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VINDICATION OF THE ORGAN

A REVIEW OF THE
BEV. DE. CANDLISH'S PUBLICATION

ENTITLED "THE OBGAN QUESTION."

BY THS

BEV. ALEXANDER CEOMAB, M^.

MINTSTEB 07 ST. OKOROE'S FBE8BTTSBIAN CH17BCH, LIVSBPOOL.

EDINBURGH:
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK.

MDCCCLVl.

TO THE

ELDERS, DEACONS, AND C0NGBE6ATI0N OF
ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH. LIVERPOOL.

My dear Friends — Allow me to inscribe
to you the following pages, intended as a
vindication of our conduct in seeking, with
such success, to obtain improvement in our
psalmody. The improvement of which you
are every week witnesses, will be, to most
men, sufficient vindication of the means of
which it is the result. There are, however,
some, happily not very many, who regard
the expedient which we have adopted as
opposed to the very nature of the Christian

IV DEDICATION.

dispensation, and therefore inadmissible in
its service. The name of Dr. Candlish has
secured a hearing for this very serious
charge.

Lest any of you, who now, for the first
time with Kberty and comfort, join in the
oflfering of the fruit of the lips to God, should
be, by the influence of a great name, troubled
by the suspicion that you have ceased to be
Christian worshippers,— and that the friends
of the organ may not be summarily disposed
of as men who are not led either by conscience
or judgment, but driven by mere sentimenta-
lity, — and that I may utter my protest against
that style of conscience, so common among
those who oppose us, which holds its own
liberty by bringing its neighbour into sub-
jection ; — ^for these ends have I, in circum-
stances most unfavourable, written the
following pages.

DEDICATION. V

Trusting that the twofold harmony which
now exists among us, may abide with us for
ever, and that our every effort to do good
may be as speedily and perfectly accomplished
as the improvement by the innovation:

I remain,

My Dear Friends,

Your Affectionate Pastor,

ALEXANDER CROMAR.

LiYEBFOOL, AprU 3, 1856.

CONTENTS.

Page

CHAPTER I.
Introdnctory ..... 1

CHAPTER n.
The Question .... 22

CHAPTER HL
Objection from the Old Testament . . 41

CHAPTER TV.

The Argament from the New Testament 80

CHAPTER V.
Conclnsion . . .101

Appendix ..... 121

CHAPTEE I.

INTRODUCTORY.

It cannot be denied that the great Free
Church Secession from the Scotch Establish-
ment marked the opening of a new era in
the history of Scottish Presbyterianism. In
the pulpit ministrations, in the educational
eflforts, in the spiritual character, and in the
Christian liberality of the various Presby-
terian denominations, we can now trace the
beneficial results of that grand exodus. From
the moment that the men, who struggled to
maintain within the Church her King's su-
premacy in all things spiritual, had declared
themselves to be the Church of Scotland
emancipated from State control, they seemed
in soul, body, and estate to have been set
free. The world was not too wide for the
desires of hearts that burned with evange-
listic zeal — ^ten weary miles of waste on which

the inhospitable snow lay deep, seemed no
obstacle to him who had that night in bam
or school-house to speak to a few simple
men of the glory of that Christ whose house
had again been ordered after the pattern
shewn by himself; and the gold which had
grown dusty in secret hoarding places, or
was bright only by its contact with earthly
business, experienced immediate manumis-
sion, and did good service in the Lord's house.
The Church was living and the Church was
free.

It was, however, remarked by some that
the Free Church had gone for her notions of
taste to the times and men who had instru-
mentally furnished her with the example of
the doctrine and church government in which
she delighted, and the devotion which she so
truly shewed.

It was urged by such talkers that Knox
and Melville, and the great men of the period
of the Covenant, were, without doubt, worthy
of the greatest regard, as guides through the
difficulties surrounding doctrine and the struc-
ture of the Church; but it was also sug-
gested that those Fathers of the Church were
not, on that account, to be constituted um-
pires in every question of taste, external

Eeemliness and detcul, which might arise in
the Church existing somewhere about the
middle of the nineteenth century.

To this it was answered by those who
thought as well as felt in the matter, that
the Free Church was very much in the con-
dition out of which the Church of Knox and
the Covenanters never rose; was afflicted,
persecuted, tormented ; could in many places
find no rest for the sole of her foot, and had,
for the time then present, this as her great
twofold duty — ^to preach the Gospel, and to
find a shelter for those who came to hear it.

Besides, it was affirmed that when the
Lord had given rest to the Free Church,
when she was established in the earth, she
would, like David, do honour to her King by
beautifying his dwelling-place, and rendering
comely the service of his house, as Knox,
Melville, and the heroes of the Covenant
would have done, if they had not fallen on
evil times in which the eanatence of the Be-
form^d Religion was the question that occu-
pied and agitated every heart. It was,
moreover, added by those who held this view,
that because the Free Church existed in the
nineteenth century, she must, according to
the requirements of a law which no Free

Church Assembly had power to repeal or set
aside, be also of the nineteenth century :
that, if she were not of the age, she must
cease from holding a place among the living
institutions in the age : that she was the
revival of the good of the past, and must,
in order to fulfil her high and benignant
destiny, make that good become the life and
rule of the civilization, art, and progress of
the present : and that thus she would with-
out doubt, in due season clothe herself in
such attire as the devotion of the period
deemed to be becoming, and the art and cul-
ture of the time demanded.

Thus, when I was young, and a preacher
in the Free Church, did men talk of the Free
Church's future : the truth of their predic-
tions is now as apparent as the fact of the
Church's existence.

The felt-roofed shed, called the "Free
Kirk," has vanished from the soil of Scot-
land. Men, as truly Presbyterians as Knox,
now weekly worship within a tabernacle
fashioned after the pattern of the Bomish
Gothic : the vessel of homely pewter, out of
which many of my readers received their
baptismal sprinkling, has given place to the

gilded basin or the font of stone ; the sun-
beams that once poured themselves immacu-
late through the hole in the wall, which was
indeed a window, now slanting through the
gorgeous dyes of the glass-stainer, decorate,
with all the rainbow tints, the garments and
faces of the worshipping assembly; com-
munion tables now stand from one end of
the year to the other within comely rails,
after the fashion of the prelatic churches, and
the cross, which, according to certain Pro-
testants, has been, and still is, an object of
idolatrous worship in the Church of the apos-
tacy, has now its place in Free Church
architecture, and forms an appropriate finial
to the external structure of the house of
prayer.

It is only a few weeks since that I listened
with the interest of astonishment, to a friend
who related to me a visit he had paid to a
newly-erected Free Chm*ch. He spoke in
delight of the whole structure ; of the nave
duly separated from the aisles by columns and
arches of wrought stone; of the splendid
efifects of the sunbeams streaming through
the clerestery windows on the stained
timbering of the open-work roof; and of the
chancel arch, with its receding apse, in basi-

lica fashion^ lighted so appropriately by its
corona lucia.

Many of those who now peruse these
pages must have discovered that Free Church
taste has been turned not only towards form,
but also towards colour, as a requisite in the
production of a place of worship befitting
the service of the God under whose providence
the arts and civilization of the present age
have been developed. A church in Paisley
has recently been re-opened, of the decora-
tions of which, in the polychromatic style,
a lengthy description has been given in the
" Witness " and other newspapers.

As I have not by me any of the prints
in question, I cannot give the very words in
which the ornamentation is described. It is
sufficient for my present purpose that I re-
mind the readers of that glowing description
that the gallery fronts are in white enamel,
relieved by green, and dusted over with
golden stars, and that the vomitories are
painted with vermilion, on which rather
gaudy ground a frequently-recurring ^/fet*r de
lis in black forms a pleasing diaper.

I am prepared to believe that in every

•congregation in which such innovations have

found friends there was a minority of truly

good men, who conscientiously and stoutly
resisted them ; and I am open to the con-
viction that the majority in every such case
thought that the general good of the Church,
and the .progressive age in which we live,
demanded of them to pay little attention to
the obsolete notions and old-world murmurs
of the minority.

I can conceive of the supporters of such
improvements on the old shape of things
using, for the conviction of those who dif-
fered from them, such arguments as these :

That the form of the house was nothing
— ^the great matter was to secure the power
of a purely-preached gospel ; that pewter was
no essential of Presbyterianism, and that a
vase of stone could communicate no Popish
pollution to the baptismal water ; that stiuned
windows were very much the same as
curtained windows, and were indisputably
more pleasing to the eye than the dust-
darkened panes which resulted from an indo-
lent beadleship ; that the reality and efficacy
of the communion did not depend either on
the table or the rail that surrounded it, and
that there was not the smallest danger of the
cross, wrought in the sand stone of the dis-
trict, which surmounts the gable of Free St.

Greorge's, ever becoming an object of idola-
trous worship to the congregation assembling
in that church while it was kept outside, and
Dr. Candlish remained within.

On such reasonings I pass no judgment
— I simply record my conviction that the
Presbyterian discipline and government are
perfectly maintained in the Romanesque
church of Paisley; that there is no practice
of idolatrous worship in any Free Church con-
gregation over whose meeting-house the cross
predominates ; that the church in Stirling is
not a cathedral, though it looks like one;
and that the holy Samuel Butherford, if he
were still here, would be greatly refreshed by
the preaching of Dr. Guthrie, even at the
moment when the sunlight through the
painted windows in the chancel of the Doc-
tor's church casts a splendour, crown-like, on
the brow of the first preacher of the time.

While the Free Church has been growing
in taste, she has certainly exhibited no de-
cline in spirituality, purity, or faith, and the
works which are its legitimate and inevitable
fruits.

But the Free Church has not only sought
to subject form and colour to the seemly public
service of God ; she has also done good work

in calling in art to aid the congregational
service of song. Every true Presbyterian
must rejoice at the efiforts now extended by
that community to promote the practice of
intelligent and scientific Psalmody. Without
doubt this attempt has called forth the con-
scientious opposition of some who see no
necessity for change, inasmuch as they never
worshipped with greater comfort than when,
" after the good old fashion of their fathers,"
the psalm was alternately lined out and sung.
The Church, notwithstanding, has for some
time encouraged the cultivation of sacred
music. And it will please certain parties to
know that, in the demonstrations of certain
psalmodic fraternities on which the Free
Church has by no means frowned, there have
been performed single dhants, double chants,
and other kinds of ecclesiastical music, of the
names of which the forefathers of the per-
formers lived and died in blissful ignorance,
escaping thereby from the honest anxiety and
ill-defined dread of not a few who now tremble
lest their pure and simple church should gain
only contamination by familiarity with such
inventions of Popery.

The people have, however, anticipated the
Church authorities. To attam to good congre-

gational singing, many good Free churchmen
believe that instrumental aid is decidedly
requisite.

In a tract on Congregational Psalmody,
recently published, by the leader of the choir
of one of the most important Free Church
congregations in the north of Scotland, a
musical professor of standing and acknow-
ledged eminence, a man moreover in heart
most true to the Church of which he is a
member, the following sentences occur : —

" In now pointing out the means of ob-
taining improvement^ and shewing in what
it consists, I may be allowed to make a few
remarks upon instrumental support In the
Presbyterian form of worship, instrumental
aid is entirely prohibited — ^an arrangement
which I would highly approve of, nay, prefer
to any other, were the worshippers jJl skilled
musicians, and such pleasing vocalists as to
require no such extraneous support. Unfor-
tunately this cannot be said to be the case,
and therefore I think our judgment here is
greatly at fault, in preferring a system, which
would be the best were it not for the reason
just stated, to another, which, were the people
all good vocalists, would be inferior, but taking
things as they really are, is infinitely heater.

