Fresh buds will blossom for their eyes at last,
And flowers dead, however sweet they were,
Are, like the whole of earth's dead treasures, past.
Church Music.[155]
I.
From the earliest times music has had a place in the public worship of all peoples—among the pagans, among the Jews, among Christians. Its use in this connection has been dictated by God himself in the act of constituting the human mind; it has, moreover, received his express sanction, as we learn from the ordinances of the Jewish people. In the new law it has even been consecrated by his own divine example, since we read that our Lord and his apostles sang hymns together. His birth was heralded to the world by the song of his angels, and heaven is represented to the Christian as a place where we shall sing for ever the praises of God.
Church music, therefore, dates from the origin of Christianity, and has constituted ever since an integral, though not an essential, part of public worship among Christians.
The church has her simple offices and her solemn offices, and she has made the use of music one of the chief marks by which they are distinguished.
Church music grew with the growth of the church. As Christians increased and prospered, music was more and more cultivated, and was more largely introduced into their solemn exercises of worship.