all kinds of occasions. It is a familiar every day amusement, habitually used for entertainment and recreation only. Even sacred music, we have been accustomed not only to hear, but to join with, when used for musical purposes only, and not at all regarded as a religious exercise ;-at school, when learning; in social circles; at public concerts. This of course has tended to separate it in our minds from any necessarily religious associations. It has not been so with preaching and prayer. These have been wholly consecrated to sacred uses; while circumstances have naturally prevented psalmody from acquiring the same sacredness.

This is a circumstance greatly to be lamented, and for which it is desirable to find a remedy. And undoubtedly the serious man is first of all to seek it in reviving and cherishing a strong sense of the design and object of sacred music. When he feels this, he will feel it sacrilege to pervert it.

Music, by its natural adaptation to the human constitution, operates to several ends. It has strong power to attract and fix the attention, it imparts pleasure, it excites and expresses emotion, and, when connected with articulate language, sentiment as well as emotion. We believe that if it ever, unconnected with words, excites sentiment, it is owing to circumstances and recollections associated with it, and not to the music itself. No sentiment, properly speaking, can be raised in the mind by a tune never before heard, unless it be accompanied by words.

The purpose of church music, then, may be said to be to attract and fix the attention, to excite and express religious emotions, and, through its union with language, to excite and express religious sentiments.

There are many who appear to think it designed to relieve rather than to fix the attention; who regard it as a pleasant interlude between the severer portions of the service, where they may unbend their minds and look around them. And it is so far a relief as this; it calls the mind to a different object; and it is well known that the mind can be longer occupied without fatigue by calling it from object to object, than by confining it to one subject. But there is a sort of profanity in regarding it as relief for the purpose of recreation alone. It is not to

suspend the attention, but to revive and refresh it; not to exempt it from exertion, but to enable it to sustain itself in exertion the longer, and cause the mind, whose infirmity perhaps

has occasioned it to flag, to recover and revive through the influences of sweet and harmonious sound, and ascend with the more animation to God in the feeling and sentiment of the hymn.

For this is a further object of sacred music; to excite and express religious emotion. We say religious emotion. Music of itself only sets the mind in a pleasant state of feeling, which is nothing more than a gratification or excitement, the character of which is to be determined by the occasion or subject with which it is connected. The same combinations of musical sound may be, in themselves, equally fitted to animate the warrior to a deed of danger, or to elevate a devout spirit to the praise of its Creator. The natural effect is a feeling of exhilaration and joy; the object on which that feeling shall rest, depends on the person himself. In the church, that feeling should always rest on religious subjects. Otherwise, however it may excite, it will answer no religious end, and will be as little acceptable to God as if the time had been past in sleep.

This excitement of the feelings, however, is not all. It is connected with language, and conveys distinct ideas and sentiments to the mind. It combines its own power of expression and fascination, with the charms of verse, that so it may find the readiest entrance to our hearts for devout sentiment. What greater incongruity, then, what more palpable mockery, than to be occupied with these melodious airs, and ravished perhaps with the sweetness of the sound and the brilliancy of the execution, without bestowing a thought on the meaning of the words that are uttered, or turning one feeling to the high and rapturous subjects spoken of! Our hymns breathe the language of devotion and adoration; sometimes in the loftiest strains. They collect the choice expressions of our tongue to acknowledge and celebrate the perfections of God. They embody all that words can show forth of man's dependence on his Maker, of the worth of the gospel, of the weakness and wants of the soul, of the excellence of what has been done for its salvation, and the imperishable glories of heaven. They express the feelings of devotion, of religious joy, and peace, and hope, of gratitude, humility, contrition and trust; and it is but a poor and criminal mockery to employ all their solemn and affecting sentiments for no other purpose than to gratify the ear with fine music.

It is sometimes said that music in the sanctuary is designed to prepare the mind for the other services, and put it in a right

frame for worship; as if it were not a part of worship itself! If so, why this careful preparation of hymns? why the use of words? The words sung imply, they explicitly profess, to be engaged in actual worship. Any other idea is a preposterous evasion. We derive this custom from the uniform usage of the people of God under the old and the new covenants. Turn then to the Bible. Is singing ever spoken of there, except as for the praise of God? Are not even the instruments, the psaltery, harp, and trumpet, always spoken of as 'making a joyful noise unto the Lord? When Moses and the children of Israel sang their triumphant anthem on the banks of the Red Sea, it was surely not to prepare their minds for worship; it was worship itself. When David framed his psalms, and sang them to his own harp, and when they were performed by the numerous choir in the temple, it was not a preparation for worship; it was worship itself. When the Saviour and his apostles at the table of the last supper sang a hymn; when Paul and Silas in prison sang praises to God; these were express and undeniable acts of devotion, not simply to soothe the mind, to create a certain state of feeling, but to express directly to the Deity, as truly as in prayer, the devout sentiments of the soul. While the congregation is assembling for worship, it may be said that the strains of the organ are designed to prepare the feelings; for the duty of preparation is the only one going on, and a serious, expressive air may help to compose the mind and settle it in a suitable frame. But when a psalm is uttered by human voices in words of adoration and supplication, to say that it is to put the feelings in tune, and prepare them for worship, is at best a strange abuse of language. It is worship itself. If there be any meaning in words, it is worship itself; and not of a low or indifferent order, but rather of the highest. It is the combination of two of man's noblest and most delightful gifts, poetry and music, in man's most exalted work of praising Infinite Love. It is a miserable perversion to regard it as a pleasant recreation, or the gratification of a poor sensual taste, instead of a high intellectual and spiritual enjoyment. When the holy men of old would give us some faint semblance of the employment and felicity of heaven, they could suggest nothing more lively and striking, than the description of glorified spirits singing the praises of God. They knew that devout men would understand this; and accordingly we find them using expressions on

