From the authorities we have adduced we get at the mind of the Church, and see that it is plainly adverse to the introduction of the modern style of music in our sacred offices, and we have not been able to find one instance where its use has been officially permitted in any particular diocese but with the utmost reluctance, and not without expressing at the same time an earnest wish that the old chant of the Church might be restored to its primitive universal use.
There is also a significant fact not unworthy our notice. Looking at the Protestant churches around us, we see that it is only in those which are fast losing their former hold upon some form of ritual in their religious meetings, that elaborate figured music is finding a home, and garbled portions of "the masses" of Mozart, Haydn, and other Catholic composers are being sung to a nauseating adaptation of English words: while, on the other hand, those which are with equally rapid advances returning to the bosom of unity with the Catholic Church are cultivating the Gregorian chant to a degree which ought to put us to the blush, and imitating, as best they may, the ecclesiastical and devout order of Catholic worship, and hold our figured and florid music in deserved contempt. Straws show which way the wind blows.
Sudden revolutions, however, are not to our mind; and we know something of the difficulties in the way of such a reform in the matter of church music as the Church evidently desires, and a general movement toward the ancient discipline which she would encourage and bless. Because we cannot do all in a day is no reason why we cannot do something in a week. In England, the clergy have taken the whole subject to heart, and have already accomplished wonders. There are many churches where the whole services are given entire. All that is prescribed de rigueur to be sung at Mass is sung. Vespers and Compline strictly according to the breviary are chanted in more than one church by the whole congregation. They have not entirely eliminated figured music, but are reducing it to its lowest terms.[87] Few churches are without their boy choirs, trained to sing the devout song of the sanctuary. The zealous Archbishop of Westminster has issued an order that no new church be opened in his diocese unless provision be made for a sanctuary choir. He has not thought it right, as he says, to enforce the orders of the former vicars apostolic, "Fœminæ voces ne audiantur in choro," yet he adds, "All that I can effect by the strongest expression of desire and by persuasion, I shall endeavor to effect."
Surely we can also do something toward aiding the Church in liberating herself from this captivity to an expression of her majestic offices so foreign to the true sound of her own voice. Looking back upon the days when the untiring voice of prayer was ascending to heaven from the holy sanctuaries of religion, when the festival days were kept and the faith was strong and the people devout, a faith and devotion due in a great measure to the sacredness of liturgical worship and the inspiration of the holy chants, may we not justly mourn the loss of this ancient fervor, and earnestly strive to awaken an interest in what, for so many good reasons, appears to hold more than an accidental relation to it?
We have no doubt that the coming Œcumenical Council will speak in yet stronger terms in favor of a reform so vital to the interests of religion in the whole world.
In subsequent articles we propose to consider some propositions made to ameliorate the present state of things, the characteristics of the Gregorian chant as the true song of the Church, and offer some hints as to the manner of its execution, and the means of obtaining and holding a permanent chorus of singers who shall make the divine praises resound in our consecrated Houses of Prayer in a manner more edifying to the faithful, and more becoming the Divine Majesty.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE ISLAND OF NEW YORK.[88]
THE COLONIAL DAYS.
The appearance of a new edition of the brief but valuable and attractive work which the present Bishop of Newark issued in 1853, is a matter of congratulation. The Catholics of New York City have a history in this land, and it is too little known. Bishop Bayley was the first to supply the want; he wrote, as the title-page shows, while still connected with the diocese of New York as secretary to the late distinguished archbishop; and of course with singular advantages for correctness of details and for a just view of his subject. We may here ask our readers to pause and look back with us at the early history of Catholicity in this busy metropolis, and trace the progress of the church from its small beginning toward its present development, when we behold it with its archbishop, its zealous and active secular clergy, its regular clergy, embracing Franciscans of the Observance and Capucins, Dominicans, Jesuits, Redemptorists, Priests of Mercy, Paulists; its various orders and congregations devoted to the instruction of youth, the care of the orphan, the foundling, the wayward and the erring, whom it shelters in its asylums, hospitals, and protectorates, with a Catholic Publication Society, and several publishing houses and journals.
This progress the Brief Sketch of Bishop Bayley enables us to trace down to the year 1853, his duties as bishop depriving him of the leisure needed to collect and arrange materials to continue it to the present time, by including an account of the progress since the work originally appeared. But even then, as the title shows, it professed to treat rather of the earlier history than of that which is almost contemporaneous.