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MUSIC AND WORSHIP. 
 
 • 
 
 THE first and noblest use of music was said of old to be 
 the offering of praise to the Immortals ; the next the 
 purifying, regulating, and harmonizing of the soul. Worthy 
 of Plutarch, to whom it has been attributed, this utterance is 
 surpassed by that in the Book of Job, upon the creation : 
 "The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God 
 shouted for joy ;" for thus is seen not only the natural and 
 pleasing but also the divinely ordered union of music and 
 worship. 
 
 Spiritual song and angelic and divine life are revealed close 
 to our mundane being, so that notwithstanding our material 
 environments, God is not very far from each one of us. Around 
 this dim and disordered world, music is sounding from the stars, 
 and the accompanying voices are those of the sons of God. 
 
 Not matter merely moved by soulless laws and forces, but 
 circumambient soul-life is disclosed, realm on realm of spiritual 
 being, all centering in God. Not a spiritually void and lifeless 
 universe is this ; not a reign of mere law with motion in fixed 
 orbits, and exact, remorseless forces ; not a scries of mathe- 
 matically inevitable processes alone, but a world with attend- 
 ant spiritual life, a universe replete with expressive music, 
 rousing God's sentient sons to responsive songs of praise. 
 11 The heavens declare the glory of God" in that " their sound 
 is gone out into all lands and their speech to the ends of the 
 world." 
 
 First heard at the laying of the corner stone of the creation, 
 the song has sounded on, until, at Christ's advent, clouds open 
 and mortal ears are quickened to hear a multitude of the heav- 
 
MUSIC AXD IVOR SHIP. 127 
 
 cnly host, with the announcing angel, now celebrating the 
 ing of the Everlasting Corner-stone, the birthday of the re-crea- 
 tion. It is a sublime thought, a universe vocal with the pr 
 of God, from planets and stars and systems well as as from the 
 answering voices of the sons of God. 
 
 This assertion of the connection of music and worship in the 
 on-going of the universe is apparently much older than the 
 most ancient literature. Sages among Chaldeans, Babylonians, 
 and Egyptians, whose systems of music, worship, and astron- 
 omy were the result of traditions and of long contempla: 
 re-affirm the ancient idea that the motions of all heavenly 
 bodies arc regulated by musical intervals, and that thus they 
 make everlasting harmony. The music of the " cver-during" 
 spheres is no poetic figment. Originally Asiatic, it passed later 
 with many principles of knowledge and civilization by way of 
 Phoenicia and Egypt into Greece, and became part of the 
 ancient thought and worship of Europe. 
 
 The doctrine of the music of the spheres was accepted, 
 according to Plutarch, by all the philosophers ; " for the uni- 
 verse," say they, " was framed and constitued by its author on 
 the principle of music." Why then does not the ear perceive 
 the resounding song of the morning stars ? Because, was the 
 reply of classic philosophers, of the vastness of the concussion 
 of the air, or because of the distance of the stars or the del it 
 of their music, for receiving which the cars of mortals are 
 adapted. As in many instances, ancient philosophers, 
 of the Baconian method and of our latest experimental pro- 
 cesses, here reach conch: embling those of 1 lelmholtz and 
 Tyndall and the inductions of modern science. According to 
 the Greek Archytas, our ears are like narrow-necked phials 
 which, if your pour too rapidly, nothing will come. The I 
 tion betwen slow vibrations or movements and a 
 between rapid movement a I pitch was anciently under- 
 
 omachus, treating of the sea! I the 1<> 
 
 note to Saturn, because of his apparently slow m< ■ and 
 
 greater distance from the sun, while the 1 with 
 
 the string of the lyre) was ascribed to tin: mo : 
 
 nearest to the earth an rently fl :nent. The 
 
 telescope annihilates distance ; the microscope 
 
128 THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 
 
 of beauty and utility all about us. If there is a medium, how- 
 ever ethereal, sufficient for waves of light, must not motion 
 through it produce sound waves or vibrations of sound ? As 
 there is a medium for the transmission of light from distant 
 stars, is it not probable, nay, in the light of modern discovery 
 certain, that there is a sufficient medium for the transmission of 
 sound ? The fact that the car is dull of hearing is no proof 
 that by inventions already suggested, or by the nobler powers 
 of the spiritual body, the soul may not become consicous of 
 glorious sound which as yet mortal ear hath not heard nor 
 mortal heart conceived. The Egyptians ascribed twenty-eight 
 notes to the universe, that being the number of notes in the 
 scale ; while in ancient treatises, mathematics and astronomy 
 art so mingled with statements as to music that he must study 
 them who would possess all the treasures of thought and speech 
 concerning melody and harmony and symphony. Perhaps it 
 was the lack of such research that led De Quincey to wonder 
 that upon a subject so sublime as music there had been so few 
 worthy utterances. Without such research, how marvellously 
 has Shakespeare caught and reproduced this ancient thought in 
 the familiar but exquisite lines : 
 
 " Look, how the floor of Heaven 
 Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold ; 
 There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest 
 But in his motion like an angel sings, 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims. 
 Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
 But whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
 Doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it." 
 
