The general growth in musical culture, which is so marked a feature of our time, should everywhere be made to contribute to the benefit of the Church. The teaching of music in the public schools should be a means of supplying the churches with efficient chorus singers. The Church must also offer larger inducements to musicians and musical students. Here we touch upon a most vital point. If the Church wants music that is worthy of her dignity, and which will help her to maintain the place she seeks to occupy in modern life, she must pay for it. The reason why so few students of talent are preparing themselves for work in the Church as organists and choir leaders is that the prospect of remuneration is too small to make this special study worth their while. The musical service of the Church is, therefore, in the vast majority of cases, in the hands either of amateurs or of musicians who are devoting themselves through the entire week to work which has nothing to do with the Church. A man who is trained wholly or chiefly as a pianist, and who gives his strength and time for six days to piano study and teaching, or a singer whose energy is mainly expended in private vocal instruction, can contribute little to the higher needs of Church music. It is not his fault; he must seek his income where he can find it. The service of the Church is a side issue, and receives the benefit which any cause must expect when it is given only the remnants of [408] interest and energy that are left over from a week’s hard labor. There is a host of young musicians to whom church work is exceedingly attractive. Let the Church magnify the importance of its musical service, and raise its salaries in proportion, and an abundant measure of the rising musical talent and enthusiasm will be ready at its call.
The musical problem of the non-liturgic Church in America is, therefore, not one of creation, but of administration. Whatever the mission of the Church is to be in our national life, the opportunities of its music are not to be less than of old, but greater. It is evident that the notion of conviction of sin and sudden conversion is gradually losing the place which it formerly held in ecclesiastical theory, and is being supplemented, if not supplanted, by the notion of spiritual nurture. The Church is finding its permanent and comprehensive task in alliance with those forces that make for social regeneration; no longer to separate souls from the world and prepare them for a future state of existence, but to work to establish the kingdom of God here on earth; not denying the rights of the wholesome human instincts, but disciplining and refining them for fraternal service. In this broader sphere art, especially music, will be newly commissioned and her benign powers utilized with ever-increasing intelligence. The Church can never recover the old musical leadership which was wrested from her in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by the opera, the choral society, and the concert system, but in the twentieth she will find means of coöperating with these institutions for the general welfare.
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The council of Carthage in the fourth century laid this injunction upon church singers: “See that what thou singest with thy lips thou believest in thy heart; and what thou believest in thy heart thou dost exemplify in thy life.” This admonition can never lose its authority; back of true church music there must be faith. There comes, however, to supplement this ancient warning, the behest from modern culture that the music of the sanctuary shall adapt itself to the complex and changing conditions of modern life, and while it submits to the pure spirit of worship it shall grow continually in those qualities which make it worthy to be honored by the highest artistic taste. For among the venerable traditions of the Church, sanctioned by the wisdom of her rulers from the time of the fathers until now, is one which bids her cherish the genius of her children, and use the appliances of imagination and skill to add strength and grace to her habitations, beauty, dignity, and fitness to her ordinances of worship.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
List of books that are of especial value to the student of church music, not including works on church history. Books that the author deems of most importance are marked by a star.
*Ambros. Geschichte der Musik, 5 vols. and index. Leipzig, Leuckart, 1880-1887.
*Archer and Reed (editors). The Choral Service Book. Philadelphia, General Council Publication Board, 1901.
*Bacon and Allen (editors). [The Hymns of Martin Luther set to their Original Melodies, with an English Version.] New York, Scribner, 1883.