e 
 
 Community 
 
 " Not (or that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers 
 of your joy. 
 
 —St. Paul 
 
 |HE impression a minister of the Gospel 
 makes outside nis pulpit will reinforce 
 His message, powerfully, or will react 
 against it, in the same degree. Of one of our 
 prominent American divines it was said, that 
 when he was in the pulpit the people wished 
 that he would never come out ; and when he 
 was out of it they wished that they might 
 never see him m it again. He was not the 
 same man Monday that they saw on Sunday. 
 But whatever his pulpit gifts, it is the man 
 back of the Message that speaks, most loudly, 
 and he can be best known in the daily life. 
 
 He should, for one thing, make the impression 
 of being a happy man, else he cannot be the 
 helper of his people s joy that Paul desired to 
 be. Now. music is the joy-language of the 
 
 Page One Hundred and Eleven 
 
heart ; and the beautiiul is God s native speech 
 — though few theologians seem to have found 
 it out. It a minister, therefore, as a spokesman 
 tor God, does not know or does not speak that 
 language, what will the community think of it? 
 
 It IS a great thing if the people, and especially 
 the young, can see their pastor enjoying with 
 them innocent pleasures and helping them to 
 nnd such. No readier resource offers itself for 
 this than music. A minister who can sound 
 out a cheery song at a picnic, or take part in a 
 musical number in a parlor, ingratiates himself 
 wonderfully and helps his cause no little. 
 
 If one hesitate about this, it is pleasant to 
 know that a minister's musical attainments will 
 be rated generously if he keep within modest 
 bounds, and despite defects, it is likely to be 
 said of him, as was said of one brother, " Well, 
 he does remarkably well for a preacher. 
 
 This IS a matter, believe me, well worthy of 
 ministerial attention. We inveigh against pop- 
 ular pleasures, but it is not always an easy 
 matter to decide how people are to enjoy them- 
 selves together. Now, what is ordinarily better 
 for them than good vocal or instrumental 
 music? Music brightens the scene. It unlim- 
 bers the reserved, draws out the timid, and 
 brings all ages together happily, and its effect is 
 most renning upon all. You will allow me 
 here a personal illustration : One of the pas- 
 tors of my boyhood, Jonathan E. Spilman, 
 
 Page One Hundred and Twelve 
 
won my interest by His music. His sermons 
 were able, but tbey were usually cast in an 
 argumentative, unadorned form tbat did not 
 attract the young so mucn as tne older people. 
 He was, nowever, a lover ot poetry and song, 
 and m bis youtb be bad composed tbe lovely 
 melody, so well known, to Burns s lines : 
 
 " Flow gently, »weet Afton, 
 Along thy green braes," 
 
 as well as some otber creditable music. Tbis 
 bumanized tbe preacber to me, and added an 
 interest, also, to bis preacbing. 
 
 Wberever tbe Gospel is preacbed tbe social 
 power of music is one of its greatest aids. 
 Kirk, tbe missionary of Alaska, relates tbat tbe 
 bard-frozen bearts of tbe men were melted as 
 soon as tbe piano was opened. Tbey bad at 
 first rebuked bim and bis wife, putting tbeir 
 beads into tbe door of bis bouse and asking 
 " wbat business tbey bad up tbere? but wben 
 tbe songs of bome and early memories began to 
 float out from tbe little cabin into tbe camp, 
 tbey came and stood around tbe window and 
 begged to be admitted. Tbey bad been won 
 by tbis God-given influence over tbe buman 
 beart. Tbe story of tbe taking of bis wife s 
 piano to tbat remote region, and its great 
 service in belping to win souls, is one of tbe 
 most interesting in tbe annals of missionary 
 work. Strange tbat any minister sbould be- 
 little or overlook sucb a social power as tbat ! 
 