 Pythagoras held that the glorious sounds were audible only 
 to the gods ; and Milton but re-echoes a sentiment seemingly 
 as old as human thought, when he exclaims of — 
 
 " Yonder starry spheres 
 
 Most regular when most irregular they seem ; 
 That in their motions, harmony divine 
 So smooths her charming tones, that God's own ear 
 Listens delighted." 
 
 Music and worship then were divinely married in the temple of 
 the universe. From the first Scripture utterances concerning 
 music, to the last, the lesson is the same. In the Apocalypse, 
 
MUSIC AXD WORSHIP. 1^9 
 
 worship by means of adoring music is the attitude of the saintly 
 soul delivered from the burden of the flesh ; not feeling solely ; 
 for although as music is the idealized language of the emo- 
 tions, some of its votaries have asserted that feeling is that into 
 which all else fades in the future life ; yet there is clearly nar- 
 rated the continuance and enlargement of thought as well. 
 "Thou art worthy!" is the acclaim of the redeemed, "for 
 thou hast ransomed us out of every kingdom and people." 
 History is revived while emotion and adoring song accompany 
 the most elevated use of knowledge, and express the loftiest 
 achievements of thought. Thus as earth's history opens with 
 celestial music when morning stars together hymn its advent 
 and sons of God responsive shout their joy, it is also revealed 
 that it will close with a doxology : " And I saw as it were a 
 sea of glass mingled with fire, and them that had gotten the 
 victory ; and they sang the song of Moses and of the Lamb. 
 After these things, I heard a great voice of much people in 
 heaven saying, Alleluia ! And a voice came out of the throne 
 saying, Praise our God !" 
 
 From the earliest times, instrumental and vocal music have 
 advanced hand in hand. If to the hymn of creation, planetary 
 systems sounded their accompaniment, a union not less signifi- 
 cant is seen in the whole musical history of our race between 
 instrumental and vocal music. If the voice and vocal music 
 were among the earliest means of expressing emotion and 
 passion, so at the dawn of the arts, where Tubal Cain was an 
 instructor of every artificer in brass and iron, there stands his 
 brother Jubal as " the father of all such as handle the harp and 
 organ. " Stringed and wind instruments are thus designated ; for 
 while the word organ is used from earliest times in the Bible, 
 the instrument intended (as where the Psalmist exclaims, 
 " Praise him on the strings and pi: I a tube of wood or 
 
 metal, and later several pipes extending to an octave or two 
 joined together to be held in the hands and played b; 
 and lips. 
 
 Although the Egyptians had a limited but 
 of keyboard, and although their hydraulic organ, admired by 
 the Greeks, w.is quite like a Yankee notion in its clever con- 
 struction and use of water in regulating the pressure of air from 
 9 
 
13° THE rRINCETON REVIEW. 
 
 the bellows, yet it was of very small capacity. The primitive 
 organ is seen in representations of the heathen god Pan ; and 
 Raphael has portrayed St. Cecilia, " inventress of the vocal 
 frame," holding the pandcan pipes as the Christian patroness 
 of music. 
 
 As the earliest musical progress was in the Orient and in 
 Egypt, the Jews may have brought instruments and a knowl- 
 edge of their use from Egyptian bondage to be consecrated to 
 the worship of Jehovah. The Te Deum, which celebrated their 
 triumphant passage of the Red Sea, was " sung by Moses and 
 the children of Israel ;" and while the last notes of lofty praise 
 were yet sounding, Miriam the Prophetess took a timbrel in 
 her hand, and all the women w r ent out after her with timbrels 
 and with dances, and Miriam answered them, " Sing ye to the 
 Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously !*' Resounding from 
 camp and tabernacle during their wanderings, songs of praise 
 were to find their highest form, when, after the promised land 
 was gained, the temple was reared, to be the ever, memorable 
 abode of worship and music. As the simple organ of Jubal 
 may be called the father of the modern magnificent church 
 organ, so some lineal descendant of his harp soothed the mad- 
 ness of Saul and was a vehicle of the inspiration of David, while 
 the ideal which its primitive form dimly foreshadowed is found 
 now in that most popular instrument of our time which with 
 reverberating strings and brilliant keyboard adorns almost every 
 American home. 
 
 For the temple's service, the inspired psalms and their in- 
 strumental accompaniments were, it would seem, alike com- 
 posed under divine guidance. Members of the tribe of Levi 
 were selected by the Psalmist to praise Jehovah upon instru- 
 ments, and a great musical college was thus founded. It con- 
 sisted of four thousand musicians, of whom nearly three hundred 
 were " cunning" performers, capable of educating the remain- 
 der. They were divided into bands of from one hundred and 
 fifty to one hundred and seventy performers, each band being 
 under the leadership of a competent conductor. Asaph and 
 other leaders, it appears from the statements in the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth chapters of First Chronicles, marked the time by 
 sounding the cymbals ; the singers going before, we arc else- 
 
MUSIC AND WORSHIP 131 
 
 where told, and these performers upon instruments, following, 
 in the midst, were damsels playing upon the timbrels. So from 
 the sixty-eighth Psalm and other passages, we infer that both 
 
 sexes participated and that voices of singing-men and singing- 
 women, accompanied with many hundreds of instrument-, made 
 up the mighty chorus of the temple service. Stored in its 
 treasury, it is said, were various trumpets to the number of two 
 hundred thousand, with some fifty thousand harps, psalteries, 
 and other like instruments. So musical were the people that 
 joyous songs were heard at weddings and festivals ; and wailing 
 dirges sobbed in responsive sorrow over the loved remains of 
 the departed. 
 
