the more powerful is the common and the individual responsiveness. The more powerful the opening impression, unless it comes as a violent shock, the more closely are the bonds of unity knit. The opening music, therefore, is not the negligible matter it is usually considered to be. This is simply one of the many phases of the psychology of the mob which need to be carefully studied by the public worker. Music may be used to set in motion and so to make responsive the tract of the sensibilities in which lie the particular emotions the following address is intended to arouse. The mind is impressed with the nervous effect produced by the music and responds with a vague contentless emotion that demands some definite tangible cause. If it is not furnished, the mind will go off into fancies and dreams and reminiscences, seeking for some object, thought, or experience justifying the nervous impression and the induced emotion. If the mind in this eager search meets the appropriate mental impression in the succeeding exercises or in the address, the welcome is hearty and unreserved. There is eager attention and complete responsiveness of mind. An aggressively rhythmical prelude prepares the way for a stirring hymn of decision; the effect of both is heightened by an anthem full of life and vigour. By this time the nerves of the hearer have been exhilarated, his feelings of joy, courage, and aggressiveness have been vaguely roused and are clamouring for the fitting discourse on moral reform, church work or missionary duty which will justify their activity. The recognition of the fitting cause of emotion so fills with thought and purpose what had been a mere indeterminate feeling, that it transforms it into an intelligent emotion having power over conscience and will. It remains for the speaker to fan the fire already burning in the soul, a vastly easier task than to start it. A strong, convincing sermon makes a deep impression upon the emotions of the hearer; those emotions in turn affect the nervous system. Both the nervous impression and the emotion urgently demand an articulate expression in some way. When opportunity is given by the playing of expressive music, by a solo, or an anthem by the choir, or, better yet, by an appropriate hymn sung by the hearers themselves, the emotional result of the sermon is greatly increased and intensified. Indeed, where the address has appealed chiefly to the intellect, and apparently has stirred the emotions but slightly, the use of proper music will often bring the latent emotion up into consciousness and increase it greatly. This emotionalizing of an abstract discourse, lacking in appeal to the feelings, is one of the most effective offices of music. The manner in which music produces results preparatory to the sermon, and its intensification of the sermon's effect, has been dwelt upon. But that is a rather narrow view of the service. Let us study the manner in which music affects what is to be a worshipful service. Worship is the recognition of the infinite greatness and perfection of the Divine Being, an emotion of awe and reverence, a deliberate act of the will subordinating itself utterly to the divine will. In a mind given to abstract conceptions free from emotional realization, there is danger that so great an idea shall have no emotional response. Music may stimulate this flagging emotion and hence we open our service with a slow, massive prelude that shall calm and depress the nerves and so prepare the mind for the feeling of awe. But this vague, oppressive sensation is not worship. I quote from Richard Storrs Willis a passage in which he clearly develops this thought: "A solemn feeling is not worship. Such a feeling is the result of architectural or artistic causes. A person, for instance, has entered a cathedral; he is awed by the grandeur and solemn hush of the place. He yields to an irresistible feeling of solemnity and afterwards goes away and feels, perhaps, as though he had worshipped. Not so. He has merely indulged in what might be called architectural awe. Such a feeling is a legitimate effect of elevated art. The place and the supreme object of worship lie higher than mere architecture, or music, or painting, artistically enjoyed, can bear the soul. For in the enjoyment of natural scenery, we are recipients; the mind, therefore, is in a passive state. Whereas, in worship, the mind is in an active state." Dr. Dickinson of Oberlin in his in many ways very admirable book, "The History of Music in the Western Church," falls into the snare of purely academic thinking and narrows his view to the tastes and mental interests of his own scholarly class. Yet at the last he does recognize the unmoral and applied character of church music and states it very clearly: "Music, even the noblest and purest, is not always or necessarily an aid to devotion, and there may even be a snare in what seems at first a devoted ally. The analogy that exists between religious emotion and musical rapture is, after all, only an analogy ; æsthetic delight, although it be the most refined, is not worship; the melting tenderness that often follows a sublime instrumental or choral strain is not contrition. Those who speak of all good music as religious do not understand the meaning of the terms they use. For devotion is not a mere vague feeling of longing or transport." At the close of a majestic prelude, therefore, the congregation is not in a worshipful attitude; it is simply oppressed with a vague feeling analogous to awe. Only in so far as the time and place suggest to some individuals the idea of the Divine Being, may there be the beginnings of a genuine awe and reverence. As the organist now plays over Old Hundredth as a prelude to the singing of the doxology, the words are remembered and the ideas of God and of the homage due Him come in to give definite character to what had been an indefinable, passive sensation, and begins its transformation into genuine awe and reverence. As the hearer joins with the rest in the praise and adoration, his will gives its assent to the exercise and at last he is actually worshipping. If the following invocation is sincerely devout and expresses fitly the hearer's feeling and purpose it deepens the emotions already existing in the heart. According to the varying personal equation, the hearer is now prepared for the hymn that follows. It may be the majestic verses of Watts: "Before Jehovah's awful throne, Ye nations, bow with sacred joy ; He can create, and He destroy." Here the feelings of majesty and awe, prepared for by the stately prelude, are brought into definite consciousness by the doxology, are deepened by the invocation, and find stimulus in the noble character of the words of the hymn, in the elevation of the music, in the personal participation in the singing, and especially in the fact of their clear expression. An appropriate psalm of praise read by the pastor, or read responsively, will further ac centuate the devout feeling of the people and so prepare the way for the culmination of worship in the pastor's prayer. The music has furnished only the nervous preparation and the physical emotion, if I may so phrase it, while the words of the doxology, the invocation, the hymn, the Scripture reading and the prayer supplied the intelligent emotion. The music has prepared the way for the other exercises and they in turn have intensified the effect of the music. It would be interesting, it even might be profitable, to attempt a series of studies in the nervous and emotional development of a service. But I refrain, preferring to leave each minister to work them out for himself on the basis of the resources he has at hand. This vagueness of the nervous impression and its induced movement of the sensibilities can be made very useful in the substitution of related emotions. A man's love to his mother and to his Maker are very closely related in character. The nervous impression is practically the same, although the latter may have (depending on the thoughtfulness of the subject) a greater degree of depression, due to the greater awe involved. If we wish to develop love for the Divine Being in an unconverted person, we begin by appealing to his filial affection. Tender and soothing music may precede the calling up of childish reminiscences or the touching anecdote. Or a solo, such as " My Mother's Prayer," or "Tell Mother I'll be There," in which music coöperates with the words in making a nervous and an emotional impression, will be still more effective. The emotion and the nervous response to this fundamental social sensibility having been effective, it is not difficult to substitute in the hearer's mind the idea of God and His tender providence |