 Page One Hundred and Thirteen 
 
In the sick room, too, how blessed sometimes 
 IS tne ministry of music. I recall from my 
 own home an incident which is typical of many 
 cases known to us all. My honored father, 
 who was the very embodiment of the sanguine 
 temperament, after weeks of suffering had at 
 last let down. His spirits sunk within him 
 and the room was full of gloom. At this 
 juncture an old Methodist friend, a pastor, 
 visited him, who could sing, and they fell to 
 talking together of the revival times and the 
 songs of the old camp-meetings. The effect of 
 this was magical : in a little while the walls of 
 the sick chamber were resounding with song, 
 like the jail where Paul and Silas broke into 
 praise, and the sick man was made a new man. 
 Music had been more than medicine to him : 
 the singing pastor had been his best doctor. I 
 am sure that if physicians knew of more minis- 
 ters who could go thus into sick rooms and 
 carry cheer instead of dolefulness and stereo- 
 typed consolations with them, they would not 
 so often forbid the visitation of their sick by 
 the ministry. 
 
 I was never more impressed with the pas- 
 toral value of the hymnology of the church, 
 than when visiting, a few years since, a young 
 and beautiful girl of the congregation, who was 
 evidently to pass away in a few days. 1 had 
 just come to the held and was naturally anxious, 
 feeling that 1 could poorly minister to one 
 
 Page One Hundred and Fourteen 
 
whom I scarcely knew. But whilst in this 
 state or mind on one or my visits I saw a piano 
 in a room adjoining the sick chamber and went 
 to it and sang, as tenderly as I could, some of 
 the Gospel Hymns. One of them seemed just 
 made for this crisis of her soul, and I sang it to 
 her: 
 
 " Hold thou my hand, I am so weak and helpless 
 I dare not take one step without thine aid. 
 Hold thou my hand, for then, loving Saviour! 
 No thought of ill can make my soul afraid." 
 
 I saw at once that this simple song with its 
 appealing music had brought to her the expres- 
 sion of her trust that she needed. Could St. 
 Paul have had a greater privilege or have done 
 a greater service than was given me at that 
 time, to lift that needy soul as upon wings of 
 song into her Saviour s presence ? 
 
 The service of music in funeral services is of 
 course generally availed of. Some persons, it is 
 true, do not desire its use at such a time and 
 their preference is to be respected ; but I ques- 
 tion whether a discreet pastor would not better 
 he trusted to select something from the stronger 
 hymns of the church which would not try the 
 emotions, but would, on the contrary, give 
 fortitude and consolation to the mourners. 
 
 A warning may be interposed here as to the 
 selection of the funeral music. I was horrined 
 at the funeral of a young man who had been 
 drowned, to find that we were singing, " Shall 
 we gather at the river? and that every bar of 
 
 Page One Hundred and Fifteen 
 
the music was bringing pain instead of consola- 
 tion to tne mourners. A very simple service 
 was needed, and we nad by a burried choice 
 lalJen into this mistake. The pastor must be 
 on the alert here as everywhere else. 
 
 Visitors to insane asylums, jails, penitenti- 
 aries and rescue missions, know that nothing sub- 
 dues and heals and works its blessed way into 
 the heart like a well-selected song. He who 
 has never seen the spell with which it holds 
 and sways distempered intellects, and more dis- 
 tempered souls, has never pondered the won- 
 drous mystery of this department oi the Cre- 
 ator s world. I have myself, in speaking to the 
 convicts in a neighboring prison, found a re- 
 sponse that I was conscious was largely due to 
 my accompanying the message with a song. 
 From all the prisons of the Civil War time 
 come illustrations of this. Eternity may disclose 
 that the greatest work ever done by Bishop 
 McCabe was by his singing for and with his 
 fellow prisoners in Libby prison ; and he never 
 afterwards proved himself more a Bishop than 
 when binding his authority by a song. 
 
 The musical and poetical gifts of such men as 
 Maltbie Babcock and Melancthon W. Stryker 
 and others, brought to bear on cultured people, 
 have vastly increased their religious influence. 
 In the free life of the West, it has often given a 
 minister entry and introduction for his words. 
 In lodges, and Grand Army meetings, and 
 
 Page One Hundred and Sixteen 
 
holiday occasions and patriotic celebrations, a 
 minister able to step up and "help out witb the 
 music becomes a factor for good at once. 
 
