Sacra canunt.”
When, at the command of Nehemias, on the return of the captive Jews from Babylon, sacrifice was solemnly offered after their custom in Jerusalem, the priests, it is said (2 Machab. i. 30), sang psalms until the burnt-offering was wholly consumed. Nor is it the whole truth to say that this sacrificial chant has passed over in its more perfect reality to the Christian Church, but even in the Song of Heaven among the redeemed, the sacrificial character still continues, a point well worthy of the notice of those who are so confident that the type of the modern music is alone that which is found in heaven. “And they [the twenty-four ancients] sang a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book and open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.”
If, then, the ideas which suggest themselves and arise naturally on reflecting upon what, in the nature of things, would be the type and character of the Christian sacrificial chant; if these ideas find themselves absorbed, then expressed, embodied, and brought out into life and being in the music of the ecclesiastical chant; and if, on the other hand, they are not to be found in the variety of modern compositions such as are now in partial use;[141] if it be possible to conceive our Lord’s apostles, upon the supposition that they could return to the earth, standing up in any church of Christendom to sing the song of the Ritual in honor of the Holy Sacrifice, and in company with the celebrant priest;[142] and if there be something obviously unbecoming in the mere thought of their taking bass or tenor in such music as that of Mozart’s or Haydn’s masses, neither of which will be denied; then, I think, it is not extravagant to infer that the Plain Chant of the Ritual is far the most adequate fulfilment of that part of the divine idea which contemplates Christian music as a sacrificial song.
II. Fitness for the Offices of the Church.
With regard to the fitness of the ecclesiastical chant for the offices of the church, it must be remarked, that the ideas of the modern musician touching the use of music in the church are very widely removed from those of the fathers of the church. In their idea, a church-singer would somewhat answer to what would be a ballad-singer in the world, inasmuch as he has a great deal to convey to his hearers in the way of narrative. Almighty God has been pleased to work many wonderful works, and the fathers of the church appointed singers for the churches, to celebrate these works in song, in order that the people who came to worship, or even the heathens who came as spectators, might hear and learn something of the works of the Lord Jehovah, into whose house they had come. What can be more reasonable than this? “My song shall be of all thy marvellous works,” says the Psalmist. But, according to the notions of a modern musician, if a Brahmin priest, or the Turkish ambassador, were to come to Mass, and to hear a choral performance, in which the concord of voices should be most ravishingly beautiful, but in which not a single one of the marvellous works of God could be understood from the concert, he is still to consider that he has heard the perfection of Christian music, and ought, according to them, to go away converted. Out of two so contradictory notions one must necessarily be chosen as the one which best answers to the divine idea. And if persons are prepared to say that the ideas of the fathers are become antiquated, and that they would have acted differently had they known better, they are certainly called upon to make this good.
But, in the meantime, it will be both reasonable and pious to acquiesce in the belief that the fathers acted in conformity with the divine idea, and under the direction of God’s Holy Spirit, in appointing a song for the church, in which the marvellous and merciful works of God might be set forth in a charming, becoming, and perfectly intelligible manner, for the instruction of the people. A serious person, when he goes into the house of God, is supposed to go there with the intention of learning something respecting God, and it is to be supposed that Almighty God desires to see every church in such a condition as that the people who frequent it may learn all that they need to know respecting God and his works. To this use the fathers employed chant, and considered that it was, by the will of God, to be employed to this end. If any candid and serious person will take the trouble to examine the language and sentiments of the Ritual apart from its musical notation, he will be struck with it as a complete manual of popular theology. He will see that it is full of the works of God, the knowledge of which is the food of the faithful soul, particularly among the poor and the unlearned. Next let him examine its notation in song, as contained in the Gradual and Antiphonary, and he will be struck with a solemnity, beauty, and force of melody fitted to convey to the people the words of inspiration, to which melody was annexed in order that they might be the better relished, and pass current the more easily. And lastly, let him consider them, in both these respects, as forming one united whole, and he cannot refuse to acknowledge the fitness of the chant which the fathers selected for the purpose they had in view. Musicians must be equitable enough to abstain from complaining of a work on the score of its unisonous recitative character, if they will not be at the pains to understand or to sympathize with the end for which it was formed and destined. Have the fathers ever troubled themselves to criticise what was innocent and allowable in the world’s music? Then why should musicians go out of the way to find imaginary faults with that of which they seem indisposed to consider either the use or the efficacy? The church chant was framed generations before they and their art were known; and it has helped to train up whole nations in the faith, and fulfilled its end to the unbounded satisfaction of the fathers, who adopted, enlarged, and consolidated it into the form in which it has come down to us, and may therefore claim a truce to such criticism.
But here, again, the comparison fails for want of a competitor, and we are again brought back to the fact that the works of modern art embrace too small a fraction of the whole Liturgy to be in a condition to challenge any comparison. And could the comparison be admitted, it would still remain to insist on the equally certain truth of experience that the idea of a lengthened and continual recitation of the works of God, intended to be popularly intelligible, is one unsuited to the employment on any great scale of even the simplest counterpoint vocal harmonies, and fundamentally averse to the prevailing use of the canon and fugue of modern musical science.
RESPECTIVE FITNESS TO PASS AMONG THE PEOPLE AS A CONGREGATIONAL SONG.
Upon this point of the comparison the result, I think, will be tolerably obvious, if it be admitted that the divine idea contemplates the chant of the church as designed to pass to some considerable extent among the people in the form of congregational singing. It will not, however, be out of place to show briefly on what grounds this assumption rests.
1. Almighty God has created in people a strong love for congregational psalmody, and has attached to it peculiar feelings possessed of an influence far more powerful for good than the somewhat isolated pleasure that the musician feels on hearing beautiful artificial music, inasmuch as congregational singing is a common voice of prayer and praise; and being, as Christians, members one of another, in congregational psalmody we gain a foretaste of heaven, where it will be far more perfect.