e year of his baptism when, he tells us,
singing was introduced at Milan to cheer the Catholics who had shut
themselves up in the basilica with their bishop, to defend him from the
imperial violence:

'It was then instituted that psalms and hymns should be sung, after the
manner of the Eastern Churches, lest the folk in the weariness of their
grief should altogether lose heart: and from that day to this the
custom has been retained; many, nay, nearly all Thy flocks, in all
regions of the world, following the example[2].'

What great emotional power St. Augustin attributed to ecclesiastical
music, and of what importance he thought it, may be seen in the tenth
book of the _Confessions_: he is there examining himself under the heads
of the senses, and after the sense of smell, his chapter on the sense of
hearing is as follows:

'The lust of the ears entangled and enslaved me more firmly, but Thou
hast loosened and set me free. But even now I confess that I do yield a
very little to the beauty of those sounds which are animated by Thy
eloquence, when sung with a sweet and practised voice; not, indeed, so
far that I am limed and cannot fly off at pleasure[3]: and yield though
I do, yet these sweet sounds, joined with the divine words which are
their life, cannot be admitted to my heart save to a place of some
dignity, and I hesitate to give them one as lofty as their claim[4].

'For sometimes I seem to myself to be allowing them undue honour, when
I feel that our minds are really moved to a warmer devotion and more
ardent piety by the holy words themselves when they are so sung than
when they are not so sung; and when I recognize that all the various
moods of our spirit have their proper tones in speech and song, by
which they are, through I know not what secret familiarity, excited.
But the mere sensuous delight, to which it is not fitting to resign the
mind to be enervated thereby, often deceives me, whenever (that is) the
delight of the senses does not so accompany the reason as to be
cheerfully in submission thereto, but, having been admitted only for
reason's sake, then even attempts to go before and to lead. Thus I sin
without knowing, but afterwards I know.

'Then awhile, from too immoderate caution against this deception, I err
on the side of too great severity; and sometimes go so far as to wish
that all the melody of the sweet chants which are used in the