From the earliest Christian period of which we have any knowledge, music has been employed in the public worship of Christian communities. Its purposes are, to afford to the devotion of the worshippers a means of expression more subtile than even human speech, to increase that devotion, and to add additional lustre and solemnity to the outward service offered to God. Music has a wonderful power in stirring the souls of men, in (so to speak) moving the soil of the heart, that the good seed sown by prayer and instruction may find ready entrance, and a wholesome stimulus to facilitate growth. Now, it is the duty of all concerned in the ordering of public worship to see that the music employed tends to effect these ends.

In the year 1565, the composers of church music were in the habit of employing so many and well-known secular melodies, and of rearing upon them and upon their own inventions such complicated and unintelligible contrapuntal structures, that the church authorities took the matter seriously in hand, and there is no knowing what might have been the final sentence, had not Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina brought his genius to the rescue, and, in sundry compositions, especially in a six-part mass, dedicated to Pope Marcellus II., shown that science need not exclude clearness, and the possibility of hearing the words sung, and that the truly inventive artist has no need to seek his themes in inappropriate spheres.

In this day we run little risk of ship-wreck through too great an amount of science. Scarlatti and Bach would laugh at the efforts styled 'canon' and 'fugue,' by the aspiring tyros of the present age. Our difficulties arise, not from musical complexity, but from want of suitableness, adaptation, and characterization, together with the ever-increasing feud between choir and congregational singing. In some churches on the Continent of Europe, these two latter modes are happily blended, certain services or portions of services being left to the choir, and the remainder being entrusted to the entire congregation. Of course this arrangement is only practicable where there is a certain variety in the musical portion of the service. Where the singing of hymns (in the ordinary sense of the phrase) is the only musical form used in the worship, such differences would be difficult to establish, and a variety of circumstances must determine which of the two modes, or what combination of them, be selected by the congregation. Even where splendor is studiously avoided, all desire order and decency in the conduct of public worship, and such order is painfully violated where discordant sounds or unsuitable selections of music are permitted to distract attention and disturb devotion. A ragged carpet, faded fringes, or dingy window panes, would speedily find a reformer; and surely the sensitive, defenceless ear has as good a claim to exact order as the more voluntary sense of seeing. Better, indeed, no music, than such as binds the wings of the soul to earth instead of aiding them to fly heavenward.

The above remarks apply as well to choir as to congregational singing. Let us suppose now that the mere primal foundation—the mechanical execution—be respectably good; that the congregation or choir have been taught to sing in tune; that all be harmonious and properly balanced; in short, that the auditory nerves be spared any very severe shock—and what then will we ordinarily find? A few good old church melodies, almost lost amid a dreary maze of the most recent droning platitudes, or a multitude of worldly acquaintances, negro minstrelsy, ancient love ditties, bar room roundelays, passionate scenes from favorite operas, with snatches from instrumental symphonies, concertos, or what not! Music, as I have said, is even more subtile in its power of expression than speech, and the new words, which we may perhaps not even hear, can never banish from our minds the old impressions associated with the melody. The ears may even be cognizant of the holy sentiments intended to be conveyed, but the mind's eye will see Sambo, 'First upon the heel top, then upon the toe;' the love-lorn dame weeping her false lover, 'Ah, no, she never blamed him, never;' a roystering set of good fellows clinking glasses, 'We won't go home till morning;' Lucia imploring mercy from her hard-hearted brother and selfish suitor; Norma confiding her little ones to the keeping of her rival; or perhaps the full orchestra at the last 'philharmonic,' supplying the missing notes, the beginning and the end of some noble idea, now vainly struggling with the difficulties and incongruities of its new position, its maimed members mourning their incompleteness, its tortured spirit longing for the body given by the original creator.

Are we Christians then so poor that we must go begging and stealing shreds and patches from our more fortunate secular brethren? Has music deserted us to dwell solely in the camps of the gypsying world? If so, there must be some fault among ourselves, for music is a pure gift from God, the only earthly pleasure promised us in heaven. Such imputation would indeed be a libel upon the almost infinite variety in the character of music, and its power of consecration to the very loftiest ends. Ah! there we fear is the rub. The character of music! That seems to have been forgotten. If all these melodies be adapted to their original aims, can they be suited to new ones so different? Is there really in musical form, rhythm, melody, and harmony, no capacity for any real expression? Will the same tune do as well for a dance as for a prayer, for a moonlight serenade as for an imploration of Divine mercy?

