Æneid, vi. 585.

A real thunderstorm interrupting one of these mimic tempests on the organ, makes one feel the profaneness of the imitation.”

Now, it is fair to ask, if the organ is to be the guardian of the sobriety and gravity of modern art, who is to keep the organ in order?

“Quis custodiet ipsum

Custodem?”

There were great abuses in the use of modern art at the Council of Trent. Yet the fathers of the council declined altogether to forbid its use. They tacitly allowed its continuance, as it had come into existence, and could not be removed without serious evils. And with regard to the favorable light in which its use was viewed by some of the bishops of that council, and by some other men of authority who have since spoken in its commendation, it should be borne in mind that all such commendation has had annexed to it the condition, provided that such music be grave and decent, that the meaning of the divine words be not disguised in it, and that it possess nothing in common with the theatre (Benedict XIV., Encyclical Letter). Of which conditions the subsequent history of the use of modern music in the church is, to say the least, a very inadequate fulfilment, as the ensuing testimony will show.

Bishop Lindanus, quoted in the same Encyclical Letter on the subject of church music, says: “I know that I have often been in churches where I have listened most attentively to learn what it was that was being sung, without being able to understand one single word.”

Salvator Rosa, the celebrated painter of the XVIIth century, gives the following account of the church music of his day—the middle of the century:

“An effeminate and lascivious music is the only thing that people at all care for. The race of musicians eats up all before it, and princes do not scruple to lay burdens on their subjects to glut them according to their desires. The churches are made to serve as nests for these owls. The Psalms become blasphemies in passing through the mouths of these wretches; and no scandal can equal that of the Mass and Vespers, barked, brayed, and roared by such fellows. The air is so filled with their bellowings that the church resembles Noah’s ark. At one time it is a Miserere sung to a chaconne (a sort of polka of that day); at another, some other part of the Office adapted to music in the style of a farce.” (Quoted in M. Danjou’s Revue de Musique, 3d year, page 119.)