or pleasing melody is fitted for the human voice. A good many arrangements of instrumental melodies are to be found in our larger hymnals. Some of them are fairly successful, notably "Gottschalk" from that famous virtuoso's piano solo," The Last Hope." Not quite so successful are the arrangements of Mendelssohn's "Song Without Words," Book 2, No. 3, known as "Peace" and Aspiration." The melody is very beautiful and expressive, and will carry a religious sentiment very felicitously; but as far as it bears use for the voice it is a solo rather than a hymn tune, both because of its severe intervals and its affettuoso style. I am inclined to deprecate the arrangement of the vocal movement from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, known as "Ludwig." In its place, with the background of the tumultuous orchestra, this simple melody is supremely effective, but as a hymn tune it is rather insipid.

The chief difficulties with such arrangements are first, that they are wrenched from their proper setting, and, second, that in the arrangement such changes become necessary, or are arbitrarily made, as to rob the original of its chief beauty. It almost seems unjust to burden the reputation of a great composer with the credit for arrangements which he would hardly recognize and which in some cases he certainly would not care to own. "Antioch" is credited to Handel as having been arranged from "The Messiah." The fact is, Lowell Mason took a phrase of three or four notes from one of the choruses as the opening of the tune and wrote all the rest himself. It is Mason's not Handel's tune.

Then a tune must be practicable. Not only must it not have any single high notes above or below the range of the average worshipper, it must not call for

sustained use of the higher part of that range. A tune that remains above B for several successive phrases will inevitably induce flatting. Then extreme intervals such as octaves, sevenths, augmented fourths and seconds, and even sixths in certain relations, are difficult for a general congregation. The angularity of the opening phrase of "Pietas,"

is as evident to the eye as it is difficult to sing with effectiveness. The same objection holds against the opening strain of Handel's "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" when arranged as a hymn tune. As a solo, of course, the criticism does not apply.

Furthermore, a tune must make progress as it proceeds. Its parts must be so articulated that singers can feel that progress from line to line. "St. Veronica" is a clear case

of a violation of this rule:

2

etc.

Here the first three phrases all end on G and the chord of E. Even the fourth practically ends the same way, as it also closes on the chord of E.

If a tune is to be really effective it must bear the accent, have the style of musical thought natural and

spontaneous to those who are to sing it. A tune that drops its h's, i. e., that is ultra-English, will never be widely useful in America. However spontaneous it may be with an English congregation, it seems forced, unnatural, meaningless to an average American assembly. "St. Francis" by Sullivan seems to me such a tune. Most of the German chorals are shut out by the same consideration. They are national, not universal, in

spirit.

It is not always possible to account for the vogue and popularity of a tune. But whether you can, or cannot, its acceptability among a variety of congregations over a fairly long period of time is an infallible criterion of a good tune. All the quasi-technical criticisms of " Coronation" fall away in the face of its persistent hold upon the American people. Modern hymnal editors have been trying in vain to displace it with the British "Miles Lane." Why they should wish to force upon the American churches the British tune, with its growl at the end of the second line and its howl at the end of the fourth, I can only explain by the Athenian itch for something new. Sir Henry Smart actually called it “vulgar."

"

The best tune can be spoiled by mismating it with an incongruous hymn. To sing Lyte's "Abide with Me to Hopkin's "Ellers" (also known as "Benediction ") seems to me to spoil both. To sing " Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep" to an ever-changing florid tune like " St. John's Highlands," is to violate the quiet spirit of the text. The self-imposed task of providing an alternative tune leads to a good many such mismatings in our recent hymnals, and ministers and choir directors need to be put on their guard.

That a hymn and a tune are marked as having the same

meter is no assurance that they will fit in accent. The first measure of many hymns of otherwise iambic structure is a trochee, throwing the accent on the first instead of the second syllable. There are tunes which take account of this opening trochee and they do not fit a hymn of the same meter of regular iambic structure. Some tunes are adapted to lines having a regularly occurring cæsura; but there are many hymns of like meter in which the cæsura is placed irregularly. Such tunes and hymns will not mate.

Happy is the minister whose hymnal fits the need of his people. It is a spiritual force of incalculable value, which study of its pages will enable him to exploit more and more, and to use for the inspiration and edification of his people. But even the crudest, most ill-adapted collection has enough good matter in it, if properly handled, to accomplish more than is now realized in the average congregation.

XI

MUSIC IN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES

T

HE crying fault of our theological schools is their emphasis of abstract scholarship and their indifference to practical results. Their ideal is a scholar, not a preacher, much less a practical pastor. On the practical side there is a half year's course in practical theology, at most a year in theoretical homiletics, no elocution, no Sunday-school work, no hymnology, no church music. About one-eighth of the course is given to the practical side of the minister's work and even that is largely abstract instead of concrete, and often taught by professors who have had little or no actual experience in pastoral work. What sort of physicians would a medical school run on like lines produce?

Why should the seminaries teach even what sermon building they do and give no time to church music when in the average service the music occupies as much time as the sermon ? Rev. Dr. Steele in a lecture before the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1894 said that he was "Almost tempted to say that the chair of music is vastly superior in practical importance to any chair in the seminary." Back in 1817 Andover Seminary had the right idea. In its statutes occurred the following: "As it is proper for those who are to preside in the assemblies of God's people to possess themselves of so much skill and taste in this sublime art as at least to distinguish between those solemn move