, and the timbrel of Miriam; the
Jewish temple echoed the lofty strains of "David's harp" and the songs of
the "Chief Musician;" from the pagan worship of the Greeks sprung the
Ambrosian chant, and the Christian Church has been the birthplace and
nursery of the grandest conceptions that have flowed from the pen of
inspired genius in every later age. The _antiphonal_ singing of the
earliest choirs, where a phrase of melody, after being sung by one
portion of the choristers, was echoed by others at certain distances, at
a higher or lower pitch, gave rise to the modern fugue. The Pope from
his throne lent his aid to improve the ecclesiastical chant, and gave it
his name.

The oratorio was the Phoenix that arose from the ashes of the "mystery,"
the masses of Palestrina, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart, and Hummel were
responses to the calls of the church. The Reformation made no effort to
sever music from the services of religion; Luther was an enthusiastic
lover of harmony, and himself a composer of psalmody. The annihilations
of the works of art, that banished painting and defaced sculpture, could
not blot out music from the worship of the church. The "Te Deum" and
"Jubilate" outlived the persecution of bishops and clergy, and the nasal
whine of the Puritan conventicle was in itself a recognition of the true
power and place of that noblest of nature's gifts and sciences.

The quiet "Friends" nominally banish it from their form of worship; can
any that have heard the flowing melodies that clothe their exhortations
and prayers, say that it is so? Can any one that ever heard the voice of
Elizabeth Fry doubt that poetry and music are innate gifts, that, once
possessed, no human laws can sever from the utterances of a devotional
spirit? No marvel is it, therefore, that a Cathedral city at all times
is more or less the cradle of musical genius, or that scarce a record of
a great master-spirit of harmony exists, but the office of
"Kapellmeister," or "Organist," is attached to his name.

The Organ, that almost inseparable associate of ecclesiastical music,
seems to have been an instrument of great antiquity; that one of the
Constantines presented one to King Pepin in 757, appears to be an
established fact, and that during the tenth century the use of the organ
became general in Germany, Italy, and England. In Mason's "Essay on
Church Music" is a homely translation of some lines written by Wolstan, a
monk of that period, descr