 I know a pastor, one of the most vigorous 
 and devoted young brethren in the Northwest, 
 who joined the town-band and thus got a hold 
 upon a certain class in the community. Some 
 preachers are always welcome in camping 
 groups and get a good " underhold or unap- 
 proachable men, by being able to lead off with 
 a song about the evening camp-nre. A good 
 song at the tongue s end is better and more 
 ministerial, too, than the much-coveted gift of 
 telling a joke. When asked to visit the schools, 
 it is well if you can propose and lead the chil- 
 dren in a song. Thus you bring cheer and 
 assure yourself a quick invitation from both the 
 teacher and pupils to return. Such a preacher, 
 also, nnds more young people seeking out his 
 church on the Sabbath, because a personal 
 bond has been established between him and the 
 young. 
 
 This may seem to some an abandonment of 
 the safe traditions of ministerial methods. I 
 think they are mistaken. President Roosevelt 
 and President Taft have won people by know- 
 ing when to unbend and be hale-fellow with 
 every American. No man is nt to fill a great 
 ofnce who does not know how to keep his 
 dignity, and, at the same time, show a large 
 brotherhood with men. 
 
 Pagre One Hundred and Serenteen 
 
There is no general interest more directly 
 bearing upon the worship and work of the 
 churches, than the increase of musical cultiva- 
 tion in the community ; and you, as a pastor, 
 have got to help to bring that about. Our 
 Boards of Education need arousing to the im- 
 portance of musical training as a part of educa- 
 tion ; and you are the man to urge it upon 
 their attention by your words and by your 
 example. 
 
 My last instance shall be from a rarer held, 
 but it illustrates the reserved power of a minis- 
 ter trained to sing. 
 
 In one of the Southern cities a few years 
 since, a great popular meeting was being held at 
 the Opera House, on Sunday night, to protest 
 against certain public iniquities. When the 
 audience was assembled and they were ready to 
 begin, some one said, "Why we have no 
 music ! The choir had been forgotten. In 
 this emergency a minister on the platform step- 
 ped forward and offered to supply the defect. 
 This he did by giving out, line by line, the 
 words of simple hymns with ringing choruses, 
 like "The Old Time Religion, "The Sweet 
 Bye and Bye, " I 11 Live for Thee, and 
 similar songs. In a little while that whole 
 audience were singing to the top of their bent, 
 and every one was speedily brought into the 
 spirit of the meeting. A brass band, or a great 
 chorus, would have stirred their enthusiasm. 
 
 Page One Hundred and Eighteen 
 
but nothing could have operated more deeply 
 on their religious nature than the simple device 
 o{ the pastor present. It showed as well that 
 when we cannot have great organs, and fine 
 choruses and gated choirs, we have still a 
 power at hand ii the soul oi the leader he full ot 
 song, and his voice have round its cunning in 
 use for Christ. I shall be told, oi course, that 
 few pastors have the musical girts to be used 
 in all these ways, but there might be more ii 
 the power of this God-given resource were 
 impressed upon our clergy. There are few 
 ministers, likewise, who have decided elocution- 
 ary gifts, but the seminaries, nevertheless, are 
 giving more attention to this department every 
 year. It is certain that a minister who has 
 neither musical nor rhetorical gifts will be 
 shorn of his power just that much. — Sauve qui 
 peut ! 
 
 Paee One Hundred and Nineteen 
 
^b* "place of Mluslc In l^e Scheme of 
 Redemption 
 
 " And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and tKe 
 song of the Lamh." 
 
