musical satisfaction where the analytical faculties are not called into exercise. Hence the readiness with which music combines with these higher experiences. Music in its mystic, indefinable action seems to make the mood of prayer more active, to interpret it to itself, and by something that seems celestial in the harmony to make the mood deeper, stronger, more satisfying than it would be if shut up within the soul and deprived of this means of deliverance. Music also, by virtue of its universal and impersonal quality, furnishes the most efficient means of communication among all the individuals engaged in a common act; the separate personalities are, we might say, dissolved in the general tide of rapture symbolized by the music, and the common sentiment is again enhanced by the consciousness of sympathy between mind and mind to which the music testifies, and which it is so efficient to promote. The substance of this whole discussion, therefore, is that those who have any dealing with music in the Church must take into account the inherent laws of musical effect. Music is not a representative art; it bears with it an order of impressions untranslatable into those of poetry or painting. To use Walter Pater’s phrase, “it presents no matter of sentiment or thought separable from the special form in which it is conveyed to us.” It may, through its peculiar power of stimulating the sensibility and conveying ideas of beauty in the purest, most abstract guise, help to make the mind receptive to serious impressions; but in order to excite a specifically religious feeling it must coöperate with other impressions which act more definitely upon the understanding. The words to which the music is sung, being submerged in the mind of a music-lover by the tide of enchanting sound, are not sufficient for this purpose unless they are known and dwelt upon in advance; and even then they too need reinforcement out of the environment in which the musical service is placed. The singing of the choir must be contrived and felt as a part of the office of prayer. The spirit and direction of the whole service for the day must be unified; the music must be a vital and organic element in this unit. All parts of the service must be controlled by the desire for beauty and fitness. Music, however beautiful, loses something of its effect if its accompaniments are not in harmony with it. This desideratum is doubtless most easily attained in a liturgic service. One great advantage of an ancient and prescribed form is that its components work easily to a common impression, and in course of time the ritual tends to become venerable as well as dignified and beautiful. The non-liturgic method may without difficulty borrow this conception of harmony and elevation, applying it so far as its own customs and rules of public worship allow. How this unity of action in the several factors of a non-liturgic service may best be effected is outside the purpose of this book to discuss.