220 LIFE AXD CORRESPONDENCE OF THE [1/^5 



He continues: 



Less prominent debates on the articles are not here noticed. What- 

 ever is novel in them was taken from a book in the possession of the 

 Rev. Dr. Smith. The book was anonymous, and was one of the pub- 

 lications which have abounded in England, projecting changes in the 

 established articles. 



It might, too, on other grounds, be set down almost for certain 

 that Dr. White did not like some of the alterations themselves. 

 He was, no doubt, as I have already intimated, a theologian dis- 

 tinguished by acuteness as much as by solidity of mind. But he 

 was nothing of a rhetorician. His style, though perfectly accu- 

 rate, and often in the expression of feeling deeply affecting, is to 

 the general reader, frequently, at first reading, obscure, and some- 

 times, until thoroughly comprehended, rather ineffective. As for 

 what we call elegance, or richness of thought or diction, he had 

 little of either; and so far as effects merely decorative constitute a 

 part of worship, he had but a slight perception of them, if indeed 

 he had any at all. He rather abhorred them as not fit agencies 

 of the sanctuary. I am not meaning to say that he was not deeply 

 imbued, in religious worship, with a sense of the true, the appro- 

 priate and the becoming. Undoubtedly he was deeply imbued 

 with them all. But his conceptions and his expressions tended to 

 plain and simple forms, rather than to rich and decorated ones. 

 The same thing, I think, was true in regard to that part of public 

 worship which engaged Dr. Smith's feelings so largely; the part 

 so much assisted by music. We have, in historical collections of 

 music, some compositions which we know that Dr. White liked. 

 But my impression is that scientific musicians have not admired 

 them highly. As for " captivating people by the art of Psalm- 

 singing," Dr. White would have, I doubt not, resiled, with some- 

 thing like horror, from the idea. He never himself gave out more 

 than two, or at most iJwee, verses of a metrical psalm. And as for 

 hymns — except perhaps at Christmas — one might defy the oldest 

 parishioner of the United Churches to cite an occasion where he 

 ever gave out one, unless where, as in communion, the rubric 

 obliged him to do so.* Could he have regulated absolutely the 

 subject of singing the metrical p.salms, he would have affixed 



* See " White's Memoirs," 2d edition, p. 256. — Note N. N 