 — The Revelation 
 
 art, assuredly, has exercised so indis- 
 pensable a power as music in tne ser- 
 vice of religion. From the beginning, 
 wnetner floating down from Cathedral choirs or 
 stealing forth from catacomb or conventicle to 
 betray the hiding of the faithful, music has been 
 the most important, flexible and valuable ad- 
 junct of worship. The songs of the Crusaders 
 rallied and flung the hosts of the faithful against 
 the desecrators of the Holy Sepulchre. Wal- 
 denses and Huguenots went to the stake singing 
 praises. They sustained their spirits, like Paul 
 and Silas when in prison, by the aid of song. 
 The people of God in all ages, like Luther and 
 Melancthon, have echoed the war song of 
 Israel, " God is our refuge and strength. 
 Music has gathered and moved to decision 
 great masses in the historic revivals. When 
 was there ever a great popular impression made 
 
 Pe.ee One Hundred and Twenty 
 
without the aid of music, from the days of the 
 great camp-meetings to the enterprises or modem 
 
 evangehsm ? A revival of pralsc has always 
 marked and inspired a revival of religion. 
 
 As has already been suggested, music may 
 be used to present the Gospel, as is possible to 
 no other art except poetry. God entrusted to 
 The Psalter, the great song book oi the Bible, 
 some of the greatest disclosures of the Messiah 
 and His work. The Hymnology of the church 
 likewise embodies a complete system of experi- 
 ential theology — terse and tuneful, and reaching 
 to the depths of the popular heart. Such 
 hymns as " God moves in a mysterious way, 
 "Not all the blood of beasts, "Arise, my 
 soul, arise, are permanently inspired sermons, 
 self-applied by the singers, and preached and 
 repreached by multitudes thousands of times. 
 E. P. Hammond, the evangelist, attributes 
 his conversion to the hymn, "Alas! and did 
 my Saviour bleed. "An ungodly stranger, 
 said Mr. Spurgeon, " stepping into one of our 
 services at Exeter Hall, was brought to the 
 cross by Wesley s hymn, ' Jesus, Lover of My 
 Soul. " I would rather, says Beecher, " have 
 written Wesley s hymn than to have the fame of 
 all the kings of the earth. It has more power in 
 it. That hymn will go on singing until the last 
 trump brings forth the angel band ; and then I 
 think it will mount up on some lip to the very 
 presence of God. 
 
 Pace One Hundred and Twenty>Oii« 
 
As a discipline — as LutKer insists — it quite 
 transcends language to describe tlie mystic weld- 
 ing of hearts that takes place as a people unite 
 m the great themes of sacred song. I believe 
 that it IS not too much to say that the morale of 
 any congregation will be advanced just so far 
 as this feature is a power and a success among 
 them. 
 
 But I wish to emphasize it, as a nnal thought, 
 that music furnishes the most wonderful in- 
 stance of the Gospel conquering and conforming 
 to itself a province of human thought, and 
 thereby carrying it on to its own highest de- 
 velopment. 
 
 The career of music culminates in Heaven in 
 the "Song of Moses and the Lamb.' It came 
 into the world early, its discovery and nrst de- 
 velopment being due to the Cainite civilization, 
 but it is only in Gospel times that it has 
 flowered out into its greatest beauty. When 
 the trophies of the Gospel are gathered in they 
 will be welcomed and will signalize their joy 
 with song. 
 
 Music could not be developed in heathenism, 
 even in its highest phases. Greece and Rome 
 have given us Architecture, Sculpture, Painting 
 and Rhetoric in perfection. They could not 
 give us music, for its content is too great. It 
 IS too thoughtful. It involves too much the 
 ultimate mysteries of the soul. Besides, music 
 IS distinctively the language of the heart, and 
 
 Page On« Hundred and Twenty-Two 
 
the heart couM only be developed in Christen- 
 dom. The music of Greece and Rome is 
 scholastic ; to us, indeed, quite enigmatical. It 
 did not, in fact, reach the people. Music could 
 advance hut little further among the Hebrews, 
 though there are beginnings there of its great 
 service to humanity. The Temple choruses are 
 lost to us, but the Psalms and Prophecies ot 
 Israel have a spirit and a rhythm that witness 
 to the place of music in a divinely-planned 
 service. It was these which enkindled the 
 genius of Handel and Haydn, of Mozart and 
 Mendelssohn. 
 
