“In vain will it be said that this is the work of one of the greatest masters, that it is a scientific and a sublime composition; it may be all this for the world—it is nothing at all of this for the church. And especially when this worldly music, by its thrilling cadences or impassioned character, leads directly to light ideas, sensual satisfactions, and dangerous recollections, it is not only a contradiction in the house of God, but a formal scandal.” (Instruction Pastorale, p. 45)
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.
A LEGEND OF THE RHINE.
It is now many years since, during a summer ramble, I found myself at A——k, now nothing more than a hamlet in population, but retaining traces of having once been a place of very considerable importance, and boasting of very remote antiquity. The remains of the wall are, indeed, locally attributed to the Romans, probably because they are lofty and very strong, and it is the habit of ignorant people to refer all great works to that wonderful people. In this instance, however, tradition is certainly wrong, as the walls bear unmistakable evidence of mediæval origin, being in parts much enriched with Gothic work.
The little town stands on a plateau enclosed between a bend of the Rhine and the steep bluff on which the ruins of an old castle stand perched, equally watching the little burgh below and the counterpart castle on the opposite side of the Rhine at its next bend.
The eagles that once lived in and sought their prey from that lofty nest have long since crumbled into dust and have even passed from the memory of man, leaving for sole representatives the choughs and the crows, and perhaps a jolly old owl to keep up revelry at night.
The horses that those old knights rode must have been of a sure-footed breed, for it is hard to conceive how any quadruped, save a goat, could have mounted the path I scrambled up among the vines; but it is with the village and the village church that we have to do.
Who built the Rhine churches?