III.

Music in its Relation to Religion.

THERE

are two lights in which music, sacred or secular, may be regarded: first, as an innocent and even refreshing amusement for young men exhausted by the toils and fatigues of the day; and, secondly, as a handmaid of Christian worship-auxiliary to the effort of the worshiper an interpreter, in short, to those deep and thrilling emotions of the Christian heart, of which song alone can be the appropriate exponent and vehicle. I must request that I be not construed as the advocate of every plan by which it has been attempted to promote the study or practice of sacred music; nor is the advocacy of this lecture responsible for the abuses which have been or may be grafted on it. I am not, I candidly tell you, an admirer of late hours in any place, on any pretext, either for labor, or amusement, or study.

All I shall attempt to do is to illustrate and expound the subject committed to my hands, and leave its cultivation to the sound principle, good sense, and skillful and prudent adoption and management of the Young Men's Christian Association. I have said that music may be regarded as a valuable recreation. There is an hour often recurring in every man's life, when amusement or recreation alone is suitable. In the case of the young, recrea

tion must be; and I conceive that he who shows you a spring of occasional enjoyment, that will keep you at home and render alike inexcusable and unnecessary the unhealthy excitements of tobacco, dissipation, and other destructive stimulants, confers on you greater good than meets the eye. The bow can not be always bent-the thoughts and powers of the mind can not be sustained always at full stretch; there must be hours for recreation. To indicate a sublime pleasure, enjoyed by the blessed, and obligatory on the Church on earth, which will elevate while it refreshes, and invigorate for duty, is, therefore, I humbly submit, no useless effort. We, the lecturers in this hall, have been laboring to secure for you spare hours; less drudgery and more time. In all our addresses we have, perhaps, too much assumed that the cultivation and information of your minds is to be your only effort after the day's labor; and I admit it is the main thing, but it is not the whole thing. There must be employment also that will interest the mind, and not exhaust it—that will enable you to study the more thoroughly that you have had an hour of joyful recreation. I would try to show you how, amid so much fitted to instruct and improve, which have listened to in this hall, you may you find one subject fitted to cheer, delight, and refresh, when weary, and on that day which is the pearl of days and the glory of the week, prepare you to engage in not the least noble exercise of the sanctuary, the praise and glory of God in sacred song.

Both music and acoustics have a greater relation to Euclid and geometry than at first appears. A good mathematician only can thoroughly understand the principles of music. It is an intricate science. Yet there is much in music which any ordinary mind can understand, and more which a good ear can appreciate. Much is within reach of a few hours' study, and more still attainable by

a few months' practice. A man may, however, be a good singer or performer, or reader of music, and yet not a good musician-we may excel in the practice and yet be ignorant of the theory, and still more of the science, of music.

The eye is the recipient of the impressions of the beautiful, and the ear the chamber of the impressions of melody and harmony; one is a camera lucida, the other is a music-hall. Light reveals to the eye the tints of the flowers, the brilliancy of the stars, the splendors of the sky, and the beauties of the landscape; the air carries on its wings the tones, and vibrations, and harmonies of Haydn, Handel, Mozart, and Mendelssohn. Beautiful it is that for a two-shilling-and-sixpenny ride on the railway, I can feast my sight upon green trees and sweet flowers, and enjoy bright views and beautiful landscapes; and it is no less so that for half-a-crown I can summon five hundred musicians to this platform, and order them to render to my ear what Handel conceived and Mendelssohn composed. The eye often can not see the beautiful, from confinement in a city; but we can easily hear, even in a city, the sweet sounds of music. The greatest joys are on the highway, after all; the pleasures that really elevate are cheap; those that injure and debase are expensive; the flowers that beautify the earth with color, and delight the passer-by with fragrance, are every-where; the poisonberry and the deadly nightshade are found only in the untrodden swamps where you have no business. I can enjoy all the glories of the sky, the earth, the sea, as much as the Autocrat of all the Russias. If I gaze upon some beautiful and extensive landscape, I find that one part of it belongs to Sir Edward Buxton; another to my friend beside me, Sir John Maxwell; and a third part to some one else: but the most beautiful part of the landscape, the cream of it all-the beautiful view-the beggar

at the roadside owns and sees just as much as they, and can enjoy just as much as they do. All that is beautiful in tower, or tree, or winding stream, every passer-by can see and be charmed with without asking leave. No trustdeeds can contain this beauty-it can not be monopolized by any. So it is with music. Any ear may hear it in nature, and any one for very little may create it. It is a great leveler-this is a mistake; it is a great dignifier and elevator; it brings high and low nearer to each other. The wind which rushes through the organ of St. George's Chapel, at Windsor, has first passed through the barrelorgan of some poor Italian boy; the organ of church, and chapel, and meeting-house, the voice of Jenny Lind and that of the street singer, have but one common capital to draw on-the unsectarian and catholic atmosphere, the failure of which would be the extinction of Handel, Haydn, and Mozart.

The air sometimes calls up Handels, Haydns, and Mendelssohns, on the ocean, in the forest, and on desert wilds; and these, like invisible, but not inaudable, musicians, make glorious music. Sometimes the shrouds of a ship, as she rolls on the tempestuous deep, raise wild sopranos to the skies; sometimes the trees and branches of a forest of gigantic pines become mighty harp-strings, which, smitten by the rushing tempest, send forth rich harmonies now anthems of joy, anon dirges over the dead; sometimes the waves of the sea respond like white-robed choristers to the thunder bass of the sky; the Alps and Apennines sounding like accompanying drums as they cast off the avalanches-and so make Creation's grand oratorio, in which “the heavens are telling," and the earth is praising God; sometimes "deep calls unto deep," the Mediterranean to the German Sea, and both to the Atlantic Ocean; and these, the Moses and Miriam of the earth, awaken rich antiphones, and form

the opposing choirs, responding from side to side, in nature's grand cathedral, praising and adoring the Creator and Builder. Were man silent, God would not want praise.

It is remarkable that almost all the sounds of nature, the bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle, the moaning of the wind among the pines, the chimes of the waves, are on the minor key-plaintive-sad. This is Creation. itself giving proof of the apostle's assertion, "All Creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." She feels the curse is on her-cold and heavy on her heart-and, longing for deliverance, she gives utterance to her ceaseless, deep, and heart-rending Miserere; and she will do so till her Lord transpose and transfigure her, and bid her assume the major key, and give himself the key-note; and then the spheres above and floods below, and the mighty multitude of redeemed hearts and retuned voices, will raise their united and everlasting halleluiahs. Sin has thrown Creation's choir very much out of tune. We hear but occasional snatches of her grand harmonies, reminding us of the time when all was very good, and predicting the time when all will be so again. The great Minstrel is the same, the instrument only is out of tune.

But music exists not only in the lower, but also in the higher grades of creation. We laugh, and cry, and speak music. Every body is more or less of a musician, though he knows it not. A laugh is produced by repeating, in quick succession, two sounds which differ from each other by a single whole tone. A cry arising from pain, grief, or bereavement, is the utterance of two sounds differing from each other half a tone. A yawn runs down a whole octave before it ceases. A cough may be expressed by musical intervals. A question can not be asked without that change of tone which musi