2. There are obvious benefits arising from it. It is an union of prayer and praise, and as such is more powerful with God. It kindles in the individual a livelier sense of Christian fellowship. It is a voice that expresses the union of the many members in the one body; many voices, one sound.
3. The argument from history. The worship of God has always been that of congregational psalmody; and where trained choirs of singers existed, their song was always such as to admit of the people at times taking part with them. This is an undeniable fact of history. “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord” (Exodus xv.) “Then sang Israel this song, Spring up, O well, sing ye unto it, etc.” (Numbers xxi. 17). The psalm CXXXV. was composed for the people to sing the chorus. The Book of Psalms is a kind of historical testimony, in many of its passages, to the fact of that congregational song to which it so often exhorts. Fleury, in his History of the Manners of the Jews and Christians (page 143), acknowledges congregational song as a fact among both. He cites the testimony of S. Basil, that all the people in his time sang in the churches—men, women, and children—and he compares their voices to the waters of the sea. S. Gregory of Nazianzen compares them to thunder. But it is impossible to conceive such to have been the practice both of Jews and Christians, without inferring that it was so with the approbation of Almighty God.
4. The apostles and the fathers of the church have sanctioned it. “Teaching and admonishing yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with melody in your hearts unto the Lord” (Col. iii. 16).
“Wherefore, since these things are so, let us with the more confidence give ourselves to the work of song, considering that we have obtained a great grace of Almighty God, to whom it has been given, in company with so many and so great saints, the prophets, and the martyrs, to celebrate the marvellous works of the eternal God.”—An old author in the first volume of Gerbert’s Scriptores Musici.
“Quocunque te vertis, arator stivam tenens Alleluia decantat, sudans messor Psalmis se evocat, et curva attollens vitem falce vinator aliquid Davidicum cantat. Hæc sunt in provincia nostra carmina, hæc ut vulgo dicitur amatoriæ cantationes, hic pastorum sibilus, hæc arma culturæ.”—“Wherever you turn, the laborer at his plough sings an alleluia; the reaper sweating under his work refreshes himself with a psalm: the vinedresser in his vineyard will sing a passage from the Psalmist. These are the songs of our part of the world. These are, as people say, our love-songs. This is the piping of our shepherds, and these are the arms of our laborers.”—S. Jerome, Epist. 17 ad Marcellum.
“Alas!” observes Mgr. Parisis, upon this passage of S. Jerome, “where are now the families who seek to enliven the often dangerous leisure of long winter’s evenings with the songs of the Catholic Liturgy; where are the workshops in which an accent may be heard borrowed from the remembrance of our divine offices; where are the country parishes which are edified and rejoiced by the sweet and pious sounds which in the times of S. Jerome echoed through the fields and vineyards?”[143]
S. Augustine: “As for congregational psalmody, what better employment can there be for a congregation of people met together, what more beneficial to themselves, or more holy and well-pleasing to God, I am wholly unable to conceive?”—Letter to Januarius, towards the end.
A passage of S. Chrysostom, exhorting the people to psalmody, will be found elsewhere. It is unnecessary to do more than to refer to the example of S. Basil and S. Ambrose, encouraging their people in the same manner; to which may be added a passage from the life of S. Germanus:
“Pontificis monitis, psallit plebs, clerus et infans.”
Venantius, vita S. Germani.