 The greatest music, however, waited for the 
 breath of the Spirit that gave us the mighty 
 Reformation. Protestantism, we may proudly 
 claim, and not Catholicism, has inspired its 
 highest note. There is a secular and sensuous 
 tinge to even the sacred music of Italy and 
 France, the lands of the Papacy. In Germany 
 alone, where the people sing God s Word, and 
 the hymns and the organ music have been per- 
 fected by pious composers, is music at once 
 most popular and most perfect. 
 
 Moreover, Evangelical Protestantism has 
 won the chief trophies here. Unitarianism 
 may subsidize cultivated choruses and gifted 
 choirs, but she cannot bring forth hymns that 
 the masses sing. A few exceptions, like 
 " Nearer, my God, to thee, do not disprove 
 the general rule. As a fact, it takes "the 
 
 PaK« One Hundred and Twenty-Three 
 
blood' to produce the greatest music, and 
 Unitananism nas rejected the blood. 
 
 For the same reason Ritualism fails to call 
 forth the singing of the multitude. The rector 
 of one of our most ritualistic congregations, 
 himself a product of the Evangelical faith, 
 recently lamented to me that after wearisome 
 effort he could not get his people to sing. Nor 
 will he : the system and the surroundings do 
 not admit of it. This fact is vastly signincant 
 in many directions. It has a tremendous bear- 
 ing on the whole liturgical question. The 
 people in such churches do not respond in any 
 way so well as in more popular systems. The 
 hymn-smging of the Protestant churches is, after 
 all, the best popular liturgy. 
 
 The school of worldliness, too, has not 
 brought forth the greatest musical creations. 
 Sacred music must ever remain the highest, be- 
 cause it has the highest possible themes. Even 
 the greatest secular music is ever returning to 
 the deep religious mood, borrowing, as it were, 
 its spirit from the Sanctuary. The most beau- 
 tiful andantes and adagios of Beethoven and 
 Mendelssohn and Schubert are always couched 
 in a deep religious spirit. Tertullian was right 
 in his celebrated saying: "The soul is by nature 
 Christian. It is Christ s rightful territory and 
 in His service it attains its highest loveliness. 
 
 Of course inndelity can have no great songs 
 for it can inspire no popular faith, and doubt 
 
 Page One Hundred and Twenty-Four 
 
Has nothing about whicK to sing. Nor have 
 cant and rehgious unreahty any iorms of musi- 
 cal grace to show. Cant may protest hke a 
 parson, hut it can never sing hke a seraph ! 
 
 The highest art must at last be reflective of 
 the highest truth. Form and spirit must har- 
 monize. Jubal could invent, hut neither he 
 nor his followers could perfect the pipe and the 
 organ. A Cainite civilization oftener begins 
 these worldly instrumentalities, because its em- 
 phasis and its goal are worldly, but Christianity 
 must at last give them their highest function 
 and fruition. The city is Cainite ; the city of 
 God IS in the heavens. 
 
 Heaven, as we more and more realize, is to 
 he the perfectation of all that is good and beau- 
 tiful here below. " Revelation thus answers 
 back to " Genesis. The heavenly Paradise 
 completes the earthly Eden. Every thought, 
 we know, is to be brought into captivity to the 
 obedience of Christ. 
 
 Now, what trophy can more worthily than 
 music grace the conquerors triumph? Every 
 hymn-book, indeed, is a record of these con- 
 quests of Christ ; — airs born of secular and not 
 infrequently degraded parentage being rescued 
 and dedicated to the praises of Israel. The 
 protest sometimes heard against the suiting of 
 sacred words to worldly airs is thus in the face 
 of all the church's past, and forgets the manifest 
 purpose of Christ to levy upon all things in the 
 
 Page One Hundred and Twenty-FiTc 
 
upbuilding of His Kingdom. How few, in 
 singing " Greenville, reflect or know that it is 
 one of the inndel Rousseau s compositions ! 
 This can be paralleled again and again. Every 
 such case is the prediction oi the ultimate bring- 
 ing of all things to our God and His Christ. 
 
