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

LET ALL THE PEOPLE SING.
no real idea whatsoever, thus sparing them, mercifully, something of the moral degradation which they certainly would
suffer if as highly cultivated in art as their masters.
Think of a St. Chrysostom, with his pastoral staff in hand,
walking into one of these profaned sanctuaries and repeating
his old sermon: "My beloved children, we ought to go out
from our churches as if from a holy sanctuary, as if fallen from
heaven. Let it be present to your mind at what mysteries it has
been granted to you to assist; how you are initiated; wit/ whom
you offer the mystic song, with whom you chant the thrice holy hymn.
Teach the profane in the world that you keep choir with seraphim, that you belong to a celestial people, that you are inscribed
in the choir of angels, that you have spoken with the Lord and
kept company with Christ" (St. Chrysostom, tom. v. horn.
i6). God send us some golden-mouthed orator of to-day from
whose lips might fall upon the ears of his flock the language of
the great and holy bishop of Constantinople! When I say us
my prayer is directed more especially for our own song-deprived but most faithful and obedient people, to whom we have but
to say, It is the will of God, and they run to do it. With such
a willing-hearted people, we ought to have been the first of all
the nations to carry off the honor of taking the lead in this truly
apostolic work. Bult we must fain content ourselves with being second.
In a discourse preached in the cathedral of Aix, in France,
but a very few years ago, the pastor is reported to have said:
"Expecting with confidence the perfection of what we have
begun, let me congratulate~you all upon the success we have
already achieved in this work of regeneration, and particularly
that the whole people have promptly united in it. Following
the mind of the church, and moved by the inspired words of the
apostle, Loquentes vobismetipsis in psalmnis, we have, as you know,
introduced in our cathedral the custom of having the people
sing at the divine offices. And to-day, as you hear, everybody
(taut le monde) takes part in the sacred song of praise. The
nave responds to the choir, and the saying of the poet Fortunatus
is realized:
"' Pontificis monitis, psallit plebs, clerus et infans!'"
Just here I think I may pause and leave my friendly antagonist to "think well on't." ALFRED YOUNG.
i 887.]
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