 The art had its highest culture and use in connection with 
 worship. David, welcomed with jubilant som; his early 
 
 and memorable victory, became the inspired master of sacred 
 compositions so cherished that the chants which he comp 
 and dedicated to his singers and minstrels, sung in the temple 
 and on the field of battle, resounded from age to age even 
 down to the foundation of the second temple, and again at the 
 signal victory of the Maccabean Army, and not improbably 
 when " Great David's greater Son" fulfilled all righteousness by 
 Frequenting the temple's courts. Perhaps its traces linger yet 
 in synagogues and "in Christian chants and ancient hymns. 
 
 To the attempts to prove that a musical service of worship 
 is divinely ordered because of the divine ordering of the temple 
 service, it is often replied that the temple and its service have 
 (1 away. 
 
 agogues exist now as of old, and although a m 
 service with chant and hymn and anthem seems inseparably 
 
 •dated with Hebrew worship, yet it is agreed that tin- 
 vice of the synagogue was not of divine appointment. 
 
 Hut music and worship need for their union no such formal 
 argument or liter.d sanction ; that union exists in the nature of 
 things, has its recognition throughout the Scriptures, is the 
 burden of prophecies of the Apocalypse, is felt in th< 
 of the soul and proclaimed in the highest efforts ( f art, an 
 to be I in heaven. 
 
 It is not n< here the character of the 
 
 musical instruments known to the ancients and especially to 
 
l 3 2 THE PRINCETON REVIEW, 
 
 the Hebrews. But with a body of four thousand trained 
 musicians, with a collection at the temple of tens of thousands 
 of instruments, with singing-men and singing-women and 
 11 cunning" leaders and inspired composers, teachers, and di- 
 rectors, and a song-loving people, let who can believe that their 
 music was enriched by no harmony, and consisted only of melo- 
 dy or notes in unison. 
 
 Of Egypt, whence they came out a musical people, Plato tells 
 us in his Laws that the same sacred hymns were sung for thou- 
 sands of years. Egyptian harps had several octaves of strings. 
 Drop such an instrument accidentally, and inevitably the 
 sounds would suggest concords. 
 
 God gives human voices in different parts, treble, alto, 
 tenor, bass, calling for harmony. The wind sighing in an 
 aeolian harp or sweeping through a forest tells of more than 
 melody. On every hand in nature from the first, elements of 
 harmony proclaim their presence to the sensitive musical ear. 
 And if the ear and brain be now more highly developed, the 
 difference is one of degree, not of kind. While the ancients 
 had, it is safe to assert, no such melody as the aria, " I know 
 that my Redeemer liveth," and no such harmony as that*of the 
 Oratorio of the Messiah, they had, we may believe, the rudi- 
 ments of both. I have always found it difficult to credit the 
 statements reiterated by so many musical authorities, that the 
 ancients possessed melody but not harmony. As Ritter traces 
 clearly modern harmony to its source, so Chappell, to whom I 
 am herein also indebted, is convincing as to the existence of 
 ancient harmony. From Egypt, where ancient instruments and 
 musicians are so marvellously portrayed, he gives many inter- 
 esting instances and illustrations. Harps and pipes with many 
 notes, and so held and played, it is said, as of necessity to 
 make harmony ; the hydraulic organ with keyboard ; the evi- 
 dent cultivation of music for worship and social life ; the repre- 
 sentation of fourteen performers making up the vocal and 
 instrumental establishment of an Egyptian gentleman of the 
 older times ; the curious caricatures in which Rameses the 
 king, as a noble lion, leads with the lyre, while one courtier 
 figures as a clumsy crocodile playing a sort of guitar, another 
 as a seemingly deceitful and slinking animal playing the double- 
 
MUSIC AND WORSHIP. 133 
 
 pipes, and the fourth member of the quartette, awkward and 
 lumbering, as a donkey with enormous ears, performs subservi- 
 ently bass to the king's treble — from this and much more, 
 Chappell reaches his conclusion. In answer to the question, 
 Did the ancients practise harmony? he says, " Undoubtedly 
 they did, even at the time of the building of the pyramids ; it 
 is not a matter of doubt, but a mathematical certainty." 
 