the subject, not unlike those of Baxter, which Mr Mason has quoted: Methinks when we are singing the praises of God in great assemblies, with joyful and fervent spirits, I have the liveliest foretaste of heaven upon earth; and I could almost wish that our voices were loud enough to reach through all the world, and to heaven itself. Nothing comforts me more in my greatest sufferings, nor seems more fit for me while I wait for death, than singing psalms of praise to God; nor is there any exercise in which I had rather end my life.'

Upon this part of the subject, it seems to us that Mr Mason has fallen into an error; or else, which we are inclined to think more probable, has incautiously expressed himself, and overlooked the obvious inference from his language. In speaking of the effect of sacred music, he seems to limit it to what he styles its rhetorical effect;' as if the congregation were to be passive recipients of impressions from the choir, rather than to engage their minds actively in the worship. Music,' he says, 'is a refined species of elocution, and as such its office is to enforce upon the heart the sentiment which is sung.'-' A well trained choir have every facility for producing the proper effect-the rhetorical effect of church music. The general train of his discourse corresponds to the sentiment of these quotations, though sometimes, incidentally, he gives a little different view; as when he says, 'if singing be a devotional exercise, as much so as prayer, every Christian is, or ought to be, deeply interested in it. We think he would have done well had he given this view a greater prominence; for however much may be justly attributable to the rhetorical effect of singing, we can hardly expect the abuses to which it is subject as a devotional exercise to be remedied, except by care to regard it more strictly in a devotional, and less in a rhetorical light. It is more important to draw attention to the former than to the latter. For in the latter case the mind is left passive, to receive the impressions of the song; in the former it becomes active, and seizes on the music as an instrument for the expression of its own sentiments.

We can have a fair view of the whole case, only when we regard psalmody under both aspects. It performs an office of public worship between the prayers and the preaching, and partaking the character of each. Like preaching, it serves to excite the religious feelings, to call into action the devotional sensibility, and to rouse the slumbering attention. Like prayer,

it demands a direct effort of the mind and the express cooperation of the heart in the act of praise and supplication. As the words of an impressive speaker, delivered with just tones and emphatic elocution, find their way directly to the heart, and stir up emotions corresponding to the sentiments. which they convey; so music, when judiciously and expressively performed, descends into the soul with the sentiments it breathes, and wakens emotions corresponding to the language of the hymn. As the audience is moved and melted by the voice of the powerful orator, so may it be by the voice of the fine singer-more powerfully, one might suppose, in as much as the voice in singing makes a more thrilling appeal to the feelings than in speaking. How happens it then that we do not discern greater effects? Why are not men converted, improved, comforted, or in other ways deeply affected, engrossed, melted, overcome, by the music of the sanctuary? For many reasons; some of which have been already alluded to. There are faults in our hymns, faults in our tunes, in the adaptation of the one to the other, in the mode of singing, in the mode of attention. We cannot enlarge on all these points; but it falls in with the course of our remarks to say, that as regards the mode of attention, much injury results from attending to the rhetorical effect only; from a passive attention; from giving up the mind to the influence of the sound which falls on the ear, instead of actively exercising it on the sense of the psalm. If listened to thus, it may impart pleasure, but it will produce its best effects only when the sentiment is connected with it for the sake of the sentiment; just as it is in regard to preaching. Why is it, that with all the rhetorical effect of animated, affecting, rousing eloquence, there is yet so little practical effect? Because so many listen to it as eloquence only; without any thought or purpose of a practical result, or for a moment making a practical application to themselves. They are passive hearers, mere recipients of pleasure and impressions, without calling into action the powers of their own minds. As this mode of attention closes the heart against the most earnest appeals from the pulpit, it will equally close it against the most affecting strains of music, even while the ear drinks them in with extasy. This thought is strikingly suggested in the language of the Spirit to the prophet concerning the inefficacy of his labors: They come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy