‘Untwisting all the links that tie
The hidden soul of harmony,’
it tinges the emotions with its own hues, whether plaintive or joyous; and it fosters in the heart the sentiment which it conveys, whether it be love of country or of God, admiration of noble achievement, or of devoted and self-sacrificing affection.
The power of music to fix in the memory the sentiment with which it is connected, and to foster it in the heart, has been understood in all ages of the world. Some of the early legislators wrote their laws in verse, and sang them in public places; and many of the earliest sketches of primitive history are in the measures of lyric poetry. In this manner the memory was aided in retaining the facts; the ear was invited to attend to them; imagination threw around them the drapery of beauty, dignity, or power; and then music conveyed the sentiment, and mingled it with the emotions of the soul. It was in view of the power of music, when united with sentiment adapted to affect the heart, that one has said: ‘Permit me to write the ballads of a nation, and I care not who makes her laws.’
When the effects of music and poetry upon the soul are considered, we can perceive their importance as means of fostering the Christian virtues in the soul of the believer. They should be used to convey to the mind sublime and elevating conceptions of the attributes of Jehovah; to impress the memory with the most affecting truths of revelation, and especially to cherish in the heart tender and vivid emotions of love to Christ, in view of the manifestations of Divine justice and mercy exhibited in his ministry, his passion, and his sacrifice.[41]
[41] ‘The proper drapery for music is truth. It is its only apparel, whether as applied to God, or as used for the cultivation of man.’—Erasmus. [Back]
There cannot be found, in all the resources of thought, material which would furnish sentiment for music so subduing and overpowering as the history of redemption. There is the life of Jesus—a series of acts Godlike in their benevolence, connected at times with exhibitions of Divine power and of human character, in their most affecting aspects. And as the scenes of Christ’s eventful ministry converge to the catastrophe, there is the tenderness of his love for the disciples, the last supper, the scene in Gethsemane; the Mediator in the hall of judgment, exhibiting the dignity of truth and conscious virtue amidst the tempest of human passion by which he is surrounded. Then the awful moral and elemental grandeur of the crucifixion; the Saviour, nailed to the cross by his own creatures, crying, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;’ and then, while darkness shrouds the sun, and ‘nature through all her works gives signs of woe,’ he cries, ‘It is finished, and gave up the ghost.’ Thus did the dark stream of human depravity roll,
‘Till a rainbow broke upon its gloom,
Which spanned the portals of the Saviour’s tomb.’
Such exhibitions of sublimity and power, when clothed with the influence of music, and impressed upon a heart rendered sensitive by Divine influence, are adapted to make the most abiding and blessed impressions.
‘My heart, awake!—to feel is to be fired;
And to believe, Lorenzo, is to feel.’
It follows, from the preceding views, that in selecting the means to impress the mind with religious truth, and the heart with pious sentiment, music and poetry could not be neglected. There is not in nature another means which would compensate for the loss of their influence. We do not mean to say that their influence is as great as some other means in impressing the truths of revelation upon the soul; but their influence is peculiar and delightful, and without it the system of means would not be perfect.