syllable by syllable, assigning as a reason for such an abuse of words, and annihilation of poetry, the absolute necessity of such a plain and simple kind of music as would suit the whole congregation. Bishop Jewel, in his letter to Peter Martyr, dated March 5th, 1560, says: "A change now appears more visible among the people, which nothing promotes more than inviting them to sing psalms. This was begun in a church in London, and did soon spread itself not only through the city, but in the neighboring places. Sometimes at St. Paul's Cross there will be six thousand people singing together."

In Scotland, the Reformation enlivened its triumphs with popular song. When, at intervals, the people reposed from breaking images and pulling down cathedrals, they passed the time in singing praises. After the populace had assaulted the bishops and the Queen Regent in her own palace, and destroyed the statue of St. Giles, attempts were made to arrest the leaders, but they assembled in companies, singing psalms with such spirit and vehemence, that the officers were confounded. The godly zealots found themselves literally "compassed about with songs of deliverance.'

In the dawn of the commonwealth, when Puritan principles came to wield the civil power of the British people, one of the first reforms undertaken was in the matter of church music. The Westminster Assembly of divines, in 1644, enjoined as the duty of all to sing psalms together, in the congregation, as well as privately in the family. In singing psalms, the voice was to be audibly and gravely ordered, but the chief care was to be, to sing with the understanding, with grace in the heart, making melody unto the Lord. In order that the whole congregation might join in singing, every one was to have a psalm-book, and all persons not disabled by age or otherwise, were to be exhorted to learn. to read. Meanwhile, for the benefit of the many who had not as yet learned to read, it was ordered that the minister, or some fit person appointed by him, should read the psalms, line by line, before they were sung.

Cromwell's soldiers were mighty in praise, as well as in

prayers. The psalms were their war-songs, and to the dissolute cavaliers a great army of Roundheads, chanting the songs of Zion, must have appeared terrible-beyond description terrible, for the sight and the sound awakened fear for both body and soul. At this period the Royalists kept up the cathedral service, with its choir and organ, while their adversaries, abhorring both, believed that the best music was the mere singing of psalms by the entire congregation. There is on record only one instance in which a compromise was made between these two forms of worship, and it is singular enough that this occurred at York, during the siege, in 1644, while the town was the stronghold of the Royalists. Master Mace, in his "Musick's Monument," describes with quaint raptures what he then saw and heard at York Minster.

"The psalm-singing," says he, "was the most excellent that has been known or remembered any where in these latter days. Most certain I am, that to myself it was the very best harmonical musick that ever I heard; yea, excelling all other, either private or public, cathedral music, and infinitely beyond all verbal expression or conceiving. Now here you must take notice, that they had there a custom in that church-which I hear not of in any other cathedral-which was this: always, before sermon, the whole congregation sang a psalm together with the choir and the organ. You must also know, that there was then there a most excellent, large, plump, lusty, full-speaking organ, which cost, as I am credibly informed, a thousand pounds. This organ, I say, when the psalm was set, before the sermon, being let out unto all its fulness of stops, together with the choir, began the psalm. Now when the vast concord and unity of the whole congregational choir came, as I may say, thundering on, even so as to make the very ground shake under us, ah! the unutterable, ravishing soul's delight! I was so transported and rapt up with high contemplation, that there was no room left in my body and spirit for any thing below divine and heavenly raptures."

Had this congregational singing been recently admitted into the cathedral service, with a view to conciliate the resident dissenters? Or was there yet abiding at York the ancient Puritan spirit joined to Royalist principles? And was it because there was so much of this spiritual life among them, that they were able to maintain so stout a resistance to the besieging army of the Roundheads? These are questions we must submit to the bookworms, who have devoured the documents that afford an answer.

Congregational singing ever kept abreast with the doc

trines of the Reformation, and was not a mere change of ritual with which the regeneration of the heart had nothing to do. This may be gathered from many facts, and from this, among others, that in Italy, where the Reformation was only felt as a savor of death unto death, there was nothing heard during all this period but the most lugubrious canting from monks, priests, and professional eunuchs. The state of church music throughout Italy at that time, is hardly exaggerated by the satire of Salvator Rosa, a part of which we will here quote from an indifferent translation:

"Who blushes not to hear a hireling band,

At times appointed to subdue the heart,
Profane the temple with sol-fa in hand,

When tears repentant from each eye should start?

What scandal 'tis within the sacred wall

To hear them grunt the Vespers, bark the Mass,
The Gloria, Credo, Pater Noster, bawl

With the vile fury of a braying ass?