Voc5al music, when properly performed, is, in
my opinion, to be preferred to the same thing
accompanied by the organ ; but in our service
the diflSculties attending its more correct per-
formance, have as yet been so serious, that they
have led many^ I am glad to say, to the conai-
deration of the subject of instrumental support
in our churches. The plan of an unaided
vocal performance by a large congregation,
led by the voice only, is of all others the
most diflScult to manage in the way of pro-
ducing the best eflFects as a musical perform-
ance, and from its nature most likely to dis-
turb devotional feeling, so much affected by
the outward act. Our greatest professional
singers feel that their powers are put to the
severest test, when they are left to sing with-
out the efficient and much needed assistance
of any instrument ; what therefore may be
expected in our case ?"*

It would appear from the ^^ Witness" of
March 15, 1856, that the writer of the fore-
going paragraphs was not reckoning carelessly
when he stated that many had been led to
the consideration of the subject of instrumental
support in our churches. In an article of

* Remarks on Congregational Psalmodj, by William
Anderson. Aberdeen : A. Brown & Co.

the foregoing date, the following passage may
be found : — " At the present time there are
Presbyterian congregations and ministers, not
a few who are at least seriously thinking of
the matter — some of them within the precincts
of the Free Church ; and just as, some few
years ere the Voluntary controversy broke
forth in its character as a fierce war, debating
clubs and mutual improvement societies used
to discuss ^0 and con the propriety of State
endowments, and the Scriptural warrant for
State Churches, we have had an opportunity
of knowing that similar institutions in the
present time find the question * organ or no
organ' of not less interest, and mayhap not
greater difficulty. It is perhaps an equally
significant fact, that Dr. Candlish — ^too busy
a man to give himself much to the considera-
tion of merely curious questions which have
no practical bearing — should have deemed it
necessary to edit at the present time a little
work on this very subject, and to herald it by
an introductory notice of thirty pages, which,
though calmly and temperately written, takes
very decidedly the form of a note of warning
to the congregations of the Free Church."

From these extracts it is clear that the
introduction of instrumental aid is seriously

contemplated by not a few within the com-
munion of the Free Church.

What the Free Church now talks of, some
of the sister churches have already done.
Ten years have elapsed since the Supreme
Court of the Old School Presbyterians of
America granted liberty to the sessions under
its super^ion, « to arrange and conduct the
music, as to them shall seem the most for
edification, recommending great caution,
prudence, and forbearance, in regard to it."
Any opinion expressed by the American
Church must command our respect, seeing
that our pulpit ministrations are so largely
indebted to the Theological Literature of that
church, seeing that its Christian zeal and
missionary enterprise are examples which our
churches may feel honoured in imitating, and
seeing that the most distmguished of our
clergy have not refused to wear academic
decorations, in Literature and Theology,
which that Church has seen fit to confer.
The organ is widely employed in the Ameri-
can Presbyterian Churches.

The church of the Waldenses, so long
imprisoned within her secluded glens, no
sooner finds herself firee to erect temples in

the cities of lowland Italy, than, despite the
fact that her congregations, from the days of
Paul, have praised their God with the unaided
voice, she, equal to the situation, time, and
work for which God has preserved her, adopts
the organ as the guide of congregational
psahnody ; therein affording to other Presby-
terians an excellent example which they will
be wise in following, when they seek to intro-
duce their form of Church government into
countries such as England, where instrumental
aid in pubKc worship is ahnost universal.

Within the bounds of the Synod of Canada
the organ question is now agitated, and so
strong does feeling run in the matter, that
although the Synod has pronounced against
the innovation, the organ in the Church of
Brockville is, I understand, still in use. On
this subject, a Canadian Presbyterian thus
writes to me, " The fact is, there is a general
movement amongst Presbyterians for the im-
provement of our praise, and it is found that
this cannot be done with efifect without the
assistance of some kind of instrumental music,
and the general opinion is that the organ is
better than the fiddle or the fife."

The Synod of the Presbyterian Church
in England — ^which is the true successor of

the Church of the Commonwealth, and has
in two thirds of her membership actual de-
scendants of the men who caiM ont with their
pastors in the noble disruption which followed
the restoration of Charles II., has hitherto
tolerated instrumental aid of various kinds in
congregational psalmody, and will, I am con-
fident, continue to do so, though mere Scotch-
men ministering to mere Scotchmen, in chapels
which the English people persist in calling
Scotch, and mere Free Churchmen, tarrying
in England only till they may, for the greater
good of the Church, be called upon to fill
desirable vacancies in their fatherland, may
perhaps be found denouncing loudly this
awjiil innovation. The organ has been used
in the worship of the Presbyterian Church in
England for upwards of two years at St.
John's, Warrington ; and the immediate cause
of Dr. Candlish's reprint and of this review,
is the introduction of an organ into St.
George's, Liverpool.

While Dr. Candlish's republication was
still in the press, the friends of the organ in
Scotland were rejoiced to learn, through the
medium of the newspapers, that a congre-
gation in connection with the Free Church's
stately sister, the United Presbyterian Church,

had determined to call in the organ's help in
their public worship. Just as Dr. Candlish
donned the armour of the mighty Porteous,
and came forth to do battle against the organ,
the incorrigible spirit of Dr. Ritchie once
njore entered into a church within the city
of St. Mungo, and so inflamed the hearts of
its members with an admiration of tibe instru-
ment which the caricaturist represented the
Doctor as carrying ofiF on his back in an
easterly direction, that is, in the direction of
Dr. Candlish's diocese, that they determined
to erect an organ, of another than the barrel
type, which should be at once a good servant
of the congregation and a sort of apology, on
the part of the city, rendered to the departed
man of taste whom it had once so roughly
handled. It was observed by a friend of
mine, on this intention becoming public, that
in the hands of the United Presbyterians of
Glasgow the cause of the organ was safe,
adding,

** The organ battle, once begun,
Bequeathed by Glasgow sire to son,
Though baffled once, will now be won.*'

It has fallen, I know not how, to the lot of
the Rev. Dr. Candlish of Edinburgh to make
the first attempt to check, or, to speak more

mildly, to regulate the current of Presby-
terian taste. The editor of the " Organ
Question " has for a considerable number of
years looked upon the flow of external eccle-
siastical innovation, no doubt in sorrow, but
still in silence. What his suflFerings have
been during the period in which he has
ministered in a church surmounted by a
cross, which is, I very much fear, one of the
auperstittous devices which, according to the
'^Larger Catechism," are sins forbidden in
the second commandment, who may tell?
It is sufficient for us to know that there is a
limit to human patience, and that he has at
last discharged his conscience by striking a
blow at one of these innovations, which may
be expected in measure to affect the rest —
the one selected is the organ.

I am at one with the editor of the " Wit-
ness," when he says that Dr. Candlish's
preface " takes very decidedly the form of a
note of warning to the congregations of the
Free Church:" it as decidedly takes the
form of a note of menace to congregations,
like my own, not in immediate connection
with the Free Church, which consider the
organ not so much a luxury as a necessity.

The organ controversy, we are told, " can-

not fail to raise questions painfully affecting
the relations of Preshyterian Churches to one
another » It may break its vp even more than
we are broken vp already, ... Our friends
who would like to see the organ introduced
cannot possibly consider it a necessity. At
the most it is a luxury. * Let them not

PURCHASE IT TOO DEARLY.'" The tOUe of

these words is, I grant, calm, but a practised
ear can detect in them an undertone of
gathering storm. I see no reason why a few
more cases of tolerated instrumentalism within
the Presbyterian Church in England should
render necessary any change in the relations
now existing between that community and
the Free Church of Scotland. And I regret
that Dr. Candlish has permitted himself to
publish words which sound so painfully like
the first mutterings of an excommunicatory
blast " from out the Flaminian Gate."

I certainly deprecate controversy on the "
organ question, seeing no reason for our be-
ginning a " wrangle about such a poor inno-
vation on our hereditary mode of worship."
I grant that, because we are Presbyterians,
the question miist come before our church
courts : but the Doctor's warning, even if
acted upon, has come too late to prevent

this, seeing that the movement is not a local
and peculiar fact, bat the result of a principle
which seems to be alive and in operation,
through the length and breadth of Presby-
terianism.

It must be apparent that the work which
now devolves on our churches is in their
courts to treat the subject in the spirit of
wisdom and moderation.

The editor of the "Organ Question"
wishes he had for a little the quiet ear of
those who are occasioning, if not causing the
discussion of this subject. Surely such con-
ference might have been arranged. Or is
his mode of administering private counsel to
proclaim his views on the house-top? It
was not in the form of a publication contain-
ing upwards of two hundred pages that he
should have sought to gain the quiet ear of
the refractory instrumentalists. The first
expression of his desire to arrange a peace is,
oddly enough, by casting a bomb-shell into
the midst of the party with whom he is
desirous of opening negotiations. Dr. Cand-
lish has the honour of having first taken the
field — and in another man's harness.

In the remarks on the forbearance to be
shewn to those who conscientiously diflfer

from the friends of the organ, I entirely con-
cur. I hold, with Dr. Anderson of Glasgow,
that no such innovation, though excellent in
the main, should be followed out, if, thereby,
hurt, without remedy, were done to one con-
science. If I had known of one Presbyterian,
who by the introduction of an organ into St.
George's, Liverpool, would thereby be com-
pelled to exile himself from the church of his
fathers and of his convictions, and from the
ordmances in which alone he could find edifi-
cation, I should have resisted that measure
with my every influence. But I knew of
none such, and therefore did not in session
oppose the congregation's ahnost unanimous
request to be allowed to attempt an improve-
ment in the psalmody by the introduction of
an instrumental guide.

The argument based on the contrast be-
tween a church stopping short in its reforma-
tion and one, more advanced, making a
voluntary return to some of its old usages, will
be properly answered at the close of the
organ controversy, not till then, when the
churches have agi'eed whether the expulsion
of the organ from our sanctuary service was
a reform or a blunder.

In concluding this long, and I fear, tedious

introductory chapter, I must express my
regret that Dr. Candlish did not in this case,
forsake his wonted place in discussion. Why
has he kept himself up for a reply — why on
a subject of such importance and increasing
interest, has he been contented to publish
Dr. Porteous's muddle of special pleading,
gossip, and Established Kirk quiddities, when
fifty pages, in clear and condensed style from
his own pen, in defence of the convictions
expressed in the Preface, might have done
much, if the friends of the organ are in the
wrong, to bring the matter to a speedy issue,
sparing me this uncongenial work, and deliver-
ing the reading public from their many labours
which are yet to come ?

CHAPTER II.

THE QUESTION.

The natural religions of all historic time,
while diflfering widely in their conceptions of
the Divinity, have agreed in this — ^that, in the
service of the Supreme, man should not with-
hold his wealth, talent, most consummate
skill, even life itself. In the wreck of our
humanity there linger still tokens of the
glory which it once possessed : the eye still
strives to look beyond the visible to the un-
seen cause ; the heart, even till it ceases to
beat, seeks more or less to discover some
homage-worthy object on which it may
lavish all its affection, and in the return of
the love of which it may find rest and hap-
piness ; the will, with all it« self-sufficiency
and independence, waits the advent of a
master whom it may obey, and the con-

science points the soul in these inquiries and
aspirations beyond itself, and the things
which are temporal, to forms of power, of
wisdom and beneficence, which are its misty
memories of the true God. Gods many and
lords many have ruled this world, and men
have gladly laid their mostprecious possessions
as offerings of praise before their shrines :
every triumph of man's power has in every
age been dedicated to the object of his wor-
ship. The circle of Stonehenge was, I
doubt not, the greatest architectural achieve-
ment of the men who erected it, and though
some on reading these words may be inclined
to smile, it is to others suggestive of instruc-
tion to know that this memorial of the exist-
ence of our rude forefathers is also a record
of their devotion. K the literature of ancient
Greece, with its influences on the languages
of modem times, could be at once and for
ever destroyed, we should still be able to
judge of its civilization, and should still be
constrained to award to it the palm in archi-
tecture and sculpture, simply by a study of
the ruined temples of its gods.

" Man must worship." Man has always
done so, and his worship has not consisted
of a creed only, but of the dedication, in

some measure, of his being and his every
attribute and attainment to the object of his
religious service.

The law, of which this is a necessary
obedience, was written in the nature of Adam,
and has not by sin been wholly obliterated
from the constitution of his sons. Because
of this law men have denuded themselves of
their earthly honour, denied themselves the
comforts which life affords, passed their days
in poverty and suffering, and given even the
fruit of their bodies for the sin of their souls.

