to the beauty, dignity and popularity of the national worship. Our Lord Himself rebuked many of the evils of the time-He twice rebuked the ministers of the Temple, not for personal acts of irreverence, but for permitting the irreverence of others who desecrated the outer Court-but He found no fault with this method of Worship: He saw nothing to rebuke in it on the contrary, by His Presence, by His participation, and by His watchful Reverence, He abundantly honoured the world-wide and world-old Devotional Ritual which has since become the heritage of His Church. Nay more, He opened the gates of heaven itself, and revealed to His servants that this Devotional Ritual is but an echo on earth of the eternal worship around His throne.

We cannot wonder that this Devotional Ritual passed direct from the Jewish Temple and Synagogues into the regular worship of the first Christian assemblies, and of Catholic antiquity. It may well claim our reverence and affection. It has borne every reasonable test of excellence and genuineness. It will certainly continue to be the worship of the Church on earth-in so far as the Church remains pure-until the Last Great Day; and it will, as certainly, be the worship of the Church Triumphant in heaven, and of the Angel hosts, throughout eternity.

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CHAPTER IV.

SUMMARY OF FACTS ILLUSTRATING THE APPLICATION OF OUR ARGUMENT TO THE CASE OF MUSICAL AND CONGREGATIONAL WORSHIP.

1. Facts bearing on the 1st Rule, with reference to Breadth of Appeal. -2. Facts bearing on the 2nd Rule, with reference to Worship in Heaven.-3. Facts bearing on the 3rd Rule, with reference to Heathen Worship.-4. Facts bearing on the 4th Rule, with reference to the Old Testament Revelation.-5. Facts bearing on the 5th Rule, with reference to the New Testament Revelation and the History of the Christian Church.

As our subject and method have hitherto been somewhat abstract, I shall now give a summary of facts illustrating the application of my Argument to the case of Musical and Congregational Worship. It will not be necessary here to repeat the argument itself: but, for the sake of clearness, I will enumerate the principal facts of the case in the order of the Five Rules, or Tests, explained in the preceding Chapter.

1.-Facts falling under the 1st Rule (with respect to Breadth of Appeal).

Musical and Congregational Worship has, in many ways, a great breadth and catholicity of appeal to man's religious nature.

Readers of Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages will recollect phenomena which show that, under certain

conditions, Music (and also Colour) may dominate and control the whole of our being, with a terrible and irresistible power. Music may be employed either to strengthen and elevate, or to disorganize and degrade, the moral nature of man. In the abnormal phenomena recorded by Hecker, we see, in enlarged proportions, as through a magnifying-glass, the reality of the power which Music exercises over that part of our nature which brings us into contact with things spiritual.1

We have all felt this mysterious influence. Music, the handmaid of devotion, prepares us for, and aids us in, worship. As there are certain reverent postures of the body which assist us in devotion; so there are, if I may so express it, reverent postures of the mindtenderness, reflection, recollection, aspiration-which are produced by pure and sweet Music, and which predispose us to worship, and aid us in it. On the other hand, there is a debased Music which vice employs for its own purposes. But whether Music be employed to raise men above themselves (its proper object), or to degrade men below themselves (its perversion), it is always a mighty power with which the Church must reckon. We cannot drive it out of the world, even if we would. We must know it either as a friend ministering to religion, or as an enemy fighting against religion. To exclude Music from Public Worship, and to limit it to the service of worldliness, pleasure, intemperance, impurity, would be a suicidal policy on the part of the Church.

A musical rendering of our Liturgy, if reverent melodious, and appropriate, has a sweetness and power of devotional expression which cannot otherwise be obtained. Congregations which simply read in the

1 Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages [Sydenham Society], pp. 119-123.

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natural voice our grand poetic formulas of devotion, lose many of the finer shades of meaning, and of the more sublime outbursts of religious thought and feeling. Plain congregational reading of our Services is edifying and good, where music cannot be had: but it is not the most perfect kind of worship. In the many tender and plaintive parts of our Liturgy, and equally in those parts which are mysterious, or sublime, or joyous, plain reading is like translating poetry into prose. There is a loss which few can express, but which all can feel.

In the religions of the East (notably in Mohammedanism), confession of sin, penitence, and prayer, are made very suitably in a low soft plaintive chant. One sometimes hears this kind of music in Cathedrals, when the Litany is sung: also, in the Prayer-Hymns at After-Meetings at Missions. As a whole, however, English congregations are ignorant of this great resource: the General Confession, the Lord's Prayer, the Litany, and the most jubilant Psalms, are sung through in the same uniform shout; and great is the devotional loss of expression which this occasions.

The worship which we have in view in this chapter, is not only Musical, in the best sense of the word, but also Congregational.

To close people's lips in worship is obviously a dangerous experiment. It leads to inattention; and inattention leads to the closing of the understanding and heart. Well does our Church teach us to pray,

"O Lord, open Thou our lips;

And our mouth shall show forth Thy praise."

While we pray with our lips, we can scarce forbear to pray with our hearts.

The Church's system of worship invites us to use our

voices. Further, it invites us to use our voices together, at the same time and in the same tone, and (if we will) in musical cadence.

By so doing, the Church engages Sympathy as an ally of worship. Sympathy is one of the greatest powers with which God has entrusted us; and it may well be employed in His service. Education has not overlooked it.

If we want to see the power of Sympathy (allied with Music) in arresting and holding the attention-in awaking the heart and mind, and in keeping them awakewe have only to go into the nearest Infants' School. There we see the little dull child whose attention cannot be secured in a solitary lesson. So long as it is alone, it can understand little and remember little. But see the same child in the Infants' School: the face full of interest; the eye bright; the attention and memory awake, as the voice joins, in musical cadence, with the voices of some fifty other little ones in the same class. Here is a great power at work, the power of Sympathy, stimulated by Music. Well has the Instinct of Worship engaged this great power in the Public Worship of God, by a musical rendering of congregational and responsive formulas of devotion.

Many pious men have, during the last three centuries, believed that they could best serve God by devising forms of worship, studiously unlike those which have prevailed from time immemorial in the Church, and among mankind generally. Among the many oddities of modern ecclesiastical history, none has been. more conspicuous than this-that men have thought that they might do whatever they liked with worship, and that worship would not suffer. They forgot that Devotional Ritual has a nature of its own, and fixed principles, which, although highly elastic, cannot be