Now we have no quarrel with dances; they are innocent and useful in their proper place; human love is a noble gift from the Almighty; we are not shocked by a good drinking song, provided the singers be sober; operas might be made highly instrumental in elevating the tone of modern society; and we listen reverentially to the grand creations of the masters; but, in addition to all these, we require a music adapted to signify the relations between ourselves and our Heavenly Father, a music which shall express adoration and love, praise and thanksgiving, contrition and humble confidence, which shall implore mercy and waft prayer to the very gates of the abode of omnipotence. Let such music be simple or complex, according to the thought to be rendered or the capacity of the executants, let it be for voices, for instruments, or for a blending of the two, but let it always be appropriate to the subject, and rise with the thought or emotions to be conveyed. Who can tell what would be the effect of such a church music? What a feeling of earnestness and sincerity would it not lend to services now often marred by the shallowness or meretricious glitter of their musical portions? The range is wide, the field broad; there is scope for grandeur, sublimity, power, jubilation, the brightest strains of extatic joy, mourning, pathos, and the passionate pleading of the human soul severed from its highest good; but all should be in accordance with the dignity of the personalities represented: on the one hand, the Father and Creator of all, and on the other, the weak, erring, dependent creature, made, nevertheless, in the image of his Creator, and for whom a God thought it no unworthiness to live, to suffer, and to die.

Have we any such music? Yes—a little; but that little is not always the best known nor the most frequently employed. Are there any composers now capable of writing such? Are the composers of genius, or even of talent, sufficiently earnest and devout? for here we want no shams. Each one must answer these questions in accordance with his own experience. The practical question is, What can be done toward an amelioration of the present state of affairs, not confined to this continent, but unhappily only too prevalent everywhere? Let the head of the musical department of every church service begin by weeding from his repertory all trash, whether profane or simply stupid and nonsensical. As the number of musical creations remaining will not be very large, let him retain for the present all that are not positively bad or inane; a few old song melodies have, through long usage, lost their original associations, and hence, though perhaps only imperfectly adapted to devotional purposes, are yet, on the whole, unobjectionable, and perhaps better than many modern inventions.

An idea seems prevalent that, to write words for music is an easy task, and hence the many wounds inflicted upon both music and poetry in their frequent union. When a melody is to be composed for a set of verses, the same melody to be sung to every verse, the composer naturally examines the general tone and form of the poem. These of course determine his selection of rhythmical character, of time, key, movement, etc. The melody is constructed upon the basis of the first verse. To the words embodying the most important thoughts or feelings, he gives the most important, the emphatic notes, striving to make the sound a faithful and intensifying medium whereby to convey the sense. His work is then done, as the same melody is to be repeated to every verse, and the end sought will have been attained if the poet have carefully fulfilled his part. But if he have introduced inequalities into his rhythm, or have given unimportant words the places occupied by important ones in the first verse, so that an emphatic note will fall upon an 'in,' or a 'the,' or some similar particle, the effect will be bad, and the result unsatisfactory to all concerned. Old association, or intrinsic beauty of poetry or melody may, in rare cases, render such blemishes tolerable, but the creator of a new work should strive to avoid all blemishes, and at least aim at perfection.

If to each good religious poem we possess, or may hereafter possess (be that poem psalm, hymn, sequence, litany, prayer, or form of doctrine), we could attach, or find attached, the musical form best adapted to its highest expression, what delight would we not experience in its rendering? Some such poems might, by reason of old associations, or of especial adaptation, be always sung to the same melodies, while to others might be accorded greater facilities for variety. This only by way of suggestion. The common practice of selecting melodies for verses, hap-hazard, with regard only to the 'metre,' of course destroys all possibility of any especial characterization. If the original 'marriage' have been a congenial one, a divorce, with view to a second union, rarely proves advisable. The same verses may bear another musical rendering, but the music will very rarely endure adaptation to other verses.

But we left our maestro di capella, our head of the music in any religious assemblage, weeding his repertory. A difficult task! for, to sound principles of discrimination he must add the best counsel and the widest information he can procure from every competent quarter, not narrow nor one-sided, but commensurate with the breadth, the world-wide diffusion of the subject.

We cannot hope for very speedy progress in this matter, so large a share of its advancement depending upon general, real and proper musical cultivation; but if each one interested will think the matter over seriously and intelligently, and do the little that may lie in his power, a beginning will have been made, which may in the end lead to grand, beautiful, and most precious results.