Is it not a crying piece of egotism, in view of the proven efficiency of hymn singing, to depend exclusively on his own preaching for the realization of the spiritual ends to which his life is devoted? When ministers realize the positive power the hymn service can exert, they will not begrudge the occasional hours for studying and planning it which are necessary to its full success. That success will create A SINGING CHURCH EPILOGUE _Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter._ Eccl. 12:7. In traversing the long history of the human use of song in religious services, rites, and ceremonies, we have found that 1. The hymn has been recognized in every age, in every generation, by every race, whether savage or cultured, under every sky, as an expression of religious emotion, and as the generator of such emotion. 2. Religious emotions are of various types. It may be the earnestness of strong conviction; it may be the hot indignation against sin and evil, against neglect of the soul’s highest obligations. It may be the depressing sense of conscious unworthiness, rising into repentance for sin, into the tenderness of grateful recognition of the divine love and forgiving grace, expressed in tears, joy over the assurance of salvation expressed in beaming countenance or in ejaculations of delight, or even in shouts of victory. The human heart becomes an Æolian harp from which the winds of the Spirit of God evoke an infinitude of melodies, grave and solemn, tender and sweet, joyous and triumphant, or vigorous and inspiring,—a very symphonic orchestra. 3. As an expression of religious emotion the hymn has been effective in moving the human will, stubborn in its revolt against God, by intensifying the mental and spiritual power of religious ideas. 4. The religious idea is primary, of course, but its emotional response in the heart gives it vitality. It is the team of idea and its normal emotion that exerts the power of the hymn. An abstract idea, abstract because its emotional reflex has been abstracted, has no motive power. 5. In the effective use of the hymn the clear apprehension of its ideas must be enforced by the vital reproduction of the original emotion of its writer which urged its composure. A dry hymn written without vitalizing feeling has no power to inspire; it gives no sense of reality. Dry sermons, not pollinated by emotional vigor, can bear no fruit. The effectiveness of sermon or hymn will be determined by the intensity of the feeling behind it. 6. The emotional appeal must be genuine, both writer and singer must be sincere. Artificial emotion, the mere pretense of a feeling that does not exist, has no power. It is not merely unappealing, it is offensive.