Even the manner of singing hymns has changed. Many of them are raced through at a pace which leaves one half the congregation behind, and totally eclipses the other half! In many of the old hymn tunes there is a pause at the end of each line, during which the members of the congregation had a reasonable chance to take breath. Even these pauses have often been eliminated, thus destroying the sense of the music and giving a colder shoulder still to the musical and devotional aspirations of the congregation. (If space permitted I should like to dwell here on the genesis of some of these old tunes. They were deeply embedded in the common life of our remote forefathers, and had no taint of self-consciousness in them. Springing from the soil, they survived all changes of dogma and custom. And they will survive. We shall come back to them when we have survived our present attack of prettiness.) The decline in hymn-singing is evident enough. Save in churches where the liturgy restrains the ambitions of the choir, almost anything is possible; and even under that restraint there is a constant tendency toward display. What is the office of church music? Is it to astonish or delight the congregation? Is it to supply them with a sacred concert or fine singing? To take their minds off the situation in which they find themselves? To ease the effect of a dull sermon, or obliterate the effect of a good one? To serve as a bait to catch the unwary non-church-goer, or as a means of retaining the waverer within the fold? Or is it to induce devotion and religious feeling, to keep the moment sacred and without intrusion? If the choir is to sing alone, why should we accept from it display pieces, or arrangements from secular music, or silly “sacred” songs overburdened with lush sentiment, or anthems of a certain fluent type composed by anybody who can put a lot of notes together in agreeable sequence? Why should we tolerate the solo in operatic style, or contemptible solo quartette music, suitable (and hardly that) for the end of a commercial “banquet”? Is there, then, no reality behind church music? Is it merely any music set to sacred words? He who has ever studied any art knows that this cannot be true. The finest church music--of which Palestrina and Bach are the greatest exponents--is based on something more than a casual association with sacred words. In the Protestant churches of our cities the music is very largely derived from modern English sources, and I count this an obstacle to our progress. Beginning with the last half of the nineteenth century, English church music has been dominated by a school of composers whose music is charming, or pretty, or melodious, or what-you-will, but is not either profound or devout. Nearly all our organists are, musically, of English descent, but they treat their forefathers with but scant respect. There is no difficulty whatever in procuring good music for choirs. There is a supply suitable for solo