Church Music. 177 



draw the masses within the sacred walls ? But maybe 

 this would be sacrilegious. Theological minds may see 

 in the music suggested an unworthy intruder in do- 

 mains sacred to dogma ; but they should remember that 

 the Bible tells us that in heaven music is the principal 

 source of happiness — the sermon seems nowhere — and 

 it may go hard with such as fail to give it the first place 

 on earth. In this view of the case it was decided to-day 

 upon the coach that what some had hitherto thought a 

 scandal, viz., that the choirs of most of our fashionable 

 churches cost more than all the other expenses of the 

 church, and that organists and sopranos receive a much 

 larger salary considering the time given than the minis- 

 ters ; or, as one of the young ladies put it, " More is 

 paid for music than for religion " — all this, instead of 

 being reprehensible, as some have unthinkingly believed, 

 may really be, and probably is, quite in accordance with 

 the proper order of worship. Well, I am not going to 

 grudge Miss B. her three thousand dollars a year any 

 longer, said a vestryman ; so he was converted to the 

 theory that music stands upon strong ground. Some 

 day, however, my lord bishop and lazy crew, the cathe- 

 drals of England will not be yours alone to drone in, 

 but become mighty centres of grand music, from which 

 shall radiate elevating influences over entire districts; 

 and the best minds of the nation, remembering how 

 narrow and bigoted the church was when these struct* 

 ures were built, will change the poet's line and say: 



