vaults' above us. The roar of the river, the ripple of the brook, the hum of insects, the cry of animals, the voices of birds, the murmur of the forest, the rushing wind-all form a mighty chorus.

At Haerlem is an organ, which was once accounted the wonder of the world, but Freyburg now has one nobler-where the astonished traveller hears music such as he had known but in his dreams before—yet what are they with their hundred stops and their thousands of pipes, compared with that organ from which arises the music of nature, which we may all hear? Their deepest diapason is but a whisper, when her bass rolls forth in the thunder, or the surges of the sea.

The external symbols and characters of music are confined to no age nor nation. The lapse of time has but slightly modified their original form. Call her disciples from the centuries that are gone, collect them from the present, place before them her magic signs, and they shall need no interpreter. But while they read her few silent characters, the stream of harmony shall flow, with a tide now gentle, now wild, but ever full and unbroken. No foreign accent, shall deform, no obsolete or provincial dialect corrupt her pure and faultless diction.

Such is Music in her power, taming the wildest natures; such is her spoken language, the voice of all nature; such in her written symbols, the only vernacular tongue of the civilized world.

Her uses are alike extensive. War has not disdained to seek her aid. His serried legions move to her strains. The din of battle loses its terror,

while the roll of drums, the clash of cymbals, the "air-shattering" trumpets are drowning the cries of pain.

Even the booming cannon is no more remembered as a fatal engine. Its iron vollies are forgotten-its report is not heard as the death knell of brave men, but as a solemn accompaniment to the music of the martial bands. The fallen hero is carried to his grave to the slow dead march, and anon, those wailing sounds are exchanged for the more joyful notes by which the victory is announced.

But the peculiar province of music is amid gentler scenes.

"Oh! day, thrice lovely,"

has a poet sung,

When at length the soldier

Returns home into life; when he becomes

A fellow man among his fellow men.

The colors are unfurled, the cavalcade

Marshals, and now the buzz is hushed, and hark!

The soft peace-march beats-home, brothers, home."

The songs of peace are her delight.

To the villager, she sings of the distant glittering worldto the weary traveller of rest.

When the Swiss exile hears the Ranz des vaches of his native country, familiar scenes arise to his view. Frowning mountains overhang deep ravines. Green fields and placid lakes smile amid everlasting glaciers. The chamois bounds among the rocks above his cottage-the bells of the herd are tinkling on every side-the Alpine horn

echoes

among the mountains, and his soul yearns

for home.

She has ancient ballads for the curious, merry songs for the gay. Notes of joy has she for the festival, tones of woe for the funeral. Speaking

the language of passion, no base, no unworthy emotion through her finds utterance. Anger, jealousy, hatred, change her chords to discord-they become like sweet "bells jangled." Love, joy, and every happier emotion speak through her, and even grief has her own plaintive and sorrowful

note.

But she has a language higher than that of passion-it is the language of devotion-of Music in this relation I would speak-of Music as an auxiliary to Religion.

The objects, the characteristics, the dignity, and the destiny of sacred music present themselves as separate topics of thought.

Her objects are two-fold.

Her first work is confined to the human soul. She is to kindle the flame of devotion in the worldly, and excite the languishing affections of the religious mind, and thus aid both on their journey upward from this transitory life. He who formed the soul needs no intermediate agency to draw it unto himself. His power is independent of all the circumstances of life. Yet in the spiritual, as in the natural world, He is wont to use means for the accomplishment of his wise and benevolent ends. The wayward heart of man

He influences in a thousand different ways-sometimes by the judgements which overtake his transgressions sometimes by the mercies that strew his daily path, sometimes by fearful theatenings and again by gracious reasonings and entreaties.

The services of the holy sanctuary point out most clearly the path of life. The word of God speaks of reconciliation, the voice of the preacher seconds the appeals of the written word, and then music comes with her soothing voice, to calm the wild passions of the soul, to subdue its obduracy, and point its too ardent gaze from the "things of time and sense" to its own high destiny. Who has heard with an unmoved or careless heart, the beautiful air of Handel, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," or the other, "He shall lead his flock like a shepherd," or the mournful and solemn chorus, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world?"

The soul may have uttered its emotions to no ear--it may hardly dared whisper its secret thoughts to itself, yet at such times, it may have been wavering on the point of decisions whose results require eternity for their unfolding.

It is a strong man armed that holdeth his castle in the "town of Mansoul," and there sometimes cometh a mightier than he, to do battle with the sword and the spear-but who shall say that those towers may not fall to gentler sounds than the confused noise of battle; as did the walls of that beleaguered city of old.

To attribute such results invariably, or even ordinarily, to sacred music, would be far from the truth. We have all been taught by painful experience, how the devotional feelings may be disturbed by the unskilful essays of those whose intentions are certainly most praiseworthy. Emotions are often called forth which it is the very province of sacred music to repress and prevent.

Her legitimate end, however, is always the same. She seeks to elevate and ennoble the soul-to inspire it with holier purposes and better hopesto animate it on its toilsome way, with the thought that the songs of its pilgrimage, often sung here with a cold heart and faltering tongue are but a prelude to higher strains hereafter.

The second object which sacred music has in view, and to which the first is subordinate, is the worship of God.

The Creator receives no new honor from the praise of men. Were he rendered more glorious by acts of worship, there are principalities and powers that forever bow in his immediate presence "bright morning stars" that have never fallen from a world of light, who sing his glory.`

Yet far, far below those unseen regions is a distant world which has left its first allegiance. It is still fair and beautiful though its former glory has departed, and all its wonderful phenomena and varied scenes speak of the powerful wisdom that formed it. To that anthem of praise, which ever rises from it in a solemn and harmonious