somewhat different mission to perform under the changed conditions of the time, employs its hymns and tunes not so much as revival machinery, or as a means for inculcating dogma, as for spiritual nurture. Hymns have become more subjective, melodies and harmonies more refined and alluring; the tone has become less stern and militant; the ideas are more universal and tender, less mechanical and precise; appeal is made more to the sensibility than to the intellect, and the chief stress is laid upon the joy and peace that come from believing. It is impossible to avoid vagueness in attempting so broad a generalization. But one who studies the new hymn-books, reads the prefaces of their editors, and notes the character of the hymns that are most used in our churches, will realize that now, as it has always been in the history of the Church, the guiding thought and feeling of the time may be traced in popular song, more faintly but not less inevitably than in the instructions of the pulpit. When viewed in historic sequence one observes the growing prominence of the mystical and subjective elements, the fading away of the early fondness for scholastic definition. Lyric poetry is in its nature mystical and intuitive, and the hymnody of the future, following the present tendency in theology to direct the thought to the personal, historic Christ, and to appropriate his example and message in accordance with the light which advancing knowledge obtains concerning man’s nature, needs, and destiny, will aim more than ever before to purify and quicken the higher emotional faculties, and will find a still larger field in those fundamental convictions which transcend the bounds of creeds, and which affirm the brotherhood of all sincere seekers after God. CHAPTER XII PROBLEMS OF CHURCH MUSIC IN AMERICA