on the ground that it contains no recognition of, or praise to, the Redeemer. But, surely, as long as beautiful sights and beautiful sounds, the solemn gloom and glory of the everlasting hills, and the endlessness of the pure sky are to be apprehended by men, so long it must be not only a desirable, but an imperative thing, that they should all be transferred to the keys of the Christian organ and of Christian speech. We are not unaware of the danger of the defence of æsthetic beauty, to spiritual Christianity, but a wise and balanced nature will know how far to advance and when to stop, and we quite believe that our doxologies, and thanksgivings, and moments of Christian fervour should lay under contribution every faculty of the soul, and that each faculty may be moved by a Divine affection, speak to the heart’s inner chambers, and relate them to the most consecrated heights. For song being a natural expression of inflamed emotion, man must become an unnatural creature if he disdain to sing, and those who cannot themselves sing do not therefore always the less delight in the happy jubilant expressions attained by others; for man, happily, can enjoy that to which he cannot attain, and in this consists one of the great moving powers of his soul. Unconverted people sing. They have airs and melodies wafted from the ground of the nature in which they live and have their being; and when they learn and feel their heritage of salvation and immortality, the joy in God through Jesus Christ demands its appropriate expression in suitable elevated strains and tones. And Christians feel their unity, not so much in reading or in preaching as in those great expressions which rise above the colder forms of the understanding, and touch each other at the centre of some great affection of faith or hope. It is, we must think, to Protestantism that the Church is indebted for the ample and sweeping robes of spiritual melody. Papists indignantly deny this. Cardinal Wiseman has told us in a well-known article, that Protestantism is essentially undevotional. Our devotional practices and services might be improved and increased; but for the multitudes of its hymnologists, and the multitude of their songs, and for the fulness and the fervour of those same songs Protestantism seems to leave Western and Eastern Churches far behind. Although some of our spiritual airs and aspirations need the hallowing touch of time before they can receive the consecration of affection which crowns the words of Basil, and the hymns of Ambrose, and the chants of Gregory.