 Recalling passages in the Greek and Latin classics, th< 
 much to strengthen the conclusion. The declaration of Aristotle 
 in his thirty-ninth Book of Problems is explicit : " All consonan- 
 ces are more pleasing than simple sounds ; the sweetest is the 
 octave." Such figures of speech as the following suggest an 
 acquaintance with the intricacies of harmony as well as with the 
 clear movement of melody. In the second book of his Repub- 
 lic, Cicero writes : " For tis in strings or pipes, so in vocal 
 music, a certain consonance is to be maintained out of differ- 
 ent sounds, which, if changed or made discrepant, educated 
 ears cannot endure ; and as this consonance, arising from the 
 control of different voices, is yet proved to be concordant and 
 agreeing, so, out of the highest, the lowest, the middle, and the 
 intermediate orders of men, as in sounds, the state becomes of 
 accord through the controlled relation and by the agreement of 
 dissimilar ranks ; and that which in music is by musicians 
 called harmony, the same is concord in a state." Seneca thus 
 alludes to the mental influence of music in portions of his 
 eighty-fourth and eighty-eighth Epistle : " When the array of 
 singers has filled up every passage between the seats in the am- 
 phitheatre, when the audience part is girt round by trumpet 
 and all kinds of pipes and other instruments have sounded in 
 concert from the stage, out of these differing sounds IS harmony 
 produced. Thus would I have it with our mind 
 teach how voices high and l<>\v make harmony together, how 
 concord may arise from strings of varying sounds ; teach rather 
 how my mind may be in Concord with itself and my thou. 
 be f.ir from discord." 
 
 Music and worship of old w not only with the 
 
 melody and harmony of voic< I instruments, but 
 
 with the movement of human forms and with the light 1 
 ficial fires and feasts with pyrotechnical display ; SO that, should 
 
1 34. THE PRINCE TON RE VIE W. 
 
 we have the color symphonies and motion symphonies, which 
 art prophets promise, it would still be true that there is nothing 
 new under the sun. 
 
 The definitions of musical terms among the Greeks, like 
 their musical scales and their use of music, differ widely from 
 ours. The orator, as we all know, took his note, " tibiis dex- 
 tris et sinistris, " from the musician, and intoned rather' than 
 spoke his oration. You may hear something of the same sort 
 among preachers in Wales, or in the preaching tone into which, 
 despite his disapprobation of music, a good Friend preacher 
 often falls. Symphony was the expression for concords, while 
 harmony included both theory and practice, both poetry and its 
 musical accompaniment. Melody with the Greeks indicated in- 
 flections or undulations of the voice, whether in speech or 
 rhythm ; music included the science of numbers, mathematics, 
 astronomy, and so much of education as to be called the cyclo- 
 pedia of knowledge. The young Greek was taught music that he 
 might learn also obedience, since in melody, harmony or sym- 
 phony, all is disordered and displeasing unless the laws ordained 
 of God are faithfully followed. Plato held that the influence of 
 music in the education of youths was as a gale bearing from all 
 sides health from blessed regions and wafting them on impercep- 
 tibly from boyhood into a likeness and love and sympathy with all 
 fair and right reason ; since more than all things does it pene- 
 trate into the innermost recesses of the soul, bearing along with 
 it the love and perception of beauty and order and rhythm in 
 whatever" forms presented. Some years since, one of our great- 
 est American scholars, in commenting upon Plato's concep- 
 tions, spoke of the importance of the early cultivation of music, 
 since it is not only the most perfect of the arts but the most 
 spiritual of the sciences, belonging to the three grand depart- 
 ments of knowledge, pervading alike the physical, the meta- 
 physical, and the mathematical, and being in close alliance 
 with the believing spirit ; so that the neglect of music as an art 
 and as a science is, he exclaimed, " one of the most serious 
 defects in our modern system of early education ; and we do 
 verily believe that if the time occupied with puerile Peter 
 Parley treatises on natural theology was devoted to Haydn 
 and Mozart, it would furnish to our children a far more effect- 
 
Ml 'SIC AND IVORSIIIP. 135 
 
 ual security against infidelity ; for whatever aids in the cultiva- 
 tion of a believing heart precludes those objections from ever 
 obtaining an effectual lodgment in the soul." Among the 
 ancients, music found alike its earliest and its noblest us; 
 we have intimated in connection with worship. The severe- 
 chant, the more melodious hymns or prayers, and the dirges and 
 choral songs, all were sacred to religion. According to Plutarch, 
 the art at first subserved only religious purposes. "Theatres 
 were unknown, and music consisted of those sacred strains 
 which were employed in the temple as a means of paying adora- 
 tion to the Supreme Being." Anacharsis, the younger, in his 
 " Travels in Greece," in the fourth century before the Chris- 
 tian era, states of the sacred hymns sung by choruses of youths, 
 " that they are so harmonious, and so well seconded by the art 
 of the poet, as frequently to draw tears from the greater part of 
 the audience. " 
 
 But the music of the past is one of the lost arts. 
 