 Having a grasp on this principle we do not 
 need a special argument to prove that we are to 
 enjoy music m heaven — music, possibly, which 
 IS an extension and development of earthly 
 strains. How can one ever be dispossessed of 
 Dundee, Old Hundred, Naomi, or "Joy to the 
 World, the Lord is Come ? Are these not 
 nxed in memory and will they not be ever 
 coming back to us freighted with our most 
 sacred associations? 
 
 "To song, God never said the Word 
 To dust return, {or dust thou art!" 
 
 —B. F. Taylor 
 
 The very nature of music, as an expression 
 of depths below language, seems to point to a 
 development beyond, where the soul reaches its 
 ultimate possibilities. 
 
 These are powerful considerations, even if 
 one does not adopt Charles Kingsley s profound 
 and beautiful thought, that music must endure 
 because it is in itself the very expression of the 
 heavenly temper. "There is music in heaven, 
 says he, " because in music there is no self-will. 
 And therefore it was that the Greeks, the wisest 
 of all the heathens, made a point of teaching 
 
 Page One Hundred and Twenty-Six 
 
their cKilclren music : because, they said, it 
 taught them not to be seli-willed and fanciiul, 
 but to see the beauty of order, tbe usefulness ol 
 rule, tbe divineness ot laws. And tberetore 
 music IS nt lor beaven, and tbereiore music is a 
 pattern and type of beaven, and of tbe everlast- 
 ing life of God. Music, I say, is a pattern o( 
 tbe everlasting life of beaven ; because m 
 beaven, as in music, is perfect freedom and per- 
 fect pleasure ; and yet tbat freedom comes not 
 from throwing away law but from obeying 
 God s law perfectly. 
 
 These are profound and beautiful thoughts : 
 fanciful only to those who have never divined 
 tbe harmony of the beautiful and the true. 
 But, of more significance than even this sublime 
 speculation is tbe record that Christ sang with 
 His disciples before He went to offer Himself 
 for tbe world s redemption : and very sugges- 
 tive, too, are tbe words of the prophet Zepha- 
 niah : — "The Lord, thy God, in tbe midst of 
 thee, IS mighty; He will save. He will rejoice 
 over thee with joy : He will joy over thee with 
 singing. He is a bold man who ventures to 
 afnrm that tbat does not meam just what it 
 says. Our Saviour s interpretations of Scrip- 
 ture might lead us to make more rather than 
 less of such hints as these. 
 
 Now, ministers of the word, should you not 
 ponder more deeply the service of music, and 
 your relation to an art which sustained the Son 
 
 Pa(« One Hundred and Twcnty-ScTcn 
 
oi God in the hour of His passion, and voices 
 the joy ot the Father in welcoming the wan- 
 derer home? 
 
 There is a story told of Jenny Lind s nrst 
 night in London after a tour of the provinces. 
 As she stepped upon the stage the Queen 
 was entering her box, and the audience, 
 catching sight of both, poured out at once its 
 tribute of applause. But the question arose, 
 who should claim this recognition? It was 
 not for the songstress to intercept the homage 
 due the sovereign; nor would the Queen on 
 the other hand take from Jenny her meed of 
 praise. In this painful dilemma Jenny Lind 
 stood for a moment in hesitation, then sprang 
 forward to the footlights and sang with all her 
 heart, " God save the Queen. She had solved 
 the difficulty. She had at once honored her 
 Queen and gloriously displayed her art. 
 
 Let this story help us to a heightened estima- 
 tion of the function of music in God s universe. 
 Let it show us how we may make it and all 
 our gifts tributary to the praises of our Re- 
 deemer. 
 
 This is the dignity of music in the scheme of 
 redemption, and this is the duty and the privi- 
 lege put before every minister who is, as I 
 have insisted, not only a preacher of the Word, 
 but IS in the earthly sanctuary like His Master 
 in the heavenly temple, the leader of the praises 
 of Israel. 
 
 Pnne One Hundred and Twenty-Eigrht