Into such convictions music may come, lending her aid to deepen them, to give them tangible expression, and to enhance the sense of joy and peace which may be their consequence; but to create them is beyond her power. The office of music is not to suggest concrete images, or even to arouse definite namable sentiments, but rather to intensify ideas and feelings already existing, or to release the mind and put it into that sensitive, expectant state in which conceptions that appeal to the emotion may act unhampered. The more generalized function of music in the sanctuary is to take possession of the prepared and chastened mood which is the antecedent of worship, to separate it from other moods and reminiscences which are not in perfect accord with it, and to establish it in a more complete self-consciousness and a more permanent attitude. This antecedent sense of need and longing for divine communion cannot be aroused by music alone; the enjoyment of abstract musical beauty, however refined and elevating, is not worship, and a musical impression disconnected from any other cannot conduce to the spirit of prayer. It is only when the prayerful impulse already exists as a more or less conscious tendency of the mind, induced by a sense of love and duty, by the associations of the time and place, by the administration of the other portions of the service, or by any agencies which incline the heart of the believer in longing toward the Mercy Seat,—it is only in alliance with such an anticipatory state of mind and the causes that produce it that music fulfils its true office in public worship. It is not enough to depend upon the influence of the words to which the music is set, for they, being simultaneous with the music, do not have time or opportunity to act with full force upon the understanding; since the action of music upon the emotion is more immediate and vivid than that of words upon the intellect, the latter is often unregarded in the stress of musical excitement. However it may be in solo singing, it is not possible or even desirable that the words of a chorus should be so distinct as to make the prime impression. Those who demand distinct articulation, as though the religious effect of church song hung solely upon that, do not listen musically. At any rate they see but a little way into the problem, which is concerned not with the effect of words but of tones. The text and music reinforce each other when the words are known to the hearer before the singing begins, aiding thus to bring about the expectancy of which I have spoken, and producing that satisfaction which is felt when musical expression is perceived to be appropriate to its poetic subject.