And the deep closed o’er that bright crest for ever.
Aubrey de Vere.
THE ROMAN RITUAL AND ITS CHANT
COMPARED WITH THE WORKS OF MODERN MUSIC.
II.—CONCLUDED.
VALUE AS A MEDIUM OR VEHICLE OF DIVINE TRUTH AMONG THE PEOPLE.
Popular national songs with their melodies are not, either in point of poetry or music, very elaborate or classical works of art. Consummate art is incapable of passing among a people, and must ever remain confined to the initiated and the connoisseur; yet national songs are not only characteristic of all people, but fulfil a very important function. They not only foster and preserve the national spirit, of which they are the expression, but also keep up, by tradition among the people, a knowledge of the history of their race, and of the exploits and noble deeds of its great men. In a word, the songs of a people have an influence over the growth of their moral character which it is not easy to overestimate, and which was well known to that statesman who was heard to say that they who have the making of a people’s songs will soon have the making of their laws; a sentiment fully confirmed by the proverb, “Qui mutat cantus, mutat mores.”
The above remarks, much too brief to put the importance of the ideas contained in them in their proper light, seem to issue in the conclusion that the song of the Christian kingdom will be necessarily something very different from an elaborate work of musical genius.
When our divine Redeemer lifted up his eyes, and beheld the multitudes going astray as sheep without a shepherd, he was moved with compassion. Surely in his judgment sacred song will be deemed to fulfil its mission when it passes current among the people, is domesticated in the laboring man’s cottage among his children, and there teaches the family the knowledge of their Saviour’s life and sufferings, of their redemption by these from sin, and the death of the world to come. Sacred song will, in his compassionate eyes, fulfil its mission of mercy when it takes up the words of eternal Wisdom, and puts them in the mouth of the people as a charm against the maxims of a world declared by the Word of God to be “lying in wickedness,” and as a shield against the assaults of a tempter, said in the same Word “to be ever going about seeking whom he may devour.” It will fulfil its mission when it enters into the heart and soul of the people, accompanies the departed with a requiem as man goeth to his long home and the mourners go about the streets, when it administers comfort to the survivors, while it bids them not to sorrow as they that have no hope, and, in a word, weeps with them that weep, and rejoices with them that do rejoice. Nor let it be said that this is a romantic notion—the making out of the earth an ideal paradise. Surely the actual and adequate fulfilment of such a mission of sacred song belongs to the idea of the mission of the Son of God, sent by the Father to re-establish order, piety, and sanctity on the earth. But what if this idea was not only familiar to the fathers, but that they actually saw the progress of its accomplishment?
“There is no need here,” says S. Chrysostom, exhorting his people to take part in the church chant, “of the artist’s skill, which requires length of time to bring to perfection. Let there be but a good will and a ready mind, and the result will soon be sufficient skill. There is no absolute need even of time or place, for in every place or time one may sing with the mind. Though you be walking in the Forum, or are on a journey, or are seated with your friends, the mind may be on the alert, and find for itself an utterance. It was thus that Moses cried, and God heard. If you are an artisan, you may sing Psalms as you sit laboring in your workshop; you may do the same if you are a soldier, or a judge seated on his bench” (Hom. on Ps. iv.)