dull, heavy book, because it is supposed to represent a higher literary and musical standard.

The school should have a regular leader for its music. That leader may be the superintendent, if he is musically competent. This arrangement has many great advantages in its favour: there is more unity of purpose; the superintendent is already in the saddle and is free to use many expedients to add interest, and to take extra time occasionally for practice, or for exploiting a song, that a minor official would not feel warranted in doing. Of course, the superintendent who is really capable is the exception, not the rule.

Whoever the leader is, official or unofficial, he ought to be master of the situation. This is even more true in a Sunday-school than in a miscellaneous congregation. It takes pronounced, live leadership to hold the mercurial attention of the children. Moreover, children, even more than grown people, enjoy being in the grip of a masterful will. They will bear criticism, scolding, even abuse, but they will not bear dull helplessness or flabbiness of character.

The more surprises a chorister can spring on his school, the more unusual and unexpected methods he can use to make his share of the service fresh and unhackneyed, the greater will be the interest aroused, and, therefore, the more general will be the participation of the school. Some phases of Sunday-school work will bear a certain amount of routine without suffering, but its music never!

Owing to the markedly rhythmical character of Sunday-school music, the piano is a better instrument for accompaniment than the organ. A combination of the two will be found quite effective. The difficulty in that

case is to keep the piano in tune with the organ, the variations of temperature during the winter making a certain variation of pitch in the former instrument almost inevitable.

If orchestral instruments can be secured in addition to the piano, they will add richness and colour to the general effect. Stringed instruments and wood wind instruments, such as flutes, clarinets, and oboes, are always desirable in any reasonable number. The same is not true of the brass wind instruments, which unfortunately are more common. A school or congregation must be exceedingly large to call for more than one cornet. In a recent meeting of some two thousand men eight cornets scattered throughout the house were effective when every one sang, but when less familiar songs were sung the effect was strident and overpowering. If this was true in a meeting of strong men, how much more would it be true in a school four-fifths of which is made up of women and children.

In your zeal to build up your music do not make the quite common mistake of drowning out the singing of the school by excessive instrumental support. Where a competent precentor is leading, it may be well to provide a few more violins and clarinets, or flutes, and, if really needed, an extra cornet. In general, avoid making the instruments obtrusive and prominent. It is the human voice that creates the desired unity of spirit and generates enthusiasm.

VII

THE CHURCH ORGAN

NE musical burden after the other has been laid upon the minister's back: is there danger of the proverbial straw, if I emphasize his responsibility for the work of the organist? Yet that often exasperating potentate is too essential a part of public service to be neglected. If he is the mere accompanist of the vocal music, his importance is not so great, as he becomes simply a part of the general complex we call the choir, and is under the immediate direction of the choir director. When he plays preludes, offertories, and even interludes, he is no longer a negligible quantity.

In his prelude he becomes the temporary chairman whose duty it is to announce the purpose of the meeting. Is it to bring tender worship to a loving God and comfort to His buffeted and harassed children, the soft strains of the opening voluntary will quiet the minds and—may I say it? the nerves of the mob of strenuous people who have gathered. Has the minister a call to the reverent contemplation of some sublime aspect of the divine nature, the majestic pealing of the organ will weld the unorganized multitude into one body full of solemn thought. Is there some great marshalling of forces for battle against some specific evil, the organist should pull out his trumpet stop and call to arms. No, this is not impracticable theorizing. The bands on the streets have

more sense of fitness and tact in adapting their music to the occasion than nine-tenths of our organists.

Thibaut, whose "Purity in Music" was highly commended by Robert Schumann, speaking of the effect of a good deal of organ playing, remarks, "The prelude unfits him (i. e., the hearer) for the chorale, and the intricate interlude goes a great way to distract his attention, and the sole aim of the concluding voluntary seems to be to obliterate the sermon and everything else."

The state of war, that often exists between an arbitrary, tactless parson and his self-sufficient, unteachable organist, is amusingly illustrated in Thibaut's volume quoted above. Thibaut himself says, "Really, it is above comprehension how the clergy have quietly borne the delinquencies of organists," to which his translator replies in a note, "It is to us quite incomprehensible how educated musicians have so meekly put up with the insolence of unmusical and bigoted clergymen." Really, both have my sympathy, in spite of the fact that both are at fault. The clergyman is too domineering and too dogmatic regarding details, the organist too self-important over his technical skill, and too narrow in his views and sympathies, to comprehend the subordination of his share of the service to the more important general purpose in view. It is the preacher's task, as presumably the broader and more sympathetic man, to prevent such an ecclesiastical war by establishing the sympathetic coöperation through which alone the right results can be obtained.

If the minister will calm a noisy congregation and announce the opening voluntary as a part of the service, he will accomplish several important results: encourage the organist and give him a higher sense of the meaning of his work; impress the congregation with the fact that

the instrumental prelude is an integral part of the service, and secure the attention of the hearer to what ought to have a valuable preparatory and solemnizing effect upon his mind and heart.

If the opening service has been carefully prepared in order to produce an attitude worshipful towards God and responsive to the preacher's message, is it wise to allow the organist five minutes in which to play "any old thing" as an offertory just before the sermon? The minister should not dictate the particular voluntary to be played, but he should notify the organist each week just what type of composition he should like to have played just before his sermon. The organist need have no sense of meddling, if it is done in a kindly, appreciative, tactful way. He ought to be made to feel that such a supervision is a recognition of the value of his work.

Many a service is marred by the organist's playing of the hymn tunes. Instead of a mere fragment of the tune ending in a perfect or imperfect cadence, ample to establish the tonality and movement and to suggest the tune that is to be sung, valuable time is wasted in playing over the whole tune. Often it is played so rapidly as to mislead the congregation regarding the time in which it is to be sung, or with such elaborate and recondite harmonies as to leave no impression on the minds of the congregation as to the tonality. If the whole tune is played, the only excuse for the waste of time is that it shall serve as a model to remind the congregation how it is to be sung. The registration and tempo will indicate the spirit in which the congregation is to sing the hymn.

A very unmusical and offensive habit of announcing the beginning of a stanza has become quite the conventionally proper thing. I refer to the sounding of the first