leaves an impression upon the mind peculiar to itself, and more or less vivid according to the musical capacity of the listener; and it is impossible altogether to resist this impression. We cannot contemplate the perfections of God, or enter into the true spirit of His worship, when the music belongs to some one else; or offer up right feelings of praise to Him, when the vehicle of their expression is in complete discordance with a devotional state of mind. Much of the music we are accustomed to hear, both of what is called grave as well as what is termed joyous, lacks this great element of solemnity; the grave is sometimes very melancholy, and the joyous very jiggy. But the composers, lacking the devotional spirit themselves, cannot contrive to infuse it into their productions; so that the worshipper goes through his psalm or hymn without much consciousness of having praised God in it, and wonders at, and blames, his own hardness of heart, when the real fault lies in the unsuitableness of the music to express what he feels. We have often wondered that so little of the music of the great masters has been introduced into our churches and chapels. The compositions of Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, and others, are brimful of devotional feeling, and could be adapted to metrical verse with but little trouble; and when once introduced, would be as easily learned by the rising generation in our congregations as are the old-fashioned, traditional tunes into which we were born, and amongst which, we fear, we are doomed to die.

There is one tune-book, which has not long been published (we refer to the Congregational Psalmist, the compilation of the Rev. H. Allon), in which some few of the tunes are

selected from the compositions of the great men mentioned above, and these melodies add greatly to the value of the work, musically regarded. We would there had been more, knowing how much of their works are suitable for introduction into congregational worship; but we gladly accept the present as an instalment, and hope that some future compiler may go much further in the same direction, even if they have, in consequence, to refuse admission into their pages of the effusions of some modern composers, who, whatever their genius or knowledge, need not be ashamed at being counted inferior to the greatest musicians the world. has ever seen.

We would remark, that it is not indispensable to solemnity in music that it should be written or sung in semibreves. The nature of the progressions in a musical composition, more than the speed at which it is taken, determine its true character. We do not mean that music of a grave kind should be sung as fast as that of a livelier sort, but simply that it is an error, and one, by-thebye, which is not at all uncommon in Dissenting congregations, to suppose that you make a tune solemn in its character by dwelling a long time on each note. By so doing, it may be made tedious or dreary, or even ridiculous, but we do not add to its solemnity or impressiveness. We have heard some of the grandest sacred music ever composed (we refer to the masses of Mozart and Beethoven) taken, to our view, at much too great a pace, and yet it has left an unmistakeable impression of solemnity on our minds. On some of our church organs, and in most of our cathedral services, we think the music is played too quickly, but in our Dissenting places of worship the prevailing mistake appears to lie in the opposite direction.

meet with its appropriate expression. It is quite possible for this to be done; for there is no thought, however grand-no aspiration, however sublime-no feeling, however tender -but what can and does find adequate expression in music. Some of our oratorios bear witness to the truth of this assertion. But in these the words are taken pretty nearly as they were originally written, without any attempt at rhythm, and are repeated again and again at the will of the composer. But, of course, when we come to metrical compositions, we must adopt a different rule in the selection of the accompanying music. Certain rough and ready distinctions between the various kind of hymns must be made, and the same distinctions adopted in the choice of our tunes. We find different classifications of our psalms and hymns have been attempted by different writers to express these distinctions, but among these none more appropriate or full of meaning to the general reader than these three-the grave, the tender, and the joyous. The first may include all those compositions in which the majesty or holiness of God, or the uncertainty of life, and the awfulness of the judgment, are treated of; the second, those in which the love and mercy of God in Christ are celebrated, comprising such subjects as the Crucifixion, and the Lord's Supper; and the third, those in which the confidence of the believer in his Saviour, and his thanksgiving for mercies received, are expressed. There is a marked distinction in these various classifications of subjects, and this distinction should be equally marked in the music chosen to express the phases of thought and feeling peculiar to each. In those places of worship in which anthems are introduced into the service, you may get music exquisitely adapted to every word of the anthem; and in

this, to our mind, consists one great advantage these psalms of praise enjoy over any possessed by metrical compositions.

Now, the great majority of collections of psalm and hymn tunes, although they may possess variety enough, do not possess a sufficient variety of good tunes. For instance, it has long been a matter of complaint amongst musical men that there are so few good short metre tunes to be found, even if you pick them out of all the collections in print. And really, when you come to count up the tunes in regular use in churches and chapels, even when there are skilled organists and musicians to select them, their number will appear ridiculously small when compared with the multitude of those in most collections of music which are never played or sung at all. The reason of this we believe to be, that there are so few tunes of really first-class description which can be selected to meet the varied character of the psalms and hymns in use in our congregations. course, there are many leaders who make the matter much worse than they need, by using amongst all the metres only about as many tunes as you can count on your fingers. In one chapel in the country we used to visit, they had but one tune, 7's, to do duty for every description of hymn of that metre; and whether it was

"Hasten, sinner, to be wise-
Wait not for the morrow's sun;"

or

"Hark, the herald angels sing Glory to the new-born King,'

Of

the inevitable "German Hymn" was harmoniumed by the leader, and duly gone through by the congregation. And even in the suburbs of London

not a day's walk from the Elephant and Castle-there was a place

of worship, which at one time we visited occasionally, but from whose walls we believe we never escaped without being obliged to listen to "Byzantium." We have almost

wished the precentor had been there himself, instead of in the chapel.

The third point to which we would advert respecting the character of the music to be used in our religious worship is, that it should be practicable. When we say practicable, we mean not for musicians only, but for the great mass of the congregation. The perfection of praise will be attained (as shadowed forth in the Book of Revelations) when in heaven all the saints shall sing together the song of praise to their Redeemer. And the nearer this can be approached on earth, the better. There must be a great mistake somewhere, if only a few can join in the service. Better to have only plain, simple music, than confine the worship of song to but a fraction of the people. Not but what the people themselves should strive in their leisure hours to fit themselves for the performance of a greater variety of musical compositions; but still accepting the fact as true at present that the great majority of our worshippers are not musically educated, we think it desirable that the quality of the music should be such as admits of the participation in it of the largest number of the congregation.

This does not exclude music of the very highest order. Some of the very best effusions of the very best composers are extremely simple in their melody; and the melody, where but few are capable of taking the separate parts in the harmony, is the most important part of the music. In one of our present collection of tunes, we are aware some pieces are inserted, and ostensibly so, which have no

claim to merit at all in their melodies, and are simply introduced for the sake of the beauty of the harmonies. Such a practice, however, must be a mistaken one as regards congregational singing, in which the melody always plays, and always must play, so conspicuous a part. But not only should the melody be simple, and therefore practicable, especially as this can be done without in the least detracting from the beauty of the music,-but in the harmonies adopted there should be an absence of anything like complexity. Nothing should be introduced which is likely to add to discord in the worship by overtasking the musical ability or knowledge of those who attempt their execution. Some of the harmonies in the work to which we just referred are what may be called impossible in the present condition of musical science in our congregations. We hear them occasionally tried, and the trial ends in failure. This is always to be regretted, as interfering with devotion. No one can be puzzling over intricate harmonies, and retain in his heart and mind at the same time the right true feeling of worship and praise. The harmonies, as well as the melodies, should be simple and practicable.

We have thus sketched what we should take to be the three leading characteristics of the music used in our sanctuaries. It should be devotional in its character; it should comprise variety sufficient to meet the corresponding variety of subjects it has to express; and it should be practicable-i.e., both the melody and harmony should be such as to be readily sung by the congregation. We have left out of our survey all reference to the music being good, i.e. pleasing to the ear, as self-evident enough not to need remark.