This law led the soul of David, quickened
and regulated by the Spirit of God, like that
of every saint, to dedicate to the God of
Israel the glory of genius with which that
God had crowned him, and to touch with
skilful finger the harp, the notes of which
guided the poetic utterance of the holy joy
of his heart. In a word, all who have been
influenced by religion, false or true, supersti-
tious or intelligent, formal or spiritual, have
hitherto more or less shewn the truth and
force of the principle, that the true expres-
sion of Divine worship is the consecration of
all to God.

This doctrine seems to have met with little

favour at the hands of Dr. Porteous ; and
we do not wonder at this, as his whole pro-
duction manifests a mind better qualified to
Jfcnoi^, than to think or feeh " When we
look into the history of nations, that were
strangers to Divine revelation, there, too, we
find universally the use of instruments in
giving praise to their gods. Such use, then,
appears to be something that belongs not to
sects or parties, but to human nature. It is
dictated by the best of those feelings which
the God of nature hath implanted in every
bosom, prompting men to employ with reve-
rence, according to the means which they
possess, all their powers in expressing grati-
tude to their Creator. It appears to be
such from its existence prior to all positive
religious establishments, and from the uni-
versal practice of mankind."

Thus wrote Dr. Ritchie forty years ago,
and his words have in them truth which can-
not change.

How, simple reader, doth Dr. Porteous, to
his own sufficient satisfaction, reply to them ?

On turning to the 74th page of the re-
print, the reader will find that the redoubted
foe of instrumental music, like a true son of
the Kirk of that period, seemingly inspired

by Dr, Ritchie's phrase, " religious establish-
imnts^'' gives the innovating Doctor to know
that no reference to laws of nature can in this
question be permitted, seeing that he, Dr.
Ritchie, is neither a heathen, an Episcopalian,
nor a Congregationalist, but is the minister of
St. Andrew's Church, a component part of
the Established Presbyterian Church of Scot-
land, the forms of which were demanded by
our forefathers in the Claim of Rights, esta-
blished at the Revolution, and declared to be
unalterable by the Act of Security and Treaty
of Union. By these words we are duly in-
structed that what our forefathers had a right
to demand and did obtain, we, their sons,
have no right to ask and never can receive.
Dr. Ritchie meekly suggests that the root of
the organ movement is in the nature which
God has given us ; and Dr. Porteous puts
him to silence by telling him that that root
of bitterness has been plucked up by the Act
of Security. Would that that same Act of
Security had eradicated the bigotry, religious
conceit, and intolerance of many who dwell
under its shadow ! It has not however done
so — ^the other roots of evil have been left,
and it is to us matter of the deepest sorrow
to know that the Act of Security, bent on

eradicatioD, made so extremely injudicious a
selection.

With all deference to Dr. Porteous, I still
hold that it is in our nature to worship, and
the grace of God is bestowed upon us to
enable us to worship aright, the law regulat-
ing the form of that worship bemg always
in accordance with our mental and bodily
constitution. The present organ movement
is at once an obedience to this natural law
and an expression of the Christian conscious-
ness, of which the Spirit of God is the life,
and his word the enlightenment, and which
is animated by the sense that, while God re-
joices in all his children, his children should
honour Him with their every power.

The friends of the organ have for a long
time asked themselves the question — " Why
should the deeds of earthly heroism, why
should the love which pertains to time, why
should devotion whose object is transitory, be
illustrated by the highest attainments in
musical science, in the homes and social
assemblies of Ch igtian men, while, in the
assemblies of the s aints, the self-sacrifice of
Jesus Christ, the ery love of their heavenly
Father, and the th"^nkful praise of his redeemed
children, have no %etter memorial than a ser-

vice of song in which becoming order and
skill have little place, and whose only satisfy-
ing feature is its close ?"

A good man, himself a great innovator in
church worship, had asked himself long be-
fore, " Why should I abide in a house ceiled
with cedar, while the God of Israel dwelleth
in curtains?"

The supporters of the organ have answered
to their self-questioning thus — " Let us in
the public service of our God make use of
every talent and appliance which the time
affords to enable us with seemly order and
dignity to lift up our voices unto Him with
joy." And after due deliberation they have
concluded that the dignified order so requisite
can be best subserved by the introduction
into congregational praise of instrumental
guidance.

Dr. Candlish will be astonished to learn
that the men who move in this matter are
actuated by conscience. They are under the
impression that they should serve God with
the best of all which they have and are — that
beaten oil alone should be used in His house,
and that their offering should be neither the
halt, the maimed, nor the blind. These men
feel that it is wrong to sing God's praises as

hitherto they have sung them. And not a
few of them, on reading the " Organ Ques-
tion," have felt themselves deeply wronged
by finding that its editor, a minister of the
Gospel of Christ, and a ruler in the kingdom
whose law is charity, should in his preface
have distinctly denied them any standing
ground in conscience. They may well ask
the Doctor, " Is our conscience no conscience,
because it has not been made in the image
of yours, and by whose authority do you take
upon you to announce that there is no plea
of conscience on our side? We have to
account for every faculty we possess, and,
while we shall not have to answer for a
transcendent intellect like yours, we still
shall have to restore, with the eocpected usury y
certain talents which our Master, for a time,
has entrusted to us, and we hope to be able
so to use our knowledge and taste in the
science of music, that we shall meet the
approbation of Him who alone has a right to
judge in the matter. Our conscience demands
of us that we should improve the service of
praise : our judgment has ruled that the organ
is the best outward instrumentality to eflfect
this, and the movement is thus a conscien-
tious one. No doubt there are * angry fel-

lows ' among ns, just as there are ' weaker
brethren' in your party who will speak words
of folly and uncharitableness, but we, the
supporters of the organ, as a body, grant that
your preface proceeds from your conscientious
conviction, and we, as citizens of the Gospel
commonwealth, expect that our eflforts towards
improvement in the service of the sanctuary,
for which some of us have already suflFered
much, shall not thus summarily be set down
as the oflFspring of phantasy or whim."

The organ movement has originated in
good conscience. The judgment of the
friends of the organ, which is at best the
judgment of fallible men, may be by superior
minds found to be in error, but until the
error has been shewn, they feel constrained
to act upon that judgment. They believe
that, in order to conduct properly the mass
of uneducated and educated voice which con-
stitutes the instrument of our congregational
praise, something else is requisite than the
treble of a precentor. They are fortified in
this persuasion by the almost universal mur-
murs uttered against the floMening^ sinking^
and had time^ so painfully apparent in the
performance of five or six verses of a psalm.

The inward of congregational praise ap-

pears to them to be the worshipful tendency
of souls redeemed by the blood of Christ,
and renewed by the Spirit of grace. The
cvivxxrd exhibition of this inward tendency
will, they believe, be best secured by the
following natural and mechanical provisions —

I. Poetry, to fix the form of the senti-
ment.

IL Musical cadence, to fix the mode of
the utterance of the form.

III. An instrument to guide and sustain
the expression of the mode ; and,

IV. The educated living voice to express
it

These four articles of their creed the
friends of the organ would humbly submit to
the thinking Christian public. To the third
of these articles grave objection has been
taken, apart from the argument founded on
conscience. This objection has assumed
three forms.

1. It has been stated by many of the
modem admirers of Dr. Porteous, and has
been insinuated by the Doctor himself, that
the friends of instrumental music are weary
of the service of song, and wish to devolve
that duty on the organ. The best answer
in this case is an emphatic denial. The

friends of the organ wish io sing^ and the
demand they make is simply this, that a dis-
tinct and unvarying indication shall be given
of the melody, time, and accent of the com-
position in the execution of i^hich they are
engaged ; and their judgment is, as we have
ahready seen, that, especially in large con-
gregations, the organ is best fitted to per-,
form this duty.

2. It has been said that the tendency of
instrumental music in a church is to put an
end to congregational smging. To this ob-
jection a simple but very suflScient answer is
at hand. Has any of my readers, either in
a strange land, or in any of our English
homes firom which music has not been ba-
nished, felt the effect on mind and body
exercised by the instrumental performance
of one of the simple airs peculiar to the
home of his youth? Could he resist from
indicating in the motions of his frame that
the music had not in vain called upon the
emotions of his heart to follow it? Could
he -wholly abstain from following the tread
of the notes in the regulation of his breath-
ing ? Did he not actually with faint, low
voice, seek to associate himself with the in-
strument in a harmonious fellowship ?

It is in the nature of things that a dis-
tinct enunciation of a familiar melody should
not put us to sQence, but lead us out in
song.

3. It has been fearlessly stated that the
effect of the introduction of instrumental
music into congregational psalmody has
hitherto been to render the congregation
dumb. This objection regards matter of
£Eu;t, and must be handled accordingly. It
can be shewn that in every case in which
the organ has been employed to guide the
singing of tunes familiar to the people, its
presence has been productive of the very
greatest improvement. In churches of the
English Establishment, of the Independents
and Baptists, where the organ is used to
conduct music with which the congregation
is acquamted, the singing is nearly all that
can be desired. And assuredly the Wesley-
ans, who largely employ instrumental music,
cannot with justice be written down as a
people who serve the Lord in silence.

I grant that there are churches imd chapels,
both in this country and in America, where
organs and choirs are employed, in which
there cannot, with propriety, be said to exist
a true service of song. ^ And this is nothing

to be wondered at, when we find that the
musical compositions there delivered are eUr
borate ecclesiastical services, or extracts from
oratorios, of which the mass of the people
know nothing beyond this, that they are
pleasing enough things to Usten to.

It does not follow that, because the organ
takes part in the perfonnance of these com-
positions, it must bear the blame of their in-
troduction into the service.

My transatlantic friend to whom I have
already referred, thus writes on the subject
of the decay of psalmody in the American
churches — " I do not think that the organ
can be blamed for this. It is not so much
the organ that is listened to or admired, as
the voices of the choir and the complicated
pieces of music which they sing. I have
heard in a church in Boston a solo sung by
an exquisite female voice ; it was certainly very
enchanting, although very much out of place ;
the organ could not be blamed for this, as the
organ did not at this time play at all. Be-
sides, there is a reaction tiiing place in the
States, and earnest efforts are being made
by ministers and devout men to bring the
people to sing ; but, to secure this, they do
not think it necessary to disband ti^e organ,

but to make it an assistant, a leader, as it is
already, in many of the churches in the States.
The Church, especially in New England, has
degenerated very much into the Lecture
Boom, and this is the root of the evil.

" One might, with as much justice, blame
the organ for coldness in prayer, as for defect
in singing. Depend upon it, there is a great
deal of nonsense spoken abont the organ in
the American churches:" — ^a very great deal
indeed, not only wilt regard to Ae organ in
America, but also with regard to the organ
in England; in fact, the attacks made on
that instrument have hitherto borne an unfor-
tunate likeness to nonsense from first to last :
— " I see you are proceeding with your
organ, and I presume by this time are using
it regularly in your church. Well, I approve
of that."

And the writer of these sentences would be
confirmed in his approval, if he could himself
witness the improvement in congregational
singing which the organ has effected in the
church in question. The singing in St. George's
Church, Liverpool, in which the organ has
taken the place of the precentor, is to my
mind the most congregational in its character
rf any with which T am acquainted in Pres-

byterian denominations. And this is not my
own opinion merely — but the opinion of
hundreds of individuals, many of them once
strong opponents of the organ. A gentle-
man, of excellent musical ability and taste,
who, while he resided in Liverpool, gratuitously
acted at one time as precentor, and at another
as leader of the choir, writes to me of the
pleasure he experienced during a few days
recently spent among his old friends ; adding,
" nothing gave me greater delight than my
visits to St. George's Church. I expressed
my opinion pretty freely in opposition to the
organ, when it was first proposed to have one ;
I would now wish to be equally candid, and
at once admit that my opinion is now very
much modified after hearing the immense
improvement in the singing of the congrega-
tion. I have had some experience, as a pre-
centor, of how difficult, nay, how impossible
it is to get the people to join largely in the
singing: again, when tiie session wished
much to improve the psahnody, I consented
to lead a choir; but, though I did all in my
power, and the choristers did all they possibly
could, we in the end found the people joining
no better with us, and the few that did sing
dragged us so much down in the pitch, and

song such bad time, that I regarded it as a
fruitless task to attempt any improyement.

