The antagonist of Materialism in the world-contest is Spirit, and the organising and marshalling of the spiritual forces has been the province of religion in general. But religion has itself been too much apart from the things of everyday, it has lived in a compartment of its own, labelled "Sundays only." As a consequence its influence has failed to permeate the world of affairs, and both religion and the world have suffered direly as a result. When religion ceases to carry any weight with the individual, his balance necessarily sways toward the material: and when religious teaching practically ceases to have any vitality in the education of the nation, it follows that the outlook must turn more and more in the direction of selfishness, force, and mere worldly affluence. This may be a tolerably comfortable method of extinction, but it is no way of progressive life. Music allies itself with the forces at work on the spiritual side, and thus comes to the battle in support of religion. Music exists as a permanent witness to the reality of the intangible, and to the power and pre-eminence of qualities which no money can purchase and which Time is powerless to destroy. The so-called solid things disintegrate, the vogue of one year spells oblivion in the next, but the power of music to stir the pulse, to awaken the emotions and to uplift the spirit, has remained through all the yesterdays, and will do so--we may anticipate--through all the to-morrows. It is an ally and co-witness with religion for immaterial and spiritual ends. Another ally, in the guise of science, is also coming fast in support. Science has already overstepped the bounds of the material in many quarters: its trend is ever in the direction of the invisible, where there is another range of values and qualities, and where no scales weigh and no footrules measure. It is now engaged in discovering the unseen causes which underlie the objective effects we notice in the physical world. Presently, there can be but little doubt, we shall find the three, Religion, Science, and Music (or rather, Art in general) ranged side by side for the ultimate destruction of the purely material and mechanistic theories of life: and when these are finally overthrown, with them will also topple the doctrines, founded thereon, of self-seeking and strife.