While I ponder these things, standing in the deserted Round, there comes to me--across the sky where the plovers wheel and flash in the wintry sunshine--the sound of men's voices carolling at an unseen farm. They are singing _The First Nowell_; but the fourth Nowell--the fourth of the refrain--is the _clou_ of that most common, most excellent carol, and gloriously the tenors and basses rise to it. No, we cannot revive the old Miracle Plays: but here in the Christmas Carols we have something as artlessly beautiful which we can still preserve, for with them we have not to revive, but merely to preserve, the conditions. In a preface to a little book of carols chosen (and with good judgment) some years ago by the Rev. H. R. Bramley, of Magdalen College, Oxford, and well edited in the matter of music by Sir John Stainer, I read that-- "The time-honoured and delightful custom of thus celebrating the Birthday of the Holy Child seems, with some change of form, to be steadily and rapidly gaining ground. Instead of the itinerant ballad-singer, or the little bands of wandering children, the practice of singing carols in Divine Service, or by a full choir at some fixed meeting, is becoming prevalent." Since Mr. Bramley wrote these words the practice has grown more prevalent, and the shepherds of Bethlehem are in process of becoming thoroughly sophisticated and self-conscious. For that is what it means. You may (as harassed bishops will admit) do a number of irrelevant things in church, but you cannot sing the best carols there. You cannot toll in your congregation, seat your organist at the organ, array your full choir in surplices, and tune up to sing, for example-- "Rise up, rise up, brother Dives, And come along with me; There's a place in Hell prepared for you To sit on the serpent's knee." Or this-- "In a manger laid and wrapped I was-- So very poor, this was my chance-- Between an ox and a silly poor ass, To call my true love to the dance." Or this-- "Joseph did whistle and Mary did sing, And all the bells on earth did ring On Christmas Day in the morning." These are verses from carols, and from excellent carols: but I protest that with 'choirs and places where they sing' they will be found incongruous. Indeed, Mr. Bramley admits it. Of his collection "some," he says, "from their legendary, festive or otherwise less serious character, are unfit for use within the church."