'^ I see now that I was in error, for I could
scarcely believe that I was in St. Greorge's
whilst hearing the splendid singmg on the
two Sabbaths of my stay in Liverpool."

What had been earnestly sought after by
means of precentors, classes, choirs, etc., was
completely and at once attained when the
organ for the first time led out the voices of
the congregation in the familiar music and
words of the Hundredth Psalm. That day
brought to a close, within that congregation,
the organ controversy. The organ has proved
itself, in these nine months bygone, the best
and most reliable conductor of a large mass
of voice in the service of congregational
praise.

" But," we are told, " in process of time
you may come to listen in silence, like some
of the American churches." This may take
place, just as Dr. Candlish's choir may one
day monopolize the music of Free St. George's.
But we do not anticipate any such result
while the Scottish Psalmody and the familiar
household words of our psalms and para-
phrases are the channel of the conveyance of
the people's offering of song. The organ

will be found a most obedient servant, and,
while the hearts of the people continue
alive, under the earnest preaching of the
Gospel, and by the presence of the Spirit of
grace, will, in accordance with the promise,
the fulfilment of which is soon to be the
Church's blessed possession, have inscribed
upon it the words, ''Holiness unto the
Lord."

Episcopalians and Independents may, with
some shew of reason, object to the organ on
such a ground, inasmuch as their congrega-
tions may do very much as seemeth good in
their own eyes. It is diflferent with Presby-
terians : were the organ thus to cause one of
the most important parts of public worship to
cease, it would afford a legitimate opportunity
for the interference of the Church Courts. If
our Presbyterianism be not a dead letter, the
abuse of ^e organ in congregations under its
influence is an impossibility.

The friends of this movement feel con-
strained to do all that in them lies to improve
the service of praise ; they have judged that
the introduction of the organ would eflfect
this ; a fair experiment has been made, and
the result has been all that could be desired.
The question now arises, Are congregationSi

animated by the same desire of improvement,
to be denied the nae of an instrumentality
productive of such excellent results ; and are
congregations, which have successfully made
the experiment, to cease lifting up their voice
to God in gladness, and to sit down in the
silence and discomfort of the former system ?
The friends of the organ answer, "We
feel bound in conscience to praise God in the
best possible way ; we are persuaded that the
organ's guidance wiU secure this, and there-
fore we at once must make trial of it, and
insist on having permission to do so. We
deny that any man has a right to fix us
down to any external form of worship in
which we have long felt the absence of gene-
ral order and decency, and of personal liberty
and <;omfort, especially when the proposed
alteration touches no doctrine or standard of
our church." The opponents of the organ
have also replied, "We cannot permit you
to reach your end by any such means as you
propose — ^let the organ be ever so well fitted,
to your mind, for the purpose in question, it
can have no place in the house of God. It
is a carnal, formal, and unspiritual thing,
consigned to destruction with the other com-
ponent parts of the Mosdc dispensation.

It is against the spirit and practice of the
New Testament. It acts as a finger-post
on the road to Rome, and, as an innovation,
shews the greatest disrespect to the judgment
of our Reforming forefathers/' Such, on the
English side of the Tweed, have been the
utterances of the friends of the old system,
and they have, by the great mass of the
people, been most irreverently laughed at —
but now, to cheer his friends in the midst of
the repeated failures which have attended
their efforts to check the movement. Dr.
Candlish uplifts his voice, and, in the hearing
of all his admirers in the English Synod,
shouts southward his thunderous Amen.

The conscientious objections of these oppo-
nents I shall now briefly consider.

CHAPTER III.

OBJECTION FEOM THE OLD
TESTAMENT.

The organ movement has been characterized
as an eflfort to return to the " beggarly
elements " of the Jewish dispensation. If
it can be shewn that the instrumental guid-
ance of the congregational praise of God is a
part of the Hebrew economy, which has for
ever been abolished by the establishment of
the economy of Christ, then it must at once
be conceded that this instrumental guidance
should have no place in the services of the
Gospel church. But if this cannot be shewn,
I humbly submit that worshippers under the
present dispensation are at liberty to adopt
this mode of guidance if, on experiment, they
find it conducive to the decent and orderly
praise of God, and to the liberty and comfort

of the worshippers in taking part in the ser-
vice of song, provided that in the New
Testament there is to be found no prohibition
of it. But that we may clearly understand
the objection under consideration, let us view
it in the very language of those who con-
scientiously press it.

Dr. Porteous (page 87 of the reprint) thus
expresses his mind, very much after the
fashion of Dr. Candlish, by telling us what
other people think on the subject : —

"It seems to be acknowledged by all
descriptions of Christians, that among the
Hebrews instrumental music in the public
worship of God was essentially connected with
sacrifice — with the morning and evening
sacrifice, and with the sacrifices to be offered
up on great and solemn days. But as all
the sacrifices of the Hebrews were completely
abolished by the death of our blessed Re-
deemer, so instrumental music, whether
enacted by Moses, or introduced by the
ordinance of David — or, if you will, of
Abraham, or any other patriarch — being so
intimately connected with sacrifice, and be-
longing to a service which was ceremonial
and typical, mtist be abolished with that
service."

In these sentences Dr. Porteous and his
coadjutors state only what aeems to be acknow-
ledged btf aU descriptions of Christians; (hear,
ye Episcopalians, Wesleyans, Independents,
Baptists, and organ-patronising Presbyte-
rians !) they do not formally advance these
views as their own ; that these sentiments
are theirs we learn from the following ex-
extracts (page 86) : —

" It is evident that the regulations relative
to instrumental music in the public worship
of God are as much incorporated with the
Mosaic or Jewish constitution as circumcision,
etc. • . . Therefore we are entitled to con-
clude that circumcision, sacrifice, instrumental
music, and the Temple — the whole of these
imtitutioTis must stand or fall together. ^^

It is from these extracts, abundantly evi-
dent, that Dr. Porteous held that instrumental
music, in the public worship of God, was
essentially connected with sacrifice^ and was
ceremonial and typical in its nature.

Hear Dr. Candlish, as, waxing warm, he
sinks the editorial character and says some-
tiiing for himself.

" I believe that it " — the organ ques-
tion — " is a question, which touches the
highest and deepest points of Christian

theology. Is the Temple destroyed? Is
the Temple worship wholly superseded?
Have we, or have we not, prieste and sacri^
fices amongst us now? .... For
my part, I am persuaded that if the organ
be admitted, there is no barrier in principle
against the sacerdotal system in all its fulness
— ^against the substitution again, in our whole
religion, of the formal for the spiritual, the
symbolic for the real."

The name of Dr. Candlish sanctions all
this nonsense, — or the temptation to consign
the reprint to the embraces of the flames,
which in my study grate now leap up and
stretch forth their ruddy fingers as if to clutch
it, would be too strong for me. These
words of Dr. Candlish, to my mind, contain
a piece of most vulgar strategy — an appeal
to the prejudices of the groundlings of his
audience, and cover, I strongly suspect, the
unacknowledged cause of his forgetting to
assign any reason for the belief which he
has so very stoutly expressed. Still the
reprint is before the public — it has been
pushed into the notice of ministers and others
within the territory of the English Synod —
The " fear and the dread" of the editor's name
will fall on some of the good easy men who

tremble to think of a contest even for the
truth ; will also overshadow, more or less,
the approaching meeting of the Supreme
Court of the English Presbyterian Church,
and every similar meeting that is to come
until the question is settled ; and therefore
there is left to the friend of the organ nothing
but, with spirit of endurance, to master every
detail of the Jewish economy, and every inci-
dent in their reUgious history, whereby, on
making his defence public, he will at once
give a reason for the faith he holds, and sup-
ply to Dr. Candlish, at moderate charge and
little trouble, the material out of which the
Doctor may, in due time, elaborate a defence
of his objections, grounded on the Old Testa-
ment dispensation.

It must appear to every one who reads
the words of Dr. Candlish, though they in
part assume the questionary form, that he
holds that the*admission of the organ, as an
aid in congregational psalmody, is tantamount
to a partial rebuilding of the Temple, a re-
erection in part of the Temple worship, a
partial restoration of priests and sacrifices,
and that, in the nature of things, while the
organ has a place in evangelic worship, there
is nothing to prevent our ministry from be-

coming a perfect priesthood, nothing to pre*
serve our entire worship from degenerating
into a lifeless and unspiritual form, and no-
thing to hinder all we now have of real devo-
tion from becoming either a symbol or a sham.

Dr. Candlish says harder things than Dr.
Porteons, but they agree in the essentials of
their creed; that to introduce an organ's
aid into the congregational worship of God is,
in a certain measure, to return to the sacer-
dotal, formal, and symbolical system of Moses.

As there is very great looseness evident in
the language of the opponents of the organ
when they talk of " sacrificial system,"
" sacerdotal system," " Jewish economy,"
etc., and as such looseness of expression is
acknowledged by all who know anything of
logical fence, as something which should be
got rid of at the very commencement of any
controversy, I beg of the reader to note witi
some care the following sentences : —

That economy of grace, which immediately
preceded the one under which we now live,
has with great propriety been designated
the theocracy, the God-government, or the
supremacy of God.

This theocracy was, from first to last, as
instituted by the Almighty, a manifestation

of the prophetship of Jesus Christ : in other
words, in its every institution, the Son, the
eternal word, in the language of signs or
symbols, revealed the purpose of the God-
head to redeem and sanctify the sinful sons
of men, thus re-arranging the moral kingdom
which, by the introduction of sin, had fallen
into such disorder as was dishonouring to
God, and productive of temporal and eternal
evil to man.

This entire symbolic system was divisible
into two parts —

1. The symbolism of Christ's priesthood,
also divisible into two sections — The sacer-
dotal institution, the class or caste of the
priesthood, which was a typic representation
of the person and official priesthood of
Jesus Christ : and the institution of sacrifice
and oflfering, which was a figure of Christ's
complete priestly work, his atonement and
intercession ; * and

2. The symbolism of Christ's kingship,
divisible likewise into two parts — The
governmental institution which typified
Christ's mediatorial kingship over nations,
and was a figure of the politics of the time,
when " every knee shall bow to Him :" and
the ceremonial law which represented

Christ's spiritnal-moral govemment oyer
souls, and was a figure of the ethics of the
New Testament dispensation, a picture of
the spiritual purity, righteousness, and cha-
rity, which were to be the fruits of the. Gos-
pel preached not in symbol, but in word, and
of the Spirit dispensed not sparingly, but in
all his affluence.

These were the components of the theo-
cracy, of the dispensation of Moses. These
have been abolished for ever, because Christ
has assumed his priestly office, having once
for all offered up himself a sacrifice to Grod,
and being now engaged in interceding for
us : these have been abolished because Christ
as mediator now reigns, and is day by day
subduing all things unto himself, and because
those who truly call him King are careful to
maintain good works: these are abolished
for ever, because they were indications
through a glass darkly of what the Gospel
has revealed, of what the New Testament,
the mind of Christ, has brought clearly to
Ught.

Whatever has in it the nature of thesey can
have no place in Gospel worship. Whatever
of the practice of the Jewish Church did not
in nature belong to these, was not shcutowy.

hnt actual; not symholtc,- hut real; and may,
if not forbidden by the letter of the New
Testament, and if found to subserve its com-
mands, as interpreted by a mind whose con-
sciousness is the work of the Divine Spirit,
be still retained and employed in the church
of the present time, for the furthering of
God's glory, and the exercising of the graces
of the saints.

Was the service of praise in the Jewish
Church in nature connected with these— was
the singing of the psalms of the son of Jesse
to the stringed instruments which David the
King had made, essentially connected with
any of these four departments of the theocracy,
so that the one must stand or fall with
the other ? Such is the question which we
propose to answer in the following brief
survey of the history of the rise and progress
of the Jewish musical service of praise.

The Tabernacle and ita Service as instituted

hy Ood.

If we wish to obtain a complete view of
the first division of the theocracy ; that is, of
the Jewish tabernacle, priesthood, sacrifices^

«)

and entire religious service, according to the
divine institution, pattern, and sanction, we
must carefully read the context beginning
with the 2Sth chapter of Exodus, and ending
with the close of that book.

In this context we have five ttrnes pre-
sented to us the object of which we are in
search. We discover the pattern of the
tabernacle and its entire service which God
shewed to Moses, from which Moses dared
not to depart, and never did so, and from
which, departures made by others, were
visited with the displeasure of Jehoviah. In
contemplating this pattern, the enquirer must
be struck by the absence of any command or
provision relating to the service of musical
praise. In the entire furniture of the
economy, so minutely described by God
Himself, we find no article capable of pro-
ducing a musical sound, with the exception
of the golden bell, which alternated with the
pomegranate in the frmge of Aaron's robe,
and which was instituted not for praise, but
to indicate by its tinkling that the high
priest lived, while he ministered before the
great God in the holy place.

We find that Moses rehearsed these com-
mands in the hearing of the people, calling

on them to giye willmgly, and to labour
according to their gifts, that the tabernacle
and its service, instituted by God, might be
erected and established ; but in this recital
no mention is made of music

The record enables us to survey the ope-
ra^na of Bezaleel and Aholiab, and the artists
and workmen, who, under their superinten-
dence, were employed in constructing the
tent) with its furniture, and in fashioning the
garments and, decorations of the priests ; but
among the many articles produced we find
DO instrument of music. Notwithstanding,
it is said, ''Moses did look upon all the
work, and behold they had done it as the
Lord had commanded, even so had they done
it : and Moses blessed them.''

We likewise find that God, in instructing
Moses to erect the tabernacle, again named
the various parts of its furniture, indicated
the proper disposition of them, and gave
command concerning the conseci*ation of the
tent, its accessories, and the priests who were
to officiate in and about it ; but here again
no reference is made to music.

We have, last of all, an account of the
erection of the tent of the congregation, the
consecration of the priesthood, and the in-

auguration of the full tabernacle service.
"So Moses finished the work." On the
first day of the first month the tabernacle
service began, and its silence was broken by
no sound but the faint chime of the bells
that hemmed the garment of the high priest,
as, for the first time, with awe, and not
without blood, he glided out of the sunlight
into the dim, holy place, amidst symbols, all
of which, with his own o£Sce and ministry,
were to vanish for ever before the better
things of Gospel times. " Then a cloud
covered the tent of the congregation, and
the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle,
and Moses was not able to enter into the
tent of the congregation, because the cloud
abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord
filled the tabernacle." God received the
work as perfect at the hand of Moses, and
manifested his approval of it by exhibiting
his glory in and upon it.

I think that I may now safely conclude
that nothing essential to the existence of the
true system of priests and sacrifices, nothing
wiA which priests and scuyrifices must neces-
sarily stand or fall^ was wanting in the ser-
vices of that solemn day of inauguration.
That the sounding of trumpets by the priests

was thereafter added to the performance of
eerimn sacrifices, and was, for various pur-
poses, used in the general theocratic economy,
we shall soon find ; but that this addition to
certain sacrifices took place in order to sup-
ply an easentidl, either to sacrifice or the
priesthood, who is bold enough to say?
Nevertheless, if these trumpet-sounds were
essentially, or, in jprinciple, part of, or con-
nected with, sacrifice and the priesthood, the
introduction of them must have been to sup-
ply a deficiency in that work which Moses
finished and God accepted. It is thus clear
that musical praise had no place in the Jewish
tabernacle service, as it came from the mind
of God and the hand of Moses, and that it
had of necessity no connection in essence or
principle with that service.

The Institution oftfie Stiver Trumpets,

The tabernacle service, as thus inaugu-
rated, continued to be performed for a con-
siderable period. The tarrying of the cloud
over the tabernacle indicated to the people
that they were to tarry ; the departure of the
cloud, either by day or night, taught them

that they must depart. " Or whether it were
two days, or a month, or a year that the
cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, remaining
thereon, the children of Israel abode in Iheir
tents and journeyed not ; but when it was
taken up they journeyed." It would appear
from these words that the tabernacle service,
as initiated, was performed for a considerable
time.

We find, in the 10th chapter of the book
of Numbers, that, by the command of God,
two silver trumpets were added to the im-
plements already supplied to the priests, to
be used by them — as the only appointed
ministers in the four departments of the
theocracy — for purposes which, we shall
find, had no relation in principle to the
symbols of the atonement and intercession,
or person and priestly oflSce of Jesus Christ.
The institution of trumpets was politico-reli-
gious, or belonged to the entire theocratic
economy. It was, along with the priest-
hood and sacrifice, a constituent part of that
system. It had a place with them in it,
but formed no part of their nature. It was,
as we shall discover, an exhibition of the
prophetic office of Christ, inasmuch as its
end was to instruct and admonish the people.

The trampets were to be used by the sons
of Aaron, the priests, throughout their gene-
rations for the reason above stated, that the
priests were God's appointed officers in every
department of the theocracy. With these
trampets the priests were to summon the
assembly of the people, to command the jour-
neying of the camps, to call together the
princes which were heads of the thousands of
Israel, to indicate by one note of alarm that
the camps which lay on the east parts should
go forward, and to announce by two notes
of alarm that the camps which lay on the
south side should take their journey.

In all this we have simply an exhibition
bf Christ, the prophet, uttering his will as the
sovereign ruler of the Hebrew church-state.

They were to be used also when the people
went to war in their land against the enemy
that oppressed them, in order that the people
might be remembered before the Lord, and
thereby saved from their enemies. In this
we diBCOver the prophetic voice of the great
King, the God of battles, calling on His host
to follow Him in confidence, that thereby
they might be led to assured victory.

The trumpets were likewise to be em-
ployed in connection with burnt-offerings.

and sacrifices of peace-offerings, on certain
special occasions, namely, on days of rejoicing,
on the solemn days, and on the beginnings
of months; this use of them was to be for a
memorial before the God of Israel. We have
here a clearly evangelic appliance introduced
into the theocracy on those great occasions.
When, as on the Lord's Day in Gospel times,
there was a great assembly of the people ; the
sounding of these trumpets admonished the
congregation to lift up their souls to God in
faith, love, and praise of his ever-enduring
mercy, that thus before his throne they might
have a memorial, and might be accepted and
forgiven through the merits of the great anti-
type of priest and sacrifice. In this occa-
sional addition to sacrifice and the functions
of the priesthood, the great Teacher sought to
impress on the Jewish mind the symbolic
nature of the services then existing, to cast
light on their shadowy intimations, and to
lift the soul, through their medium, into faith's
communion with God, who is a Spirit.

The priest and the sacrifice remained un-
changed; there was added to them a com-
mentary on their spiritual meaning. This
addition was only occasional, according to
God's institution. The trumpet accompani-

ment to sacrifice and ofiering was a rare
thing; the exception, not the rule, of the
Jewish practice. Sacrifices performed in
silence were not the less sacrifices on that
account ; and sacrifices l^dth the accompani-
ment received fi*om it no accession of the
sacrificial element. Sacrifice and the priest-
hood existed in completeness before the
institution of trumpets took place, and, after
its establishment, they came in contact with
it only occasionally. The priest had a place
in the institution of trumpets, not only as a
sacrificer, but as a civil and military chief of
the chosen people of God. The trumpet was
as much an implement of war as a vessel of
the Lord's house ; its sound as much a sum-
mons to a gathering, of the people as the
voice of teaching over the sacrificial symbols.
The institution of trumpets was thus dis-
tinct from sacrifice and the priesthood, and
though it had a place with them in the one
theocratic economy, it had no connection
with them in principle or essence. The
institution of trumpets resembled nothing in
the present dispensation but the ordinance of
preaching. The call sounded by these instru-
ments was the intelligible voice of the Master
of assemblies ; their battle charge was the

recognized shout of the Captain of IsraeVs
salvation exhorting his faithful followers to
quit themselves like men, and be strong in
the Lord and the power of his might ; and
their shrill notes, piercing the air thickened
hy the smoke of the burning victim, fell on
the ear of the congregation as the voice of the
very Jehovah demanding man's faith in a
better sacrifice than that which then flamed
upon the altar.

The trumpets called on men to believe in
a spiritual God, and to render to him their
service; they exhorted men to praise and
worship, but they were in themselves neither
praise nor worship rendered by man. For
ages no response was given to their com-
mand by the early Jewish saints, save the
silent worship of heart and conduct. It was
not till the days of the gifted and gracious
David, that this silent obedience to the exhor-
tation of the trumpets was translated into the
audible and harmonious service of praise.

Whether the soundmg of these trumpets
was mtmc or not, the reader will learn on
referring to Dr. Anderson's able " Apology."
It was, as we have seen, very different from
congregational musical praise, inasmuch as it
imparted the mind of God for the instruction

of his people, and inasmuch as his people
took no part whatever in its production —
the whole perfonnance being confined to the
priesthood.

We have thus found that, up to this point
in the Jewish religious history, the service of
praise, which consisted of the singing of
psalms to instrumental guidance, had no con-
nection, essentially or otherwise, with sacrifice
or the priesthood, for the very sufficient
reason that it had no existence.

We have now before us a wide field, ex-
tending from the 11th verse of the 10th
chapter of the book of Numbers to the end of
the Old Testament Scriptures, in which to seek
and discover the place and time of the birth of
Hebrew social praise, and its introduction
into the congregational service of the sanc-
tuary*

Origin of Hebrew Seiince of Praise.

Moses had slept in his mysterious grave
upwards of four centuries before the service
of song, or even music, had any place in the
tabernacle worship of the Jews. Between
the beginning of the presidency of Joshua
and the time of the elevation of Samuel to

the ruling prophetship, a period elapsed,
of which, in its religious character, we know
little beyond this, that it shewed a general
decay of faith, and a neglect of the orderly
worship of the Most High. In their forget-
fulness of their God, the Israelites shewed
forgetfulness of their King. Religion and
patriotism were almost extinct when Samuel
made his appearance among the benighted
and down-trodden Hebrews. His coming,
however, initiated revival and reformation in
the church-state.

He had but for a brief period exercised
his office, ^' when the children of Israel did
put away Baalim and Ashtaroth, and served
the Lord only ;" and this turning from idols
to their covenant God resulted in mighty
temporal deliverances, wrought for them by
their Almighty King; "so the Philistines
were subdued, and they came no more into
the coast of Israel."

It must appear to the most superficial
reader of the Jewish history, that the period
now under review was the first of the great
times of refreshing from on high with which
God's ancient church was visited. The sins
and errors of the people were doubtless great
and many ; notwithstanding, it must be con-

fessed that it was a time of true religious
revival.

That social religious exercises were prac-
tised, we haveevidence in thefollowing incident
recorded in the 10th chapter of First Samuel.

The prophet had anointed Saul to be cap-
tain over God's mheritance, and was about
to send him on his way to his father's house,
when he thus addressed him : " ' Thou shalt
come to the hill of God, where is the garrison
of the Philistines : and it shall come to pass,
when thou art come thither to the city, that
thou shalt meet a company of prophets com-
ing down from the high place with a psaltery,
and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp before
them; and they shall prophesy: and the Spirit
of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou
shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned
into another man.' • . . And it was
80, that, when he had turned his back to go
from Samuel, God gave him another heart :
and all those signs came to pass that day.
And when they came thither to the hill, be-
hold a company of prophets met him ; and
the Spirit of God came upon him, and he
prophesied among them."

No one, whose opinion is worthy of notice,
will be found to hold that the prophecy here

spokmi of was eitber the pfediction of fotore
events, or the exhortation of preaching so
named in Grospel times. The most popolar
of onr conmientators has very happily ez^
pressed the tnie sense of the word : ^^ These
prophets,'* he remarks, "had been at the
high place, probably offering sacrifice; and
now they came back singing psahns. We
should come from holy ordinances with onr
hearts greatly enlarged in holy joy and praise.*'

That this is the true interpretation of the
rdigions service of these prophets, is apparent
from the 25th chapter of the first book of
Chronicle^ in which we find, that '^ David,
and the captains of the host, separated to the
service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman,
and of Jeduthnn, who should pnphesy with
harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals** —
the prophesying of these sons of Asaph,
Heman, and Jeduthnn, simply consisting
in this, that they by their instrumental
performance conducted and regulated the
singing of the psalms, whidii had either
been collected or composed by David the
son of Jesse.

The context of the narrative confirms this
view of the prophetic exercise. We are told
that God gave Saul another heart Of what

sort was his heart on the day previous?
Precisely the same in kind as on the night
before his death. On both these occasions
he went, like a mere superstitionist, as he
was, to Samuel ; in the one case holding in
his hand the fourth part of a shekel of silver,
wherewith he might induce the seer *^ to teU
km hia toay^^ in the other, bowing to the
dust before the supposed phantom of the
departed prophet, and saying, '^ God hath
departed from me, — therefore I have called
thee, that thou mayest make known unto
me what I shall do''' If the heart of such a
man was, even for one hour, changed, what
sort of heart would it be ? It must at least
have been a heart impressed by some sense
of the true nature of God ; a heart looking
beyond mere ministers and instruments; a
heart rising into immediate, prayerful or
praiseful, intercourse with the Most High ;
precisely sudi a heart as could not for a
moment resist the inducement of the pro-
phet's song, but must at once rush into
concert with theirs, 'Milting itself up unto
God with joy I"

We have in this episode presented to us
a company of men who know and serve the
Lord; we look upon Ihem as they return

from the high place, the sacrificial and offer-
tory rites of which they spiritually compre-
hend ; we hear them uttering, by the guidance
of psaltery, tabret, harp and pipe, such hymns
of praise to God as Moses and Miriam sung;
hymns which had never, by divine command,
been raised in tabernacle of the Lord, or
dwelling of His chosen people; hymns in
which no priest had ever officially taken part ;
hymns which rose from the lonely highway,
far from the altar, and when no priest was
near ; hymns that were the irresistible outr
flow of hearts in which the Spirit of God
dwelt ; and in all this we recognise the first
recorded example of the Jewish social service
of song.

These members of some prophetic college,
in the vicinity, must be regarded as of the
best educated class of their time : they had
given themselves to the good work of the
study of God's word, and of instructing the
people therein ; and, spendmg their lives in
these exercises, they awaited any special
communication which God might see fit to
make, through them, to the nation and
church which he had named his own. In
this company we have an example of the
educated, religious society of the days of

Samuel. These men come before ns in their
exercises of devotion ; and lo, their service of
praise is precisely that which the friends of
the organ regard as the nearest approach to
perfection, — ^the living soul breathing itself
out to God through the living voice, in
intelligible words, accentuated by musical
rythm, and led by instrumental sound. In
this first recorded exhibition of Hebrew con-
gregational praise we have presented to us a
service which grew out of minds enlightened
and hearts sanctified ; which was not copied
from anything in any of the four departments
of the theocrW ; which was enjoined m no
article of the Mosaic constitution ; which was,
in one word, a free-will offering, a spontaneous
consecration unto God of the heart's love, the
mind's gifts, and the body's skill possessed by
Ae woiSippers. ^

This service of song had no connection of
any sort with sacrifice or the priesthood ; it
was not symbolical of the recti service of
praise belonging to Gospel times, for that
service is now almost universally identical
with it ; its instrumental was not symbolical
of its vocal part, for " what a man hath why
doth he yet hope for?" — it was not formal,
but spiritual, inasmuch as Saul, the formalist,

had to be changed in the spirit of his mind
before he could take any part in its per-
formance.

We have found the fountainhead of the
Jewish service of song : it gushed out of the
human heart, quickened by grace, and filled
with the love of God. Its progress, right
direction, and proper form were regulated by
no new statute, but by the power of the
Spirit of God, within the human soul, in the
nature of which there had always been, though
long neglected, misapprehended and abused,
the law of praise written by the finger of Grod
himself.

We shall soon find that this service, which
was mem in reality raised up to God, strongly
contrasting with the theocratic religious ser-
vice, whidh was Ood actucdly condescending
to man, was, in its every part, erected by
King David into an ordinance of the Hebrew
Church.

Introduction of Musical Praise into the
Tdbemade Service, and the Divine Sanction
of the Innovation.

When David, with whose gifts and pro-
ficiency in poetry and music we are all well

Itcquainted, found himself established in his
kingdom, he, in expression of the abundant
grace which animated his soul, ^'said unto
all the congregation of Israel,— Let us l>r!ng
again the ark of our God to us : and all tiie
congregation said that they would do so : for
the thmg was right in the eyes of all the
people. So Dayid gathered all Israel together
from Shihor of Egypt even unto the en-
tering of Hemalii, to bring the ark of God
from Kirjath-jearim. And they carried the
ark of God in a new cart out of the house of
Abinadab : a/nd David and aU Israel played
before God with all Aeir might, and with
sinffing, and with harps, and with psalteries,
and with timbrds, and with cymbals, and
with trumpets." (1 Chron. xiiL)

On this exta*aordinary occasion David
sought to pay, on a more magnificent scale,
to the ark of the God (tf his salvation die
same honour whidi had been rendered to
himself on his returning triumphant from the
slaughter of the Philistine.

Tliis service was at once special and con-
gr^ational, and its chief element was the
vocal praise of God under instrumental
guidance.

The trumpets mentioned among the instru-

ments were the trampets cX the BaDctuary,
and were, by Grod's ordinance, sounded by
the priests, as on all days of public rejoidng,
to exhort the people to lift up their souls to
the great Jehovah, that thereby they might
present their memorial before Him : and the
song led by harp, psaltery, timbrel, and
cymbal was the first audible response of a
Hebrew assembly to the trumpet's exhortation.

We have here, on an extraordinary occa-
sion, the introduction of the service of con-
gregational praise into Jewish worship. For
upwards of four hundred years had Grod, in
trumpet-blast, called on his people to lift up
their souls to him : and now, at last, in a
time of temporal prosperity, advancing mental
culture and spiritual revival, that people made
answer to the theocratic summons in the
loud outburst of their praise, clothed in the
words of poetry, moving in the accent of
music, and led and regulated by instrumental
sound.

The end of this religious assembly was not
perfectly attained until the close of three
months, during which time, because of Uzzah's
offence, the ark abode in the house of Obed-
Edom. At the end of that time, David
determined once more to bring up the ark of

the Lord to tibe place which be had prepared
for it. On this occasion also, place was
given to congregational praise. " And David
spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint
their brethren to be singers, with instruments
of music, psalteries, and harps, and cymbals,
sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy —
4hus all Israel brought up the ark of the
covenant of the Lord," etc. The musical
service was precisely the same as on the
former occasion, with this exception, that
while the trumpets of the priests exhorted
the people to lift up theu* hearts to God, the
guidance of the congregational response was,
by David's command, assigned to certmn
singers and instrumentalists selected from
among the Levites.

After having established the ark in its
appointed place, David proceeded to restwe,
in its perfect order, the tabernacle service,
the sacrificial rites and the priestly offices:
and the record informs us that the trumpets
of the sanctuary were assigned to two priests
named Ben^uah and Jahaziel.

The new service of praise ; which had
grown out of hearts, influenced by grace and
enlightened by the theocratic symbolic teach-
ing; and which, on the two extraordinary

occasions, had been employed by David and
the Jewish people, it seemed good to the
man according to God^s own heart to make
a permMient practice in congregational
worship.

That all things might be done decently
and in order, he selected such of the Lerites
as were poetically and musically gifted, t9
conduct and regulate this new department of
dirine service. He found in the Levites,
who were the ministers of the priests and the
servants of the tabernacle, the very persons
who might becomingly undertake this duty,
inasmuch as, being freed &om the necessity
of common toil, and appointed by God to
fulfil certain emergent, but unessential duties
in connection with sacrifice and the priest-
hood, they were in circumstances to devote
both time and ability to secure an orderly
and dignified service of God.

The congregational service of praise we
have hitherto seen to be perfectly distinct
from any symbolic institution of the theo-
cracy, and now, even when it is, by David's
command, intrusted to the guidance of the
Levites, no change has passed on its charac-
ter: it is still the free-will offering of the
people, having no connection, essentially

or in principlej with sacrifice and the priest-
hood.

In the restoration of the tabernacle service
no change was made on anything essentially
connected with the four departments of the
theocracy : — ^the priest remained the same, and
sacrifice was unchanged : the priest officiated,
the altar smoked, the trumpet sounded as in
the days of Moses.

The sacerdotal and sacrificial systems were
God's perfect picture of the salvation through
Jesus Christ : nothing could be blotted out
of that picture, nothing could be added to it :
because it was a symbol, it could not be
changed, and thus no duty in religious wor-
ship which was nnsymbolical, which did not
typify Christ, could be added to those, which
God in liie original institution had assigned
to the priesthood. Had David's innovation,
the service of praise, been essentially con-
nected with sacrifices and priests, then the
priests alone could have performed it. But
no priest, either in tabernacle or temple, ever
did, according to David's appointment, lead
a song of Sion, or guide its musical expres-
sion, either by psaltery, harp, or cymbal.
Therefore the service of pndse was not only
not essentially connected with sacrifice and

the priesthood, but was so ordered, that no
priest or sacrificer had any place in it. .

The Levites, to whom David assigned the
guidance of congregational praise, did not
belong to the priestly branch of the descen-
dants of Levi, and the duties which they
were appointed to perform had no essential
connection with sacrifice or the priesthood*
The oflSce of the Levites was a convenience
belonging both to the priesthood and to the
people.

1. The Levites could perform no priestly
act, could execute no sacrificial deed (Num«
xviii.), — they could not come near the vessels
of the sanctuary, nor the altar : if they had
done so, their doom was death, and the priest
who permitted them to do so was also doomed
to die : they were the servants — ^the menials
'^of the priests. The connection existing
between the Levite and the priest was pre-
cisely that which now exists between the
church ofScer and the pastor, and the service
of the Levite bore the same relation to sacri-
fice, as the church oflScer's, in pouring water
into the barsin, bears to the dispensation of
the sacrament of baptism.

2. They were also the servants of the
sanctuary: they erected, took down, and

transported from place to place the materials
of the tabernacle, they cleansed and otherwise
tended the house of God, and they were the
porters and police of the temple.

3. They were besides (Num. viii.) ap-
pointed to do the service of the children of
Israel in the tabernacle of the congregation,
and to make an atonement for the children
of Israel; that there might be no plague
among the children of Israel when they came
nigh unto the sanctuary : that is, they were
appointed to receive, at the hands of the
people, their victims and offerings, and to
bear these to the priests in hands which were,
by the necessity of office, ceremonially clean ;
or they were appointed, by administering
instruction, to prepare the people in atten-
dance for a right approach to the house of
God. It was this feature in the constitution
of their office which led David to nominate
them the leaders of the people's voluntary
service of song.

We have thus seen that the appointed
officera in the system of the priesthood and
sacrifice, — that is, the priests, the sons of
Aaron, — ^had no place assigned to them in the
service of song. And we have seen besides,
that the men on whom the duty of leading

this serrice was devolved, were not priests,
could do no sacrificial act, and were for the
accommodation of the people, as well as of
the priesthood. In David's restoration of the
tabernacle service, we have found that he
introduced one innovation, musical praise,
and that that service, as established by him,
had no connection essentially or in princyde
with sacrifice or the priesthood.

The temple service of Solomon was in
every essential point identical with the taber-
nacle service of David. This was secured by
special revelation made to David, and com-
municated to his son. The house and its
furniture corresponded with the tent and its
furniture, with this exception, that the former
excelled the latter in magnitude and magnifi-
cence. Sacrifice and the priesthood were
unchanged, though their accessories were
more glorious. God shewed to David the
pattern of the temple, as he had shewn to
Moses that of the tabernacle. Solomon took
the place of Bezaleel and Aholiab, and per-
formed his duty with the same success. The
priestly trumpets were correspondingly in-
creased to the number of one hundred and
twenty.

David's new institution of praise was also

on a grand scale perpetnated in the services
of the temple of Solomon.

The truth of oar notions regarding the
relation between the trumpet institution and
the voluntary worship of praise will become
apparent on the careful perusal of the 5th
and 7th di£q)ters of the second book of
Chronicles.

Whilst Solomon's sacrifice of twenty and
two thousand oxen, and one hundred and
twenty thousand sheep, was, hour by hour,
consuming in the flames, the priests with
their trumpets stood on the east (that is the
people's side) of the altar: immediately behind
them stood the Levites, " with instruments
of music of the Lord^ which David the King
had made to praise the Lord, because his
mercy endureth for ever, when David praised
by their ministry," and behind the Levites
stood all Israel.

Stand for a moment behind the altar and
look eastward, and what do you behold?
You see immediately before you the priests
engaged in their peculiar sacrificial work:
tiie priests are the types of Christ in his per-
son and sacerdotal office, and the smoking
akar which they tend is the symbol of the
death accomplished on Calvary :— beyond

the sacrificing priests and the altar, and
standing not on ground restricted to priestly
feet, you perceive a hundred and twenty men,
also of the priestly order, holding the trum*
pets of the sanctuary, — ^the soundmg of which,
at such a time, was an exhortation to a
spiritual faith in the great Atoning Lamb,
and the very name of which, throughout the
prophetic writings, is ahnost synonymous
with exhortation and the preaching of the
Gospel : and beyond these, the Levite singers
and instrumentalists, backed by the thousands
whose song of praise they were appointed to
guide, waiting, only for the summons of these
evangelic trumpets, to lead forth, by voice
and instrument, the united response of Israel
in faith and in praise of Him whose mercy
endureth for ever; which living response
would be to them a memorial before their
God.

The trumpet-admonition on this occasion
led the people to a right apprehension of the
purpose and meaning of the sacrificial symbols,
whereby a true evangelic worship was elicited
from the great congregation ; and the inno-
vation of the assembly's musical response^
devised by David, was accepted by God as
a service well-pleasing to Him, and received

in a striking manner his gracious sanction.
At that moment when the sound of human
voice, led by instrumental music, blended
with the trumpet-blast; — at that very moment,
" the house was filled with a cloud, even the
house of the Lord ; so that the priests could
not stand to minister by reason of the cloud :
for the glory of the Lord had filled the house
of God." The trumpet-sound said virtually,
« Seek ye my face :" then the voice of praise
replied, " Thy face, Lord, will we seek :" and
at that very moment in which the ready
obedience met the divine command, sanction
was given to llie innovation of congregational
praise by the glory of the Lord appearing in
the sanctuary.

We have thus found: — 1. That music,
vocal or instrumental, had no place in the
original tabernacle service. 2. That the
institution of trumpets was not essential to
sacrifice or the priesthood, nor peculiar to
them, — was in itself no musical service, and
was intended for instruction and for the ex-
hortation of the people to worship. 3. That
the service of song by instrumental guidance
had its origin in human nature, enlightened
by the theocratic teaching, and quickened by
the Spirit of God ; was a voluntary offering

and an expression under divine guidance of
an element of man's original constitution.
4. That the introduction of tiiis service, into
the worship of the tabernacle and temple,
was an innovation of the gifted and gracious
David ; and, 5. That Grod, at the dedication
of the temple, signally manifested his accept-
ance of this innovation — ^the free-will oSer-
ing of man.

In other words we have found that the
singing of psalms to instrumental guidance
did not belong to any of the four departments
of the theocracy, which we have named,
God condescending to man; and had no
connection essentially or in principk with
sacrifice or the priesthood. We have also
discovered that the singing of psalms to in-
strumental guidance (the one always accom*^
panying the other), and which was man lift-
ing HIMSELF UP TO 6oD, was a voluntary
service which God accepted with signal tokens
of his pleasure.

We have seen that the theocratic symbo-
lism of priest and sacrifice took its rise in the
mind of the Divine Teacher and flowed in a
continuous strewn through all the Jewish
religious history. We have found that the
service of song i^rung up in the spirit-

quickened soul of man, and flowed by the
institution of David in an unbroken current
through the history of Hebrew congregational
worship ; and that these two glided side by
side, never commingling so that the one could
be called an essential of the other.

We have ako found in tracing the origin
of this service, that it was neither symbolical
nor formal, but spiritual and real

The objection from the Old Testament,
urged by Dr. Porteous and Dr. Candlish against
the use of instrumental guidance in the praises
of the Gospel Church is thus equal to nothing.
And lastly, inaanuch as the theocracy and
the Hebrew service of song were distinct
from each other, and did not of necessity
standorfall together, the friendsof the organ, —
even now, when priesthood and sacrifice have
been for ever abolished by the advent and
work <rf Jesus Christ, — ^may, if they judge it
necessary, make use of instrumental aid in
the singing of the sanctuary, provided that
no distinct prohibition of it can be discovered
in the New Testament Scriptures.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ARGUMENT FROM THE
NEW TESTAMENT.

In opening this chapter, I may be allowed to
refer to another of the famous qnestions
which constitute the strength of the Preface
to the " Organ Question." " Does the Old
Testament itself point to anything ^ but the
fruit of the Upsy as the peace-offering or
thank-offering of Gospel times?" On read-
ing this question, I was disposed to believe
that Dr. Candlish had, somewhere in the Old
Testament, discovered a prediction that, on
the establishment of the New Testament
dispensation, the instrumental aid which the
Church then used with such seemliness and
comfort, would cease to be permitted to give
its support even to those who might feel it

to be indispensable. A disconrse from the
pen of the Doctor, which appeared in the
Psalmodist for February last, has completely
undeceived me. Dr. Candlish has made no
such discovery ; he has, by comparing some
texts from the Testaments, Old and New,
found, what we have all long known, that
the most prominent part in the Gospel
sacrifice of thanksgiving is the rendering, to
God, the fruit, the calves of the lips ; that is,
articulate speech employed either in telling
of his goodness, giving thanks to him in
prayer, or singing his praises in a musical
composition. In this we are all agreed, and
it is just because the friends of the organ
believe this, that they are the friends of the
organ ; they wish to have the peac^-offering
of praise presented with decency, the fruit of
the lips laid before God with seemliness, and
therefore make use of that art which God for
such ends has implanted in their nature.
That this ofifering of praise may be general
in a congregation, instrumental guidance is
employed.

Instrumental aid cannot destroy the essen-
tial character of the voice which it regulates
— the voice is surely the voice still — ^the
offering of the fruits of the soul's harvest

cannot surely be fatally vitiated by being
gracefully disposed in a seemly basket. I
presume that David imagined that he was
singing^ when his voice blended with the
notes of harp and psaltery in such words as
these, " God, my heart is fixed ; I will
sing and give praise with my glory. Awake
psaltery and harp : I myself will awake
early." and that he believed that he was
presenting the calves of his lips, when to the
guidance of the instruments of the chorus, he
uttered words of this import, "Accept, I
beseech thee, the fi*ee will offerings of my
m<mih^ Lord."

Dr. Candlish, in his discourse, has proved
nothing more than this— which we all grant
— ^that, in the Gospel Church, we should sing
the praise of God; but he has so done this, that
many of his readers will be under the impress
sion that he has proved a great deal more ;
namely, that the psalmody of the new dis-
pensation should, by authority of the Old
Testament, have no instniraental accompanii-
ment. Speaking of the ofierings of the old
dispensation, he says, " Such ofierings were
commonly accompanied with set forms of
thanksgiving, singing of praise, sounding of
trumpets, and other sorts of music Now, in

the more spiritual economy of the Gospel,
these sacrifices of thanksgiving are superseded,
and, instead of them, there remains only the

FRUIT OF THE LIPS."

Now this is exceedingly characteristic, and
is amazingly ingenious. The ingenuity will
become abundantly apparent to the reader
when he is informed that the foregoing con-
clusion has been arrived at after the study of
the following words (Isa. Ivii. 19). " I create
the firuit of the lips : pectce, peace to him that
is far off, and to him that is near, saith the
Lord."

According to Dr. Candlish's criticism, we
are by the terms "the fruit of the lips" to
understand vocal praise : / create is to be
regarded as equal to / appoint: and the
words, " peace, peace," etc., contain the sub-
ject of the song of thanksgiving. So that
thus, out of a few words of the Old Testa-
ment, a very neat and compact ordinance of
evangelic psalmody is constructed, which, if
reduced to writing, would run somewhat as
follows : — " I ordain that, under the Gospel
dispensation, men shall with their voices
render unto me sacrifices of praise, because
of the Gospel of peace which I have pro-
claimed to them." Having reached this

point it is the simplest tluDg in the world to
add such words as these : — ^' But as the
offerings of praise of the old dispensation,
which toere oommordy acoon^panied with sound-
ing of trumpets, and other sorts ofmusic^ are
superseded, therefore, we have in this text
from Isaiah an Old Testament announcement
that the peace-offering, or thank-offering . of
Gospel times is to be the fruit of the lips
without any instrumental guidancer

These are not Dr. Candlish's words —
they are mine — ^but they give the meaning
of his discourse without the mist of his lan-
guage, as will be evident to any thinking
reader who patiently follows him through the
production in question.

We have already dealt with the Doctor's
notion, that one half of the Old Testament
service of praise belonged to that dispensation
and the other half to this dispensation ; we
have seen that instrumental guidance in pre-
senting the fruit of the lips had no such con-
nection with sacrifice or offering, that they
must stand or fall together ; and that thus,
while sacrifice and the priesthood have fallen
to rise no more, instrumental music has still
standing ground in the Gospel economy.

All that I have now to do, in order com-

pletely to demolish Dr. Candlish^s newly
discovered Old Testament camtttution of
New Testament psalmody^ is to direct the
reader shortly to the text out of which this
ordinance, by the Doctor's command, has
grown, " as if by the stroke of an enchanter's
wand."

..^^ I have seen his ways and will heal him :
I will lead him also and restore comforts to
him and to his mourners. I create the fruit
of the lips : peace, peace, to him that is far
off and to him that is near ; and I will heal
him. But the wicked are like the troubled
sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast
up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith
my God, to the wicked."

These verses and their context treat, as
Dr. Candlish states, of the reconciliation of
sinners to God by the cross of Christ. God
in these verses announces, 1. His gracious
purpose of saving sinners: 2. The instru-
mentality by which this is to be accomplished
— ^the employment by God's ordinance of
human speech in proclaiming the Gospel of
peace both to Jew and Gentile, with the
assurance that through this instrumentality,
God will heal the sinner : and 3. That those
who remain unimpressed by this instrument-

alitr of pmdung eaamot inherit the peace
which it prodaiins.

To tnmshUe the torn "■ fruit of the lips,"
in this cise, into the wwds " congr^atioiml
flinging '^ is to render these Terses ntteiiy
nnintelhgiUe. These vases fwetell the
preaching of the Gospel and the consequent
salvaticm of men, and have not the most
distant reference to the doty of musical praise.
This, I am confident, will be plain to every
scholar, and clear to every man possessing an
English Bible and English common sense to
guide him in its perusal. The study of ttus
context, by the simplest mind, mimt result in
the conviction that Dr. Candlidi has con-
founded singing with preaching.

The Old Testament ordinance, regulating
New Testament pndse, is thus found to be
Ihe oflkpring of a misconception ; an ordinance
of Dr. Candlish's fancy, not of the word of
God. There is no intimation given to ns in
the Old Testament, from beginning to end,
of the mode in which the service of praise
should now be performed, and if we find no
prohibition of instrumental aid in the New
Testament Scriptures, we are at perfect liberty
to make use of it.

1. Do the New Testament Scriptures con-

tain any prohibition of instrumentaV guidance
in congregational praise? They do not.
Their silence is explained by Dr. Porteous
thus : " It is not the ordinary manner of the
writers of the New Testament to inform us
what divine institutions were to be abrogated,
but only what observances were to take
place under the Gospel." Now, with all
respect for. this man, "mighty in the Scrip-
tures," I am bold enough to announce, that
the writers of the New Testament (whether
in their ordinary or extraordinary manner.
Dr. Porteous, if he were alive, could no
doubt tell us) have most distinctly informed
us what divine institutions were to be abro-
gated.

John, the beloved disciple, reports that
Jesus Christ himself announced the approach-
ing dissolution of the theocratic economy,
the exponent of which was the temple at
Jerusalem (John iv. 21). Paul informs us,
once and again, that circumcision has ceased
(GaL V. 6; Col. iii. 11). The same Apostle
gives us to know that the Passover is now
no more (1 Cor. v. 7). He also informs us
that the ceremonial law is abrogated (Heb.
ix. 10).

The most superficial student of the Epistle

to the Hebrews must be able to shew that
one New Testament writer has, under inspi-
ration, stated at length what of the Hebrew
service was by the advent of Jesus Christ for
ever abolished. Paul in that epistle (chap,
ix.), speaking of the Mosaic dispensation as
a thing of the past, enters into detail, naming,
among the things superseded, the tabernacle
with its furniture, the priesthood, sacrifice, and
offering. These, constituting the full theo-
cratic service of the sanctuary, Paul tells us,
are for ever abrogated.

While it can thus be shewn that every essen-
tial element of public worship according to the
requirements of the theocracy has been de-
clared by New Testament writers to be abo-
lished, there is not in the entire New Testa-
ment any intimation that the Jewish service
of praise — which was not enjoined in any
theocratic institution, but was the free will
offering of the sanctified human heart — should
cease, in whole or in part. In other words,
the entire theocratic economy is declared by
New Testament writers to be abrogated, while
the service of praise, always vocal and instru-
mental, is never once named among the
things abolished by the establishment of the
Gospel dispensation.

The friends of the organ are thus far free
to exercise both their conscience and their
taste.

2. Dr. Candlish, in his preface, demands
of the reader — " Is the temple or the syna-
gogue the model on which the church of the
New Testament is formed?"

To which query the judicious reader will
do weU to give reply in the interrogatory
form, thus — " Is there, with the exception of
the sacraments, any department of the service
of a Protestant church which was not per-
formed either in the temple or by its mini-
sters, the priests ? Was there song in the
temple? Was the temple the place of
prayer? Did the priests ever read the word
of God in the hearing of the people ? Did
they ever expound it ? Did they at any time
dismiss the congregation with a blessing?
And were all these components of our present
Protestant service to be found in the service
of the synagogue?"

Whether the Reformers regarded the syna-
gogue as the model of an evangelic church
is a very different question. I believe that
they did. Dr. Candlish evidently does so;
if he did not, he would not attempt to stagger
us by the question.

The word of God says nothing concerning
the model of a New Testament church — it
points us neither to temple nor synagogue^
for the reason which will now appear, that
to follow either of them closely, would be to
feil in producing a service suitable to Gospel
times. Good men, possessing knowledge of
the Scriptures, have, on comparison, declared
the synagogue to be, on the whole, the best
known pattern of a church, and the conse-
quence has been that the reformed churches
have, in a large measure, ordered their service
by the model of the Jewish meeting-house,
in as far as that was practicable. Dr. Cand-
lish's question is really equivalent to a state-
ment that the synagogue is the only model
of a New Testament church. Dr. Porteous
is evidently of the same opinion, and, starting
from this point, these doctors imagine that
they have for ever settled the organ contro-
versy, when they tell us (page 95) that,
" Paul, in all his joumeyings, could not find
a single harp, or psaltery, or organ, in any
of the religious assemblies of his countrymen,
beyond the precmcts of the temple at Jeru-
salem." We are thus informed that Paul, in
all his wanderings, found in the synagogues
of the Jews no musical instrument whereby

the service of song might be conducted.
This I hold to be perfectly true. Rising
from a perusal of the Acts of the Apostles, I
confess, that there was no instrumental
guidance of the service of song, for this rea-
son (which will, I trust, be found suflScient
to satisfy the majority of my readers), that
in the synagogue there was no service of song.
Relying on the evidence of the New Testa-
ment, I hereby deny that there was any
musical service of praise in the worship of
the religious assemblies referred to by Dr.
Porteous. I deny that in the services of
these assemblies any place was allotted to
psalm or hymn, or spiritual song. In such
circumstances, it is not to be expected that
harp, psailtery, or organ, could have been
discovered by Paul in the religious gatherings
of his countrymen. If the synagogue, as it
is described in the New Testament, must be
regarded as the model of a Christian church,
then the Christian church must have no
music. But if music be, in the New Testa-
ment, set down as an element of Gospel
worship ; while no model of that service is
presented ; whither shall the New Testament
Church turn to obtain a pattern of that ser-
vice ? Unquestionably to that example which

the holy men of old de'nsed, wliich God sanc-
tioned, and which, as the uprising of sancti-
fied humanity to God, was not abolished with
the theocratic system, in which God condes-
cended to man.

Reference to the service of the synagogue
can only fortify the friend of the organ in his
already impregnable position.

3. The 18th and 19th verses of the 6th
chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians have
afforded matter for a sore struggle between
the friends and the adversaries of the organ.
If we believe the former, these verses are a
direct New Testament sanction of instru-
ments ; if we give credit to the latter, they
are a direct prohibition of them.

Dr. Anderson of Glasgow is perfectly con-
vinced that these verses legalize instrumental
aid in Gospel praise : Dr. Candlish of Edin-
burgh is as thoroughly persuailed that they
denounce the practice and defends his convic-
tion by very consistently telling us what
Conybeare and Howson have said on the
subject.

How fortunate a thing it is that we Pres-
byterians are not bound to receive the
opinions of fathers, reformers, and leaders of

the church, for more than we judge them to
be worth !

The verses run thus : ** Be not drunk with
wine wherein is excess ; but be filled with
the Spirit ; speaking to yourselves in psalms,
and hymns, and spiritual songs ; singing and
making melody in your heart to the Lord."

The cause of all the contention is in the
fact, that the word pmlm and the word tran^
slated making mdodyy suggest at once to the
mind the idea of instrumental music. A
paalm is with propriety defined, a sacred ode
designed to be sung to the accompaniment of
the lyre, and the word rendered making
melody literally signifies, to strike the string
of the same instrument. Taking the words
in their simplicity, the passage, as far as
music is concerned, seems to consist of two
parts — the one enjoining the general duty of
praise in compositions sung either with, or
without, an instrumental accompaniment;
and the other particularly stating that praise,
whether it be with or without instrumental
guidance, must always be of true Gospel
character, that is, must be an exercise of the
heart.

If this, the most probable^ be also the (rue
sense of the passage ; then we have in it

what the friends of the organ believe to be
the Divine Mind in the matter. It is worthy
of notice that the psalm takes its name, not
from its literary structure, but from its asso-
ciation with a musical instrument.

It is also worthy of notice that Paul aud
Silas in the dungeon, of the furniture of which,
it is to be presumed, harps and psalteries
formed no part, at midnight sang praises to
Grod ; but the praises they sang were in the
form not of psalms, but of hymns. From
this it would appear that words, arranged in
the psalm form, unlike words arranged in the
hymn form, had to be expressed in a music,
the diflBiculties of which rendered instrumental
support necessary. Both hymns and psalms,
representing the simpler, and the more elabo-
rate musical forms, together with spiritual
songs, of which we know little, are thus, in
this strife-engendering passage, declared to be
parts of evangelic service. Poetry in various
shapes and music, vocal and instrumental,
are hereby enjoined : and the all of art,
poetic and musical, is thus demanded of
those who would aright serve the God of the
Gospel.

But this viewing of the words in their
simplicity is distasteful to many. Some men

have resolved that the New Testament psalm
shall no longer be a psalm in reality, but a
psalm only in name : they allow it to be
called a psalm, but they insist that it shall be
a hymn, while the divine command is to sing
psahns amd hymns.

Let the voice of Dr. Candlish be heard.
" The following is the translation given in
Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles
of Paul : — ' Let your singing be of psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs, and make
melody with the music of your hearts to the
Lord.' And in a note it is said : — ' Through-
out the whole passage there is a contrast
implied between the heathen and the Christian
practice, — 6. ^., When you meet, let yom*
enjoyment consist not in fulness of wine, but
fuhiess of the Spirit : let your songs be, not
the drinking songs of heathen feasts, but
psalms and hymns ; and their accompaniment,
not the music of the lyre, but the music of
the heart,' " etc.

According to this commentary, the words
which literally nin thus, " singing and lyre-
phying in your heart to the Lord," are to be
understood as if they were " singing^ with no
nccompainiment of the lyre^ hut of the hearts, to
the Lord. The lyre-playing^ when qualified

by the words in your heart, ceases thus to be
lyre-playing, and the text becomes a prohibi*
tion of instrumental guidance. Conybeare
and Howson would thus teach us that, because
we are to play in our heart, the playing must
be an exercise of inward emotions, not the
external expression of these in an instru-
mental performance.

It has been urged against this view, that
the words in your heart qualify the singing as
well as the lyre-playing: and that thus, if we
adopt Dr. Candlish's view, the singing is to
be internal as weU as the harping— a spiritual
service at once commending itself to the
Quaker community. Had the words, singing,
and lyre-playing in your heart, stood iJone,
one might by a trick of punctuation, have
restricted the influence of in your heart to
lyre-playing, and thus have arrived at what
would appear a sort of prohibition of instru-
mental aid. But, unfortunately for Dr.
Candlish, it is not so. The foregoing mem-
ber of the sentence names the kinds of music
to be employed, mentioning not only the
hymn, made for vocal expression, but also the
psalm, composed for an instrumental accom-
paniment So that, according to this com-
mentary, the psalm must have the heart's

accompaniment, while the hymn may remain
a mere utterance of the lips : in other words,
we are to praise God sometimes with, and
sometimes without, the heart : — when our
lips alone are exercised, the song will be a
hymn : when the heart also is engaged, it
will be called a psalm.

Such monstrous conclusion is the inevitable
result of restricting in your heart to lyre-
playing: such restriction is unsound: the
only comment, which will bear a strict inves-
tigation, being to this effect, " Commune with
each other in psalms, or hymns, or songs
(with the voice unaided, or with instrumental
guidance, as circumstances may demand), but,
both in singing and in playing, render to God
the service of your heart."

Dr. Candlish, instructed by Conybeare and
Howson, very properly considers the verses
under examination to contain a contrast be-
tween a heathen festival and a Christian social
assembly.

If the contrast be justly wrought out, the
friends of the organ will lose nothing — but
gain much.

In Dr. Candlish's note we find, as belong-
ing to the heathen feast, dngtng m^an in-
strumental accompaniment Where, in the

context, is this discoverable ? In connection
with the Christifui assembly ! Is this style
of criticism permissible? Unquestionably —
if the constituents of the heathen revel, neces-
sary to the completion of the outline of the
two assembUes, are carried over in the same
way to the Christian social meeting. On
this principle, which I maintain to be sound
in criticism, the following paraphrase of the
verses will express their meaning : — " At the
feasts of the heathen, men become drunk with
wine, yielding to it the supremacy of their
souls and bodies: — be not ye so drunken,
inasmuch as the Spirit of God alone should
so fill and rule you. Drink, therefore, no
wine to excess, or in debauchery ; so that, by
this temperance, ye may keep yourselves
always under the influence of the Holy
Ghost.

" At the feasts of the heathen, the art of
poetry, and the science of vocal and instru-
mental music are used to express the praise
of sinful pleasures and the worship of false
gods : — ^in your social assemblies, let lyre and
voice proclaim the praises of the Lord, and
let their every sound express the emotions of
the heart."

The contrast of the two assemblies evidently

consists in this, that the one is characterized
by debauchery, the other by temperance —
the one by carnality, the other by spirituaKty
— ^the one by musical praise of false gods, the
other by musical worship of the Lord. The
two assemblies have still much in common.
The wine is in both ; the lyre-led singing is
in both ; and the praise of a divinity is in
both : — ^but in the