breathed a spirit of largeness and liberty and hope that was in harmony with the joyous freedom of society.

As we look back to the sixteenth century as the period of the great awakening of the church to a new spiritual life, so in the centuries to come will men look back to the nineteenth century as the period of the great awakening of the church to its world obligation to carry the glad tidings of man's redemption to the ends of the earth, and the new message of life is everywhere preached into men's ears and sung into men's hearts. We can measure only in part the different spiritual powers that operate to draw men's hearts upwards to a living fellowship with the heart of God; but though we realize that our estimate is imperfect, we know and feel that the sacred hymns and music of the church have added a vast increment of power to help men to break loose from their bondage to the allurements of the eye, the ear and the flesh, and to find their true life in fellowship with God and in doing His will. This power is now exerted, and with ever accumulating force, on all mission fields until sacred song has become a vital part of the worship of the Christian church.

China is a country distinguished for its literature from early ages, and in this literature much is written in praise of poetry and music, and yet the poetry and music produced by the social and religious life of this people is poor and paltry as compared with the poetry and music produced by the social and religious life of races and nations that have come under the uplifting power of Christianity. Men have found little inspiration to poetry and music who see in nature only a selfevolved order of things that evokes from the hearts of men no poignant sense of sin and guilt, that inspires no sense of Divine beneficence, no longing for intercourse with the Divine heart, no hope that like an anchor reaches to that within the veil. The coming of Christ with His message of salvation was a fit occasion for a choir of angels to announce with heavenly music the redemptive love of God to the sons of men, and it is not too much to say that the vast chorus of sacred song, ever increasing in volume, is the world's response to this heavenly message. And now in the fulness of the Divine time the hearts of many from the land of Sinim begin to pulsate with joy and gratitude for the new life which they have found, and voices become vocal with new songs of praise for the riches of grace which they have experienced. But thus far Chinese

worship is with borrowed song, song that gives expression to the spiritual life of other races, and was wrought out under other conditions. The church of China yet awaits the creation of native sacred hymns and music which are born out of the life of the people, out of the experiences of the church in its victories and defeats, out of the sense of the presence and help of the Spirit of God in all the experiences and disciplines of life. May the time speedily come when this church shall enrich its present body of sacred song and music by worthy native contributions that shall sound deeper depths of religious experience and lift the church into a higher life of fellowship with the life of God.

What the Missionary Can Do for Church Music in China

BY C. S. CHAMPNESS, WESLEYAN MISSION, YIYANG, HUNAN. HERE are a few missionaries in China who are not

Tgifted with the power of song, or of appreciation of

sound, musical and otherwise. The number of these brethren and sisters is, I am glad to say, exceedingly limited. In my experience of work in China, and in my meetings with brethren and sisters of various missions, I find that most missionaries are able to do something to help Chinese Christians to sing the praises of God. Even those who are not singers can make a joyful noise, and if that noise be not very melodious, the Chinese Christians will be the last to criticise. I should strongly advise every missionary, if he or she has not already done so, to learn to play a few of the simpler psalm tunes on the organ. Such a knowledge is not impossible to acquire by It is useful in the extreme. If the memory can also be trained so as to play this simple repertoire of tunes without the music before one, so much the better. But learn to play at any rate a dozen different tunes if possible. It would be an excellent thing if Missionary Boards, when sending out new missionaries, were to recommend that this knowledge should be acquired.

anyone.

The problem of rendering efficient the service of praise in the Chinese churches appears to me to extend chiefly in two directions :

1. Training the young to sing in tune and time.

2. Providing the Chinese church with a selection of tunes to be used with the hymns of the church, easy to be sung by the Chinese.

Both of these are of great importance. The first of these matters is, of course, that of the most interest and in which most missionaries can accomplish something. There are some missionaries who have attained to great success as composers. In this connection I think of my worthy friend, Rev. J. E. Walker, of Shaowu, Fukien, whose excellent melodies are so widely used in the churches of Fukien province. Others, like Confucius, have accomplished great things as editors. They have provided collections of tunes that have become widely sung. Such names as Mrs. J. B. Mateer, Mrs. A. H. Mateer, Rev. E. G. Tewksbury and Dr. Goodrich of Peking, occur to one. Mrs. Couling, of the English Baptist Mission in Shantung, has done noble work in this direction, and the latest fruit of her labours appears in a collection of tunes, largely pentatonic, which has been contributed to by English church musicians of standing, such as Mr. C. E. Smith, organist of Regents Park Baptist Chapel, London; Mr. Josiah Booth, Rev. Carey Bonner, and others. These friends can know that their musical gifts have been well employed in writing tunes for the Chinese Christian church. This is published by the English Baptist Mission.

