its discipline, and Ambrose rightly considered that the novelty and
solemnity of the oriental chants, in praise of the Blessed Trinity,
would both interest and sober them during the dangerous temptation to
which they were now exposed. The expedient had even more successful
results than the bishop anticipated; the soldiers were affected by the
music, and took part in it; and, as we hear nothing more of the
blockade, we must suppose that it thus ended, the government being
obliged to overlook what it could not prevent.

It may be interesting to the reader to see Augustine's notice of this
occurrence, and the effect of the Psalmody upon himself, at the time of
his baptism.

"The pious populace (he says in his Confessions) was keeping vigils
in the church prepared to die, O Lord, with their bishop, Thy
servant. There was my mother, Thy handmaid, surpassing others in
anxiety and watching, and making prayers her life.

"I, uninfluenced as yet by the fire of Thy Spirit, was roused
however by the terror and agitation of the city. Then it was that
hymns and psalms, after the oriental rite, were introduced, lest
the spirits of the flock should fail under the wearisome
delay."--_Confess._ ix. 15.

In the same passage, speaking of his baptism, he says:--

"How many tears I shed during the performance of Thy hymns and
chants, keenly affected by the notes of Thy melodious Church! My
ears drank up those sounds, and they distilled into my heart as
sacred truths, and overflowed thence again in pious emotion, and
gushed forth into tears, and I was happy in them."--_Ibid._ 14.

Elsewhere he says:--

"Sometimes, from over-jealousy, I would entirely put from me and
from the Church the melodies of the sweet chants which we use in
the Psalter, lest our ears seduce us; and the way of Athanasius,
Bishop of Alexandria, seems the safer, who, as I have often heard,
made the reader chant with so slight a change of note, that it was
more like speaking than singing. And yet when I call to mind the
tears I shed when I heard the chants of Thy Church in the infancy
of my recovered faith, and reflect that at this time I am affected,
not by the mere music, but by the subject, brought out, as it is,
by clear voices and appropriate tune, then, in turn, I confess how
useful is the practice."--_Confess._ x. 50.

Such was the i