Let all the People Sing [pp. 321-333]

LET ALL THE PEOPLE SING.
could they have foreseen the future, they would have shrunk
with horror.
Qui mutat cantus, mutat mores-" Whoso changes the song
of a people changes their morals." I assert that the change
which took away the religious song of the people was one of the
most prominent and effective causes to which their present igno rance of divine truth, the wide-spread depravation of Christian
spirituality amrnong the masses, and their lack of hearty, intelli gent devotion are due.
He can have read the history of the Catholic Church to little
purpose who does not know, and knowing lament, that the
lives of our common Catholic people of to-day are less permeated
with religion than those who lived in the day when all the peo ple knew the church song, and sang it with devout joy as well in
the church at the divine offices as at home anid at their work.
Indeed,.l do not hesitate to make the same comparison in favor
of those faithful people who to-day in a few places in old Catho lic countries still adhere to the ancient tradition. We plume our selves in this nineteenth century upon the general diffusion of
learning among all classes of people, but a St. Jerome or a St.
Augustine could not say of us, as they wrote about the common
people of their day: " Wherever you turn, the laborer at his
plough sings an allelmia; the reaper sweating under his work
refreshes himself with a psalm; the vine-dresser in his vineyard
wvill sing a passage from the Psalmist. These are the songs of
our part of the world. Thtese are, as people say, our love-songs"
(St. Jerome, Letter to Marcellus).
And St. Augustine in one of his letters: "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." And again: " Qui diligit canticum
Psalmorum non potest aiare peccatum "" Whoso likes the
assiduous singing of the Psalms cannot love sin."
St. Basil, speaking of the chiurch song in his day, thus eulogizes it: "Psalmody is the calm of the soul, the umpire of peace,
that sets at rest the storm and upheaving of the thoughts. It
quiets the turbulence of the mind, tempers its excesses, is the
bond of friendship, tihe union of the separated, the reconciler
of those at variance -for who can count him any longer as an
enemy with whom he has but once lifted up his voice to God?"
Again, St. Ambrose: "Psalmody is the blessing of the people, a thanksgiving of the multitude, the delight of an assembly
i 887.'1
323