ture. The sermon began to assume a somewhat more artificial form. This change undoubtedly was, in some respects, of disastrous tendency, and hence was strongly resisted, though in many cases unsuccessfully.

This opposition, which at length almost entirely subsided, at least in many portions of the church, was awakened into fresh activity at the Reformation, when the church suffered itself to be borne back to the simplicity of the primitive ages. Among the reformed churches, art was almost entirely excluded from religious uses. Not only was the use of images forbidden, but the organ, and indeed all instrumental accompaniments to the singing were banished. Had it depended merely on the will of the reformed churches, even sacred poetry would have been wholly discarded. We may stigmatize these forms of opposition as altogether exaggerated; but still they reveal the extreme difficulty of any very extensive use of art in religious worship. Evangelical religion is, throughout, of a moral and spiritual, and not an æsthetic, character. The spiritual character of religion, however, demands only this, that art shall be confined to the subordinate place of a means of representation of spiritual elements.

The aversion manifested by the primitive churches to the use of art, which has sometimes been construed into a forcible objection to its use at all times, is partially explicable by a reference to the peculiar position of the church in that very early period. We may err in attempting to deduce from the practice of the primitive churches a law to be observed, at all times, with literal exactness. We are to remember that the Christian sentiment of the primitive church might, under certain circumstances, frown upon what, under other circumstances, it would approve. With the introduction of Christianity into the history of the world, the attention of men, which had before been almost wholly engaged by the outward and visible, was turned, as by a violent revulsion, to that which is inward and spiritual. Christianity aimed to build up a new kingdom, on a new and spiritual basis. It is not a matter of surprise, that in

censure.

the exclusiveness with which this attempt was pursued at the outset, Christianity should assume a hostile attitude towards everything by which it might even be suspected this attempt would be counteracted. Men were so unused to a religion that was spiritual, that it seemed to become necessary, for a time at least, to exclude everything that was not spiritual. All art-creations would share in this Such a course seemed preferable to any attempt at a compromise; to any attempt to adjust the precise relation of art and religion to each other. This attempt would have been unseasonable at a formative period in the history of the church. In addition to this, Christianity, in the outset, met with a state of things in which art was restrained to the uses of pagan worship. Associations clustered around it, by which it was supposed to have become altogether unsuited to Christian purposes. The readers of Gibbon will easily recall his striking paragraphs on this subject. Degraded as the creations of art had hitherto been, to the vilest of aims, they could not but be most abhorrent to Christian feeling. Christians could hardly conceive of the possibility of a safe connection between art and religion. The intrusion of art, in any form, into a Christian temple seemed equivalent to the erection of the statues of Jupiter and Venus within the consecrated walls. The severe denunciations in which Tertullian indulged are to be excused on such grounds as these. This violent opposition, which was allowable at the earliest periods of the church, would be unsuitable now. The Christian sentiment of those earlier periods, could its judgment be ascertained, might approve at present what it formerly condemned, and that without any real inconsistency. In seeming to depart from primitive usages we may sometimes be following, the most exactly, the spirit of those primitive periods.

The opposition of the reformed churches to the employment of art in religious worship, appealed in vain to the divine prohibition. It was not confined to the particular form of art referred to in this prohibition. It extended to