Our Chinese brethren and sisters make strenuous efforts to sing God's praises, but these efforts often suffer from lack of efficient guidance. Sometimes some Christian Chinese will learn very imperfectly some hymn tune and endeavour to teach the same to their friends. The result is distressing to a sensitive ear. Many tunes thus become utterly spoilt; the errors made in acquiring the tune at the beginning being made permanent. The errors made are most often in the case of tunes which contain in their melody the fourth and seventh notes of the scale. I will write of these henceforth by their solfa names of fah and te. Fah usually becomes Me and Te becomes Doh. In a tune where a line finishes on the cadence Doh-Te, such as "Webb," the tune generally sung to the missionary hymn "The Morning Light is Breaking," the Te disappears altogether. is what is generally heard when this hymn is sung. When these mistakes are made, it is very difficult

f

f

to correct them. "Prevention is better than cure. We must teach the boys and girls of our primary and secondary schools to sing correctly, and in order to do this, the mere teaching of tunes by ear is not sufficient. The children must be taught to sing by note and to acquire an intelligent knowledge of doing this.

I have always found the tonic Solfa method of the greatest use. For those unacquainted with this method of teaching singing, the best text-book to study is the "Standard Course," published by Curwens, Berners Street, London, W. The manual signs for the different Solfa notes are easily learned, and are very useful, as, when a class knows these signs, it is possible to teach the children a simple melody without any need to write it down. The tonic Solfa signs, using the English letters, are easily learnt by Chinese children. They soon learn to sing a melody from the Solfa notes written on the blackboard. For more permanent use, it is easy to get a Chinese teacher, especially if he be of a musical turn of mind, to copy out tunes in Solfa in large letters on large sheets. I have recently had some tunes written out in this way for the use of my singing class of the older scholars in our boys' and girls' day-school here, and have pasted the sheets on wooden boards made for the purpose by our carpenter. Our children sing very well from this Solfa music.

On coming to this station of Yiyang I found among the other assets of the church here a small day-school of about fifteen scholars, mostly from Christian homes. During the last year numbers have increased, and we now have both boys' and girls' day-schools. The children in these schools were absolutely untrained in singing, and, I must also add, absolutely unspoiled. They had never learnt to sing perverted versions of hymn tunes and had not even got as far as screeching unmelodious noises when hymns were being sung. The problem has been how to teach them to produce their voice, and I am glad to be able to record a fair amount of success to my effort.

It is reported that a candidate for admission into a choral society at home stated that his father had a splendid falsetto voice, while his mother had a beautiful false set o' teeth; hence he thought himself fit for membership in the society!

We will not dwell dwell upon this statement except to emphasise the fact that the male missionary who wishes to

teach Chinese children to sing, will find the acquirement of a falsetto voice very useful; in fact almost indispensable. Chinese children at the beginning of learning to sing do not realise the difference between the matured adult male voice and the treble voices of boys and women. They imitate as well as they can what they hear. Consequently when the teacher, starting in what appears to be the most correct way, begins to sing the note C in the usual pitch of the male voice, the class is sure to respond with a series of most displeasing grunts, the result of the class attempting to sing This is very distressing indeed, and likely to cause the teacher to feel like giving up the job as hopeless

from the beginning. The mistake has been that the wrong note has been sung. given as the pattern. found to have, for

or

f

should have been

The class will be

the most part, no

difficulty in singing this note. This note does not make a great demand upon one's falsetto voice, but as the notes of the scale are taught from this beginning, higher notes will be required, and the falsetto voice will be found of use, especially in giving patterns of musical phrases.

At first it will be found that the compass of voice possessed by the class is exceedingly small. It practically lies between C and B.

necessary to use

ly increase the

often not as far as this. It is exercises which will gradualcompass of the voice. This

is most easily accomplished by the class singing a simple phrase first in the key of C or D flat, then singing it in the key of a semitone above. I give an example of what

I mean.

Wherever possible the children's voices should be accompanied softly on the organ. This helps to give them some feeling of confidence, and is a useful rest to the teacher's voice.

At first simple voluntaries on the notes of the common chord Doh Me Soh are used. It must be remembered that there are, roughly speaking, two styles of melodies: the first in keys of C, D and E and the others in F, G and A. Doh is usually the lowest note of the first style and Soh usually the lowest note of the other style. The effect of the two styles is very different. For this reason it is necessary in teaching to use examples in both styles. Tallis' Ordinal is a good example of the first