 The downfall of the Roman Empire, the deluge of barbaric 
 invasion, would have whelmed it utterly but for the Christian 
 Church. From ancient shrines and synagogues, from the tem- 
 ple, and, as we love to think, supremely from the " hallel" 
 or paschal hymn sung by the Redeemer with his disciples at 
 the last supper, primitive Christianity caught up and perpetu- 
 ated the faint and fading sounds of sacred melody. Pliny in 
 his well-known letters speaks of the hymns which Christians 
 sang to Christ as God. Kusebius writes that " there was one 
 common consent in chanting forth the praises of God. The 
 performance of the music was exact, the rites of the church 
 were decent and majestic, and there was a place appointed for 
 those who sang psalms, for youths and virgins, old men and 
 youn 
 
 At Milan, toward the close of the fourth century, rose the 
 school of Ambrose. He collat ed hymns 
 
 tunes, and fixed, it is supposed, the four diatonic died 
 
 the Ambrosian ecclesiastical i His friend tine, 
 
 after hearing the music in his chur ' The VOi 
 
 flowed in at my truth v. '.led into my Dealt, 
 
 the i i of piety overflowed in The 
 
 close of the sixth century was made musically memorable from 
 
I3<> THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 
 
 the more extended and enduring efforts of Gregory the Great, 
 who added four more scales and his Gregorian chant, laboring 
 ardently for musical education and progress. Schools in which 
 music was taught were rapidly established in all parts of west- 
 ern Christendom. The biographer of Gregory declares that of 
 all unpromising pupils, the Gauls and Germans were the worst ; 
 " their rough voices roaring like thunder are not capable of 
 soft modulations ; for their throats, hardened by drink, cannot 
 execute with flexibility what a tender melody requires ; their 
 tones are like the rumbling of a baggage wagon jolting down a 
 mountain ; instead of touching the hearts of the hearers, they 
 only revolt them." 
 
 Charlemagne, as the eighth century was closing, rose to 
 become the great patron of music ; but still the singing was in 
 unison, and simple melody was the substance of the music cul- 
 tivated. True, Isidore of Seville, the friend of Gregory the 
 Great, had written of harmony as the unison of simultaneous 
 sounds, and gives rules for the use of harmony. Lines for 
 musical notation were gradually introduced, instruments were 
 improved, and at the opening of the tenth century harmony was 
 brought into use by the good Flemish monk Hucbald. 
 
 But we may hot follow further in this paper the growth, 
 from its sacred cradle upward, of modern music, which is 
 peculiarly the child of the Church. There was an early protest 
 against it from a non-Protestant source. Pope John XXII., at 
 Avignon, in the year 1332, writes as deeply displeased with 
 those who " are captivated with the new notes and new measures 
 of the disciples of the new school, and would rather have their 
 e;irs tickled with semibreves and minims and such frivolous 
 inventions than hear the ancient ecclesiastical chant." The 
 Great Reformer later on was of a different mind, declaring that 
 by the Gospel, art should not be banished as some zealots 
 desired, for all arts and principally music should be seen in the 
 service of Him who gave and created them ; since, as His 
 greatest gift, music sets the soul at rest and places it in a most 
 happy mood, thus proving that " the demon who creates such 
 sad sorrows and ceaseless torments retires as fast before music 
 as before divinity." " It is beneficial," continues Luther, " to 
 keep youth in the continual practice of this art. A school* 
 
MUSIC AND WORSHIP. 13; 
 
 master must know how to sing, otherwise I do not respect 
 him." With a musical education and a musical ear, he felt that 
 not only church doctrine, discipline, and morals, but that 
 church music also needed a reformation. His opinion of the 
 old church music as rendered by drowsy monks and choristers 
 found vent in the characteristic explosion, that it was " a dis- 
 mal ass's bray." He was untiringly devoted to translating and 
 collating suitable hymns and tunes. Words and music of his 
 own composition have come down to us, such as the noble 
 hymn, " Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott." lie demanded that 
 the words " be worthily expressed, not babbled or drawled, and 
 that the masses join in the singing and pay devout attention." 
 What a sententious summary for congregational singing ! Lu- 
 ther was also right in attaching great importance to the words 
 and thoughts of hymns, and also to the popular character of the 
 music. For the Reformation as a popular movement demanded 
 that its hymns and tunes, like its translation of the Bible, 
 should be so rendered as to be ** understanded of the people." 
 
 The chorale was a combination both of the old Gregorian 
 and Ambrosian tone and also secular melody and harmony. 
 By degrees the sacred song of the Protestant churches takes on 
 its distinctive and popular character ; simple secular tunc 
 as old hymns tunes being often adopted or adapted. . 
 step forward was made by assigning to the people the trcbK 
 the more distinct and leading part, while other voices, until 
 the organ came into general use, sang the chords or harmony, 
 
 Luther had a hand in the preparation and wrote the pi 
 of the first Protestant hymnal, put forth in 1324 by John 
 Waiter. Lucas Osiander rendered great service in his 
 
 book of M fifty spiritual songs and psalms set in counterpoint 
 four voices in such wise that a Christian congregation ; 
 join in the singing throughout." " I know well that com 
 
 ire in the habit of assigning the chorale to the tenor, but if 
 this be done, the chorale or tune cannot be distinguished from 
 
 among the other parts, the common people cannot tell what 
 
 psalm it i-^ nor join in the singin I have 
 
 placed the chorale in tli . so that it shall b. 
 
