Perhaps the practice of any art-be it painting or poetry, music or oratory-which is occupied with the representation of fine and noble feeling is exposed to the danger of a kind of playacting. The expression of feeling can be given without the presence of the feeling itself; and the artist within, if he does not resist his temptation, may become a mask instead of a man. Art often cuts itself off from life and reality, and becomes a languid and unmanly dream, instead of rising, as it ought to do, out of life and returning back to life again. In the music of the Church, the temptation to make music something by itself—a source of æsthetic delight, an artistic display-not infrequently presents itself. But, so cultivated, music is a deception and a degradation. It only attains to its true dignity when it submits to the great law of the Gospel, that honour consists in service-when it makes itself the servant of the Scripture, and the servant of the labouring and heavy-laden souls of men, breathing on the smoking flax of their emotion, till it glow like the Burning Bush with the love and praise of God. This naturally turns our eyes to the highest of all the aspects of our subject, on which we shall bestow a single glance and then have done. In such emotions of the soul, vague and mysterious, yet sweet and sometimes inexpressibly delightful, as are ministered to by music some have discerned not the least impressive intimations of man's immortality; and to such suggestions Shakspeare was not insensible. In the passage which I am about to quote he makes use of the very old notion of the music of the spheres: the spheres of heaven, it was supposed by the primitive poetic mind, make music as they turn on their axes, just as, if small things may be compared to great, a top, as it revolves, creates a humming sound; but their sound is an exquisite music, in which each of the spheres is for ever enveloped; and not only so, but the music of all the spheres mingles in a vast chorus of praise to the great Creator. To this sublime fancy Shakspeare has given the sublimest expression: Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines' of bright gold: There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins. Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. This idea that in the soul there is a music hidden which cannot at present find expression, but that elsewhere there are conditions amidst which it will blossom as in a kindly and congenial home-is surely a profoundly Christian one. Only this home is not in the stars, but beyond the stars. If, under the leadership of the Son of man, we are walking in the good and narrow way, it is to a world filled with music we are travelling; for, every time the door of heaven is opened in Holy Writ, a burst of melody comes from within. To artistic natures not only is this one of the most potent attractions of the future, but it lends to even the music of this world its deepest significance: 1 Plates. Happy the man whose mind has grasped the key While round him surge the discords and the jars That guide the chorus of eternity.1 1 Edwards. |