And still more scandalous in such a place,

We see infatuate Christians listening round—
Instead of supplicating God for grace-

To tenor, bass and subtleties of sound.

And while such trivial talents are display'd

In howls and squeaks which wound the pious ear,
No sacred word is with the sound convey'd

To purify the soul, or heart to cheer."

About the middle of the previous century, church music in Italy had lost itself in artificial intricacies. The reputation of the composer rested entirely on tricks and feats of art, in the performance of which, the meaning of the words. was wholly disregarded. Many of the Masses were little else than variations of well-known profane airs. The Council of Trent, in 1562, made a decree against music of this description, and there were those who undertook a reform in this regard. Palestrina did much to improve the music of the choirs, but he did nothing that contributed in the least degree to popularize sacred music. Hymnology itself was forsaken by the Divine Spirit. The devotional verse of the earlier fathers was fraught with the experiences of the renewed heart; the savor of the sacrifice testified to the

heavenly origin of the flame that flung it aloft and abroad. But now the hymn was addressed to a cross, or to an image of the Madonna, and was as cold and breathless as the stone or the iron which it adored. It descanted long and wearily on the attributes of the idol, but gave forth no note that spoke of the soul of the worshipper. The senses drew the heart after them trailing in the dust.

How the mind is refreshed as it turns from these thirsty hymns to the deep fountains of Moravian melody. It is the music of living waters once more. It is the hallelujah of the heart, sung by many congregated voices It is no longer man's lips, but God's works that praise Him. The hymns of the United Brethren every where breathe tones of kindness and compassion, love and gratitude. They every where speak to the heart of the poor and the meek; they have a note for every mood of gracious experience, and every event of Christian life. They were born, not of the chorists, but of the social prayer meeting, and of the great congregation. They have ever remained with their kindred. Whitefield and the Wesleys afforded them a large place in their sympathies, and gave them out to be sung in their meetings. Whitefield was decidedly averse to the cathedral music of his day, and to "the linked sweetness long drawn out," of the parochial psalmody of England. He would not suffer a bar of it to be warbled in his tabernacle. He thought the lively ballad airs of secular origin, more suitable to the joy and gladness of the new-born soul. He declared that it was shameful to praise God in the drawling strains of the Church, and downright sacrilege to allow the devil the monopoly of all the jubilant music. John Wesley was equally persuaded of the necessity of a musical revival, which should give utterance to the new experiences of his converts. Happening one day to hear a sailor singing in the street, it struck him that the melody he was pouring forth would, above all others, suit the words of some of his hymns, and greatly delight and edify the people. Knowing how to write music, he wrote down the notes on the spot, introduced them into his meetings, and always declared, that it was the most solemn and appropriate of all

the tunes which were sung by his followers. The churches of the Methodist connection have always abounded in sacred sonnets. Of no other denomination can it be so emphatically said, "The joy of the Lord is your strength." Their mountain path ever breaks forth into singing. They do not forget that the gospel first fell on the ears of Bethlehem shepherds in notes of heavenly song, and they think that it now deserves rather to be sung than preached. How many of their converts owe their first warning or invitation to the choruses of their congregations? Their social music has done much to make their religion a sunny and gladsome religion. Does, any doubt? His brethren resolve all his doubts with a hymn. Is any disconsolate, or lukewarm, or fearful? From hundreds of according voices his heart receives and applies the remedy. Painful are their searchings of heart, agonizing are their prayers, great is the heaviness of their souls, as they look on a world full of sin; but on casting up the account of good and evil, they find a large balance in favor of doxologies. and hallelujahs. They scatter all the mystery of human woe, the moment they catch the strain of blest voices. uttering joy."

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The great awakening in the days of Jonathan Edwards, like that of all living nature on a summer's morning, was attended by general song. Those who were as yet only dreamers, and knew not what they said, muttered something against the singing of "hymns of human composure,' instead of the Psalms of David. But Edwards defended the practice in a masterly manner, and was of opinion, that to complain of this kind of singing too much resembles the Pharisees, who were disgusted when the multitude of the disciples began to rejoice, and with loud voices to praise God, and cry "Hosanna" when Christ was entering into Jerusalem.

In this view all "evangelists" and revivalists concur. However widely remote the times and the countries wherein they have flourished, they have been as one in hushing choirs and instrumental music, and in creating a taste for plain, lively and familiar hymns. They have solemnly