OBJECTION XII.

"Chanting is not so animating as metre psalmody."

REPLY.

When we think of the impressions which custom makes upon the mind, and that habit constitutes, as it were, a second nature, it may be expected that an objection of this cast will be offered to chanting, whose rival, by long acquaintance, hath become a confirmed favourite, The ear accustomed to hear song music finds no difficulty in a transition to metre psalmody; because both are measured and in rhyme. But in a transition from rhyming music to chanting, which has in it very little of measure, and no vestige of rhyme, the ear at first exercises a degree of repugnance. This repugnance the ear conveys to the intellect; where, if the effect is not obviated by some higher principle than that of mere animal sense, the idea will arise, that chanting is less animating than metre psalmody.

Comparing a slow tune with one of a quicker time, (supposing the measures are the same) we say, the one is not so animating as the other. And what is this, but saying, that the one is more nearly allied to song music than the other?

But, if song music be the central point around which all metre music moves, (the latter being an imitation of the former) it is impossible that any comparison can be drawn between it and what is unmeasured, or purely prosaic. Similar things admit of comparison, but dissimilar do not. Whatever preference, therefore, is given to metre music over prosaic, is the effect of prior attachments, arising from the car's being habituated to the one, and unaccustomed to the other. In producing these attachments, reason and religion have no agency.

Every person of musical ear and discrimination will grant that there exists an intimate alliance between metre psalmody and song music, for both are sung syllabically; yet the latter is more animating than the former. The reason is obvious. In the one, the syllables are drawled. out beyond, and in the other, they are pronounced in, the same time of reading or speaking them. Let a singer take a stanza of the most lively song, and sing it syllabically to any psalm tune of an equivalent number of bars, and all its animation will evaporate. It is the quick succession of syllables formed into words, accompanied with. appropriate music, communicating sentiment to the mind, which principally constitutes the superior vivacity of songs over that of metre psalm tunes. If a stanza of one of the most joyful of the metre psalms or hymns be sung to a lively

song air of an equivalent measure, how much more animating will it be, than when sung in the common way? This experiment may serve to prove that a slow syllabication is highly unfavourable to the giving animation to any subject, whether sung or read.*

Poetry and music, says Dr. Burney, have sometimes formed friendly alliances, but there never has been any permanent connection between them; and "when the sentiments of the poem are neither enforced nor embellished by melody, it seems as if the words could be better articulated and understood, by being read, or declaimed, than when drawled out syllabically, according to the manner of parochial psalmody. Metrical psalms and hymns, which are simply didactic or declaratory, must ever be enfeebled by music; whilst such as are truly lyric, and confined to passion or sentiment, travel quicker to the heart, and. penetrate deeper into the soul, by the vehicle of appropriate melody, than by that of declamation. When there is no poetry truly lyric, there cau be no graceful or symmetric melody; and during the last century, there was certainly none in any language of Europe which merited that title." Again, he says, "I wish not to set up one art against another, or to give a preference to singing over declamation; but to assign to each

*This experiment has succeeded among the Methodists.

its proper and due place and praise. There are many passages in English poetry, which could never be sung by the finest performer that ever existed, with so much effect, as when spoken by a first-rate declaimer. And there are some lines and stanzas, by which, an audience may be more completely enraptured, when well set, and well sung by a mellifluous touching voice than by the most exquisite declaimer that ever existed." And therefore," as recitative is the medium between declamation and musical air, and admits of the most perfect articulation, accent, and emphasis, it is best suited to devotional purposes in the offices of the Church."*

There are numerous reasons for affirming that rhyme psalms and hymns are sung more for the sake of sound, than for the sake of sentiment; that is, more to gratify the feelings of the sensual ear, with the harmony of sounds, than to animate the intellectual perceptions with sentiments of devotion. If the reader should feel disposed to controvert this assertion, let him, after singing three or four stanzas, examine himself, to ascertain the true state of his feelings, and he will find that the words thus drawled out syllabically have left upon his mind scarcely a single trace of the subject;-naught remains in the intellect, only a pleasing echo seems to hang upon his ear. The

* History of Mussic, vol. ii. passim.

memory retains but a faint recollection, if any at all, of the sentiments contained in the lines which had been sung, unless the singer had previously got them by heart; and when he did commit them to memory, he did it, not by singing them syllabically, but by reading them verbally.

Uninfluenced by reason and religion, the natural ear of man will always prefer the music of the world, and those rhymes which are the fruit of human imagination, to a psalmody which is altogether incommensurate to secular subjects. But the Christian, whose "conversation (Gr. citizenship,) is in heaven," ought to bear in mind, that he is no worlding, no secularist, and that whenever we assemble for religious purposes in the house of our heavenly Father, we turn our backs upon the world, and direct our eyes and hearts towards the heavenly inheritance. We say to the world, "Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savourest not the things that are of God:" and we address our heavenly Father, the keeper of our treasure, "Lord, we wait for thy lovingkindness in the midst of thy temple." In the courts of the house of our God, our affections, our services, our words, and our voices, ought all to be harmonized to those of angelic worshippers. Nay, our very perceptions ought to be so disengaged from whatever is secular, as to be wholly celestial and divine. In the assembly of the saints, pride yields to humility; superiority to