atts has done this with great
truth and effect, and the singing in the churches and chapels in which
his version is in whole or in part introduced, proceeds with a more
Christian spirit: and a vast improvement has sprung from this source, in
the sacred music of those churches and chapels.

To illustrate this part of my paper, let me refer to the version
employed in several of the new churches, and to the version of Dr.
Watts, in the spiritual interpretation of the 4th Psalm. In the version
first referred to, the words are--

The place of ancient sacrifice
Let _righteousness_ supply,
And let your hope securely fix'd
On Him alone rely.

Now in this version it naturally occurs to inquire _what righteousness_?
The high churchman will content himself that it is a literal
translation; but the way-faring man sees nothing of the atoning
righteousness of Christ in this translation; but which according to the
11th article of the Church of England, he reasonably looks for. Even
the Unitarians refer to this and other parts of our translation of the
Hebrew Psalms, as a justification of THEIR main principle of the unity
alone in the godhead.

Dr. Watts, a genuine Christian, believing in the union of the Father,
Son, and Spirit, and manifesting this pure faith to the end of a
well-spent life, gives the Christian meaning of this righteousness, in
his version of the 4th Psalm:

Know that the Lord divides his Saints
From all the tribes of men beside,
He hears the cry of penitents
For the dear sake of Christ who died.

Here the true typical and prophetic meaning of the Old Testament is
given.

The version used by the English church in the 5th Psalm is subject to
the same observation as on the 4th.

The church version is

Thou in the morn shall hear my voice
And with the dawn of day,
To thee devoutly I look up,
To thee devoutly pray.

Dr. Watts, who gives the Christian meaning of this Psalm, translates or
paraphrases thus truly:--

Lord in the morning thou shall hear
My voice ascending high,
To thee will I direct my pray'r,
To thee lift up mine eye.
Up to the hills where Christ is gone
_To plead for all his Saints_,
Presenting at his father's throne,
Our songs and our complaints.

Psalmody, or the singing of sacred music, conducted by such a gracious
and animated sense of the revealed word of God, must naturally be
performed, as it must be ardently felt, in a