music, and architecture, and sacred poetry. We are to seek for the origin of this opposition, partly, in the objectionable state in which the Reformers found the fine arts; partly, in the prejudices by which, it must be allowed, the mind of the founder of these churches was too often darkened; partly, in a species of Manichaëism, not impersonally creeping into the church,-misunderstanding the proper relation of the material to the divine, and dreading all attempts to represent the spiritual under sensible forms. Paul sets himself in earnest antagonism against all such latent dualistic tendencies. He reminds us, that every creature of God is good and to be received with thanksgiving, being sanctified by prayer. The granite and the marble of which cathedrals are constructed and statues carved, the canvas and the colors which the painter uses, and the cunning with which the sons of art are endowed, are all creatures of God, and, in that aspect, to be gratefully accepted and employed. We are willing, it is said, to honor the talent of the artist in his own peculiar province, but not in religion. But by such an exclusion of art from the domain of religion, the former is liable to be wholly secularized. When we prevent the elegant arts from becoming sanctified by means of a surrender to the service of religion, we convert them into the servants of luxury, and the lowest forms of licentiousness. The history of painting in the Netherlands, and throughout the regions of the lower Rhine, illustrates these remarks. When the reformed churches sprang up here in the sixteenth century, painting was compelled to abandon all sacred subjects, and turn to those which were not only frivolous, but corrupt and demoralizing. In many churches in the Netherlands, the portraits of statesmen and generals were allowed to be suspended, when the same privilege, given to a portrait of the Saviour, would have been accounted grossly superstitious; - and yet, how ef fectively might such a portrait have spoken to the heart?

IX. Principles by which the Use of Art should be regu lated.

Perhaps all the objections which have been urged against the introduction of art into religious worship, would be obviated, if a careful attention were given to the principles by which its use should be regulated. It should ever be retained in a place of subordination to the word or discourse; the latter must serve as an interpreter of the significance of the former. The Puritans committed only a comparatively safe error of excess, when they assigned to the sermon so prominent a place in religious worship. It is only by the word that thought is awakened in the mind. Thought must underlie all religious emotion in order to its possession of any true vigor and effectiveness. For this reason, art should aim not merely at an unintelligent action on the sensibilities; it must associate itself with elements of thought and act in union with them.

The forms of art, which are introduced into church services, should possess the quality of chasteness. We give to this term a somewhat wider meaning than it usually bears. We not only exclude from religious worship all representations which are to any degree unchaste, in the lower significance of that word, but insist, also, that the sensuous form, in which the ideal is attempted to be represented, shall never be allowed to attract attention to itself. All ostentatious display of merely technical skill is every way objectionable. The brilliancy of the preacher's style, and the richness and variety of his tones, may be rendered equally objectionable with the parade so often made of the skill of the organist. The beautiful intonations of the preacher's voice at the altar, says one, offend and disturb me not less than the roughest and most inharmonious notes would do. In whatever degree the sensuous medium is suffered to become conspicuous, the moral effect of the representation is jeoparded. Yet the most rigid application of this rule would not necessarily exclude even the very highest degrees

of elegance. This elegance may be made subservient to the strongest devotional effect. In the Scriptures where this effect is uniformly sought, and in those parts of the Scriptures where it is sought more eagerly than in others, recourse is not had to an awkward and ungraceful style. The specifically religious effect of a sermon is often in inverse proportion to the roughness of the preacher's voice, his ungainly form, his inelegant attitudes, and the homeliness of his style. The musical compositions, which have had the most power to awaken and invigorate a true religious feeling, are not less celebrated for their artistic excellence.

In all art-representations that are used in worship, an adaptedness to affect aright the popular mind, to meet the wants of a whole circle of worshippers, in which, necessa rily, there will be diversified tastes, capacities and culture, should be carefully sought. There is much in the musical art which is beautiful and imposing; which can be appreciated, however, only by the most thorough proficient. So with the sermon. Qualities, which can be perceived and appreciated only by hearers of a certain style of culture, should not be sought. The power which resides in the Scriptures, without any sacrifice of true elegance to seize upon, and strongly affect, the general mind, should be carefully transfused into every accompaniment of religious worship.

We may observe more particularly, that in all the representations by means of art, which are in any sense allowable in worship, there are two styles, easily distinguishable from each other; and each particularly adapted to a certain class of objects, and suited to a certain variety of themes. We have the strict, close, severe style, and that which is loose, easy, free. In the close style, unity is more anxiously sought; in the other, it is allowed to be, comparatively and in appearance, neglected; it is, at least, not solicitously studied. We find this style, perhaps in an extreme form, in certain musical compositions; we see it, in a more moderate measure, in the English park. In poetry, many of