 distinctly, and every lav member cm sing too." I:i i 
 and Scotland, in the reign of Edward the Sixth, met: 
 
I3 8 THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 
 
 psalms and hymns are found in general use. Brought in with 
 the Reformation wave from Germany, they bore with them 
 German chorales and other grand old tunes, vastly superior to 
 much of our modern sentimental or machine-made ecclesiasti- 
 cal music. This power of music over the hearts of the people 
 has made it, in all great popular religious movements, the pre- 
 vailing clement in both public and social or family worship. 
 At the Reformation, the singing of psalms, begun in one 
 church in London, " did quickly spread itself not only through 
 the city, but sometimes at Paul's Cross there will be six thou- 
 sand people singing together." Genius, whether that of a 
 great composer or of common sense — which Guizot has called 
 the genius of humanity — catching and making vocal the aspira- 
 tions of the popular heart, gives us " volk" song ; and the best 
 chorales, in clear and simple tones of regular cadence and 
 movement but of tender and melting or of rousing and inspiring 
 power, may well be called Christian " folk" song. The word 
 c/wrale, a modification of the word chorus, suggests in its Greek 
 derivation a vast volume of simple measured melody grandly 
 accompanied. Should the science of music become so ad- 
 vanced that musical phrases, like the root forms of words, will 
 disclose history, ties of lineage perhaps may then be traced 
 between the Greek chorus and the German chorale, or between 
 the song of bondsmen in Egypt and the weird hymns of bonds- 
 men in America. Who has heard the resounding plantation 
 chorus, " Tell ole Pharaoh, let my people go !" without a mys- 
 terious feeling that the refrain was much older than our late 
 " patriarchal institution ?" Many such tunes, if rude in form, 
 have the rare merit of naturalness, and are full of power and 
 pathos. The defect which strikes the ear is often that of un- 
 skilled rendering. The vociferous plantation bawler who, when 
 checked, uttered the answer, '* The good book says, Hollardhz. 
 Thy name," but expressed the apparent 'sense of duty of many 
 estimable and misguided persons as to congregational singing. 
 
 The lack of a musical ear, like color-blindness, is a great 
 deprivation. Early musical education will, however, in great 
 measure supply the defect, and instruction in singing in many 
 parts of the Union has been the invariable associate of the day- 
 school and the church. In the earliest days of colonial history, 
 
MUSIC AND WORSHIP. 139 
 
 it is said that the " sounding isles of the dim woods rang with 
 
 songs of lofty cheer," in which the Pilgrim fathers found utter- 
 ance for faith and hope, undaunted by difficulties. The first 
 publication of the Xew England free press was a psalm book ; 
 and upon the solid basis of Sternhold Hopkins how many an 
 enduring musical edifice has been reared, until the Oratorio 
 Society has taken the place of the winter singing-school, and 
 the great organ of Boston's Music Hall that of the old-time 
 tuning-fork, by which the hymns in the meeting-house were 
 " pitched" in more senses than one. The popularity from 
 Maine to India of music such as that of the Moody and Sankey 
 hymns is, I believe, susceptible, did space here permit, of an 
 explanation which, without sacrificing principles of art, yet 
 justifies the use of whatever will bring the Gospel in mu.sic 
 home to those to whom better music is as yet unintelligible. Is 
 not simple congregational singing one of the greatest of the 
 undeveloped powers of Christendom ? Sir Henry Cole not 
 long since made a valuable suggestion to his vicar, somewhat 
 as follows : " Doctor, the people arc very fond of music, and I 
 think if you were to invite them to come to the church once a 
 week and allow them to take part, giving them as much simple 
 music as they can well sing and understand, you will find they will 
 come. Let all the seats be free ; let there be a sermon, but 
 not to exceed ten minutes ; let them have five or six hymns or 
 psalms to good old tunes ; and if the hymns be accompanied by 
 instruments properly administered, I am sure it will produce a 
 good effect." " So," says Sir Henry, "we had silver trum- 
 pets, two trombones, and two kettledrums, and, I declare, if 
 they were the last words I had to speak, I never heard anything 
 more solemn. My friend, the doctor, was the one who dis- 
 turbed the regulations by preaching seventeen minutes inst 
 of ten. The church was crowded, they sang their hymns, and 
 each week the crowd i: '. I met a member of Parlia- 
 
 ment at the church, and he said to me, " I : ling 
 
 rvice ; I never heard anything more afl 
 The offertory paid the expenses. If you wish !•» t.il pie 
 
 away from public 1 rhaps fatally inn 
 
 horn; : might do it by a very simple proccsa in your 
 
 church, if you tried it." 
 
