through its very liturgic connections had come to make its appeal to the worshipers, not as an artistic decoration, but as an agency directly adapted to aid in promoting those ends which the church ceremony had in view. Furthermore, the dignity and severe intellectuality of this German organ style, combined with its majesty of sound and strength of movement, seemed to add distinctly to the biblical flavor of the liturgy, the uncompromising dogmatism of the authoritative teaching, and the intense moral earnestness which prevailed in the Church of Luther in its best estate. It was a form of art which was native to the organ, implied in the very tone and mechanism of the instrument; it was absolutely untouched by the lighter tendencies already active in secular music. The notion of making the organ play pretty tunes and tickle the ear with the imitative sound of fancy stops never entered the heads of the German church musicians. The gravity and disciplined intelligence proper to the exercise of an ecclesiastical office must pervade every contribution of the organist. This conception was equally a matter of course to the mass of the people, and so the taste of the congregation and the conviction of the clerical authorities supported the organists in their adherence to the traditions of their strict and complex art. This lordly style was no less worthy of reverence in the eyes of all concerned because it was to all intents a German art, virtually unknown in other countries, except partially in the sister land of Holland, and therefore hedged about with the sanctions of patriotism as well as the universally admitted canons of religious musical expression. This form of music was evolved originally under the suggestion of the mediaeval vocal polyphony,—counterpoint redistributed and systematized in accordance with the modern development of rhythm, tonality, and sectional structure. Its birthplace was Italy; the canzona of Frescobaldi and his compeers was the parent of the fugue. The task of developing this Italian germ was given to the Dutch and Germans. The instrumental instinct and constructive genius of such men as Swelinck, Scheidt, Buxtehude, Froberger, and Pachelbel carried the movement so far as to reveal its full possibilities, and Bach brought these possibilities to complete realization.