or by calling out forbearance and patience where needed. If a new member enters the choir, it may require a little social pertinacity to secure for him or her the standing with older members that is so desirable, especially if the newcomer is timid and retiring. The choir leader cannot hope to do this quiet social work alone. He needs the keen social diplomacy of woman to help him, and the more there are of her willing to aid in the development of this kindly social relation in the choir, the more certain is success.

But this work under the surface should find its culmination in a more public way. If the pastor or choir leader is prepared to do so, he can give an occasional reception in his own home. In general these should be absolutely informal affairs, although at rare intervals a more elaborate reception, including friends of the choir, or even the whole congregation, may add to the dignity of this social phase of the choir's work. The important thing in these social gatherings is that those who attend shall enjoy themselves, and go home more thoroughly interested and attached to the choir. The details must be left to grow out of the local situation. In some places, a more or less ambitious musical program will be desirable. In others, a little forethought for general plays and games that will amuse will be wiser. Anything innocent and worthy that will interest and entertain will be in place.

But these social gatherings need not be confined to the home of the pastor or of the leader. It will add much to the general good and pleasure if other members of the choir open the doors of their homes. Indeed, if some other member of the congregation outside of the choir should have this hospitable impulse and give the choir a pleasant evening, the social effect will be even more in

spiring, as it will be an expression of appreciation of the choir's work by the church. A little quiet diplomacy, by indirect suggestion at second or even third hand, will easily secure these outside opportunities.

In addition to these, there may be excursions by the choir as a whole to neighbouring towns or cities to attend some important musical performance, picnics in the summer-time, sleighing parties and hay wagon rides in the winter, and other like informal festivities.

This development of general kindliness and of the sense of personal relation and responsibility bears directly upon the work of the choir. It will actually sing better for it. There will be a unity of feeling, an enthusiasm, a singleness of purpose, that a less genial choir cannot hope to achieve. The influence will also be felt by the congregation, who will be more responsive to the songs of praise and devotion rendered by the choir, and this social unity will enable the choir to realize the consummate flower of beauty and impressiveness which it would otherwise miss.

Even the most unmusical pastor can be a very tower of strength on the social side of the choir life. His occasional visits to the rehearsals may be productive of great good in this difficult phase of the choir's activities. He can suppress unfortunate remarks made by indiscreet or ill-natured singers. He can carry kindly expressions from one to the other. He can suggest and plan little merry occasions that will sweeten the social atmosphere. By a little finesse he can secure social recognition for the choir as a whole outside of its ranks. In a thousand little ways, he can help to fill the life of the choir with kindliness and good-will.

IX

THE SELECTION OF THE MUSIC

NE of the most important phases of choir work is the selection of the music to be rendered, and I will be pardoned if I refer to it again at greater length. No other of the choir leader's many responsibilities is quite so far-reaching in its influence as this. On it depends the spirit with which the choir takes up its work in the rehearsal, and the measure not only of the artistic, but, what is more important, of the spiritual success that is to be achieved. It should be taken up with great seriousness and extreme care.

Before reaching a final conclusion the capability of each composition should be thoroughly understood, and all the conditions to be met carefully considered. To look over twenty-five pieces of music in as many minutes, and to select what is to be sung for weeks to come, is a wasteful economy of time. Account of too many things is to be taken to dispatch the selection in such haste. It may be well to call in the organist and to spend a whole evening playing and talking over the samples that have been secured. The pastor's plans for the coming weeks should be learned and studied. A selection of new music varied in style and subject should be kept in reserve for possible emergencies. In this way there is no danger of any serious blunder being made in the selection.

In choosing the music it is important that the capacity

of the choir be carefully considered. A quartet, no matter how cultivated, has no business to undertake a definitely chorus anthem. This mistake has been made in my hearing by several of the finest quartets in New York City, and the result in each case was pitifully inadequate, emphasized as it was by the registration of the organist, which entirely suited the music, but drowned out the poor soloists who were trying to play the rôle of a full chorus.

Of course, the contrary mistake can also be made, for many a beautiful quartet requiring delicacy of interpretation in the individual voices would be ruined by the heavy treatment of a chorus choir.

If a number has one or more solos, the point is to be raised whether the voices adapted to them are to be found in the choir.

A choir may have some excellent readers and singers, but the body of them may be very slow to take up anything elaborate or difficult. Here the general average must rule. It is poor policy to select music that the choir cannot render well with a moderate amount of study, no matter how classical it may be, and how much it would raise the reputation of the leader and choir for singing high grade music. An easy anthem by Ashford, Schnecker, or Geibel, sung with the consciousness of full mastery, is worth for devotional purposes a dozen full anthems by Smart or Gounod wretchedly bungled and butchered. Of course, it is well now and then, on special occasions, to brace up the choir with something more ambitious, and to take the time to conquer it completely.

The capacity of the congregation to understand music is another important consideration. To sing an anthem by Danks to a highly cultivated audience, accustomed

to hear the most artistic music in the world in the concert room, would be as foolish as to render a Bach Passion cantata to a rural congregation of few musical privileges. Meat for the mature and strong, and milk for the babes, is the general rule that is as sensible in church music as it is in graded readers for the public schools. In a paper read before a church congress, Mr. Barnby maintained "that the music of every church must be such as the congregation can appreciate-that in fact the musical ability of the church must be the standard of selection."

It is not merely a question of grade of difficulty, but one of the modes of thought due to different education. A thoroughly popular American congregation will enjoy emphatic rhythms that would actually be offensive to another congregation of perhaps the same grade of general intelligence, made up largely of German or English immigrants accustomed to a more sedate and conventional style of church music. The type of piety has also much to do with it: a stirring, aggressive, emotional Methodist congregation demands an entirely different style from its neighbouring equally pious but more staid and decorous Lutheran church.

The temporary moods of the congregation should also be studied and an effort made to give them appropriate expression or needed treatment. In times of prosperity the anthems should breathe a spirit of thanksgiving and praise; when an unusual spiritual interest pervades the people, care should be taken to have texts making much of Jesus Christ and the soul's relations with Him; if a missionary enthusiasm is moving the leaders of the church, anthems sympathizing with this aggressive attitude should be selected; should there be an unusual amount of affliction and sorrow in the congregation, something express