140 THE PRINCETON REVIEW. 
 
 Imagine such frequent services of song in Washington with 
 members of Congress in tears ! Surely to a much more general 
 extent than at present, those responsible in great measure for 
 the prosperity and righteousness of the nation need to humble 
 themselves before God in his house, that they may receive 
 divine illumination. 
 
 Why is not the Christendom of to-day guiding the art of 
 the world, crowding canvas with noble productions, producing 
 works of sculpture surpassing the master-pieces of heathen art, 
 erecting cloud-piercing spires and long-drawn aisles and vast 
 cathedrals, gathering into noble monumental and useful struc- 
 tures the scattered wealth of our needlessly multiplied churches 
 and of our feeble or questionable church architecture ? Be- 
 cause, without Christian unity, the heart of Christendom lan- 
 guishes, being " divided against itself." 
 
 Piled up in the principal cemeteries of our cities, you may 
 find monuments of marble and carved stone and metal unartis- 
 tically designed and wasting a wealth of material which, were 
 we Christians united, would have built cathedrals all over the 
 land and endowed colleges and memorial hospitals and schools, 
 dwarfing the architectural achievements of the past. For wc 
 have added resources of engineering and construction and 
 material, just as the multitude of modern musical instruments 
 opens up a new world, as it were, for the progress of music ; 
 while the inspiration of the artist would not be lacking, were 
 Christendom united. For this, time is not ripe, and we, like 
 our forefathers, are not worthy to see that day ; we might be 
 tempted to do as they did who used the strength of unity for 
 purposes of religious oppression and persecution. Better perish 
 Christian unity and united effort and all triumph of sacred art, 
 than that liberty should again be lost ! The world must wait 
 until music, teaching us harmony despite diversity, and liberty 
 as consistent with law, can pave the way for the restoration of 
 Christian unity. Then, united patronage and wealth and the 
 true Christian " time-spirit" will make the Church, mistress of 
 all the arts as she has been already the nursing mother of music, 
 which is supremely the art of the nineteenth century and of the 
 future. Music and worship cannot be divorced nor left to live 
 but coldly together, without injury alike to art and to religion. 
 
MUSIC AXD W OR SI/ IP. 141 
 
 Wintcrfcld dates the decline of sacred art from the time when 
 it " contracted that fatal taint" which degrades it to the service 
 of sensual pleasure. 
 
 If music and its sister arts owe much to the fostering 
 and ennobling influence of the Christian Church, it is equally 
 true that, in view of popular religious movements, and of 
 exalted services of worship, the Church also owes a debt to 
 music which it should endeavor to repay by ever}' means in 
 its power. Let the Church then seek to advance musical culture 
 and to encourage the production and execution of the greatest 
 musical works. Since as a nation wc are neither Anglo-Saxon 
 nor Oriental nor Occidental exclusively, since all peoples gather 
 here to become one under one government, the church music 
 of the future cannot be exclusively of any one of the old 
 schools, but must combine their excellences, and grow from its 
 own soil as they did from theirs. Even now, but in the infancy 
 of its Christian civilization, for this nation in this broad land 
 and in the illimitable future, what triumphs may not sacred 
 art achieve ! 
 
 T<> pursue the subject of music and worship further would 
 lead us far beyond our limits into the great tone-world of 
 modern life and thought. The marvellous progress of modern 
 music presents one of the most brilliant and fascinating chap- 
 ters of art history. The achievements in the range and 
 compass and multiplication of instruments and in the knowl- 
 edge and application of the laws of sound form a grand and 
 startling chapter in the revelations of science. While treating 
 the relations of the fine arts, and especially of music as an art, 
 to Christianity, we have yet another topic worthy of a separate 
 paper. Of Christianity it has been well said th.it while no art 
 is more fit emblem of her work, none can more efficiently 
 that work in the present day than music. What, then, ought 
 to be done, and done at once, for music in its relation 
 
 tfldurfve to true progress in this matter, a prin- 
 ciple should be enforced which is not new but which has been 
 eted — that church music should express the worth- 
 iest worship which wc can render to God, and should ten 
 the highest edifi( ipper. In prop 
 
 tical m< the suggestion most commonly 1; 
 
142 THE TRIXCETON REVIEW. 
 
 abolish the quartette choir. Not the number of performers but 
 the spirit of display often seen in quartette and similarly con- 
 stituted choirs, and the unseemly music generally chosen, are 
 the objectionable things. But the quartette choir has been 
 often deserving of the highest praise for the painstaking and 
 devout fidelity of its members. At worst, it is but one of the 
 steps from a defective past to a better future. That which we 
 deprecate is the tendency to exhibit individual talent rather 
 than to exalt worship. The effort and the outlay seem often- 
 cst directed, not to the edification of the hearer, but simply 
 to the performance of elaborate music, generally unskilfully 
 composed and defectively rendered. I have heard at the close 
 of a sermon on the last judgment the beautiful hymn, " Nearer, 
 my God, to Thee," in which the whole congregation could have 
 joined and thus have deepened the impression of the sermon, 
 rendered as a solo to a flippant secular melody. 
 
 By the adoption of a good hymnal giving both words and 
 music ; by frequently using a few of the noblest hymns till 
 they become beloved and familiar as household words ; by 
 leading the melody clearly and distinctly either by a trumpet 
 or by the human voice ; by making the Sunday-schoof in some 
 measure and in the best sense of the term a Christian singing- 
 school, congregational singing can be developed. Psalm or 
 hymn singing is a mode of worship in which Christians of every 
 name can unite. We lament the lack of Christian unity. There 
 is ample room for an effort towards its restoration on this broad 
 basis of co-operation. Choir unions or great gatherings for 
 culture in the art of spiritual song are almost everywhere practi- 
 cable. And Christian unity would thus secure incidental influ- 
 ences of no slight value ; for while in melody we have the suc- 
 cession of single sounds in obedience to law even as individuals 
 and churches follow some particular rule or use, so in harmony 
 we have the blending of all in one as in the universal ever-living 
 Church of Christ, in which, without the surrender of individual- 
 ity, all may harmonize in love to one another and in filial obedi- 
 ence to the perfect will of God. Thus music in worship con- 
 duces to Christian unit}'. 
 
 Yet other Christian uses of music as connected with worship, 
 together with practical suggestions as to musical training and 
 
MUSIC AND WORSHIP. M3 
 
 the development of correct musical taste, are too numerous 
 and varied to be mentioned even with a passing word. I 
 am convinced that much more rapid and satisfactory pi 
 ress would be secured if, taking a lesson from what has 
 been well done by others at home and abroad, we should 
 give systematic attentj hurch music, not only in our 
 
 schools and colleges, but especially in our theological semi- 
 naries, so that the clergyman should enter upon his professional 
 work furnished not only with the authority but with the edu- 
 cated ability to criticise with judgment and to improve by his 
 own intelligent influence the music of his cure. With God's 
 blessing here as elsewhere, true progress depends upon man's 
 effort, for man is the crown of things, and at his best estate 
 he is the embodiment of harmony, as Dryden so eloquently 
 sang : 
 
 " From harmony, from heavenly harmony, 
 This universal frame began. 
 When nature underneath a heap 
 Of jarring atoms lay, 
 And could not heave her head, 
 The tuneful voice was heard from high, 
 Arise ! ye more than dead. 
 Then cold and hot and moist and dry 
 In order to their stations leap 
 And Music's power obey. 
 From harmony, from heavenly harmony, 
 This universal frame began : 
 From harmony to harmony 
 Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 
 The diapason closing full in Man.'' 
 
 E. X. P< »tti:r. 
 
The following articles are published from the office of the 
 PRINCETON REVIEW, 37 Park Ram, Nam York. 
 
 and can be obtained from all Booksellers and N*Wl dealers at livt Cents 
 
 each : 
 
 1. LOCAL GOVERNMENT: AT HOME AND ABROAD, J-ly, '79. 
 
 ROBERT P. PORTER, Esq., Chicago. 
 
 2. THE PULPIT AND POPULAR SKEPTICISM, . . Mak 
 
 Rev. PHILLIPS BROOKS, D.D., Boston. 
 
 3. THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF SCIENCE, . . . New, '78. 
 
 Principal DAWSON, F.R.S., D.C.L., McGill University, Montr-al. 
 
 4. FORCE, LAW, AND DESIGN May '79. 
 
 President PORTER, D.D., LL.D., Yale College. 
 
 5. AMERICAN ART: ITS PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS, Ma, 
 
 JOHN F. WEIR, N.A., School of Fine Arts, Yale College. 
 
 6. FINAL CAUSE: M. JANET AND PROF. NEYVCOMB, . Mak., '79. 
 
 President McCOSH, D.D., LL.D., Princeton College. 
 
 7. ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES May 
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, D.C.L., London. 
 
 S. CLASSICS AND COLLEGES July 
 
 Prof. B. L. CILDERSLEEVE, LL.D.. Johns Hopkins University. 
 
 9. THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC MOVEMENT Sf.pt., '7s. 
 
 The Right Rev. the LORD BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL. 
 
 ic. MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE Nov., '7s. 
 
 Prof. JOSEPH LE CONTE, LL.D., University of California. 
 
 11. THE AIM OF POETRV Skpt., '7S. 
 
 Principal SHAIRP, D.C.L., Univers.ty of St. Andrews. 
 
 12. THE IDEA OF CAUSE May, '79- 
 
 Prof. FRANCIS BOWEN, Harvard Cohere. 
 
 13. MUSIC AND WORSHIP July, 
 
 President POTTER, D.D.. LL.D.. Union College. 
 
 14. NATIONAL MORALITY 
 
 EDWARD A. FREEMAN, D.C.L.. LL.D.. England. 
 
 15. THE EUROPEAN EQUILIBRIUM 
 
 THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, D.D.. LL.D., E< Pr...d«.l ot YaU College. 
 
 16. CHRISTIANITY IN THE UNITFD STATES. . 
 
 PHILIP SCHAFF, DO., LL.D., Un.cn Theol. Sen, 
 
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