of sound than things without life,
and which, when they attempt to sing, contribute more to the feeling of
woe than of praise."

These words are as true to-day as when they were uttered twelve years
ago. Congregations which do not desire, or cannot afford, to resign the
musical portion of their service to professional singers, have something
more to do than to complain that the music is bad, or that they do not
like paid vocalists to troll out psalmody for them. They must go to work
and make their own music,--real music; for in these days unharmonious
sounds are almost as much out of place in the worship of God as an
uncatholic spirit and an heretical doctrine. The truth of this principle
many societies admit, and some, like the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's, have
already put it into practice; the majority, however, wait for help to
free themselves from the customs which have kept them listeners when
they should be creators of vocal praise. The great obstacle to
congregational singing has been that the range of tunes already familiar
was very limited, while the providing a whole society with the
paraphernalia of music-books involved great expense to small purpose,
since a large portion of the tunes contained in these books are
unavailable for such use, being prepared with a view to the wants of
thoroughly trained singers; besides which, the reference to two books,
one for the words and the other for the music, is to many persons
perplexing, and to all inconvenient.

"Church Pastorals" is an attempt to overcome this obstacle, and to
extend that help which is wanted. Other attempts have been made before,
but we regard this as the most successful, and consider that Dr. Adams
has prepared the best hymn-and-tune-book that has yet been issued, as we
propose briefly to illustrate by a recapitulation of his plan and his
manner of executing it.

The hymns, which are nine hundred and eighty-eight in number, are
selected from the great mass of hymn-writers; although Watts and the
Wesleys furnish the foundation, and the materials of the superstructure
are largely drawn from Doddridge, Cowper, Toplady, Montgomery, and
others of kindred spirit, yet many beautiful things have been added from
the later religious poetry, which are no less fervid in feeling, while
less pronounced in doctrinal expression. These hymns are arranged in
judicious general divisions, which are again analytically separated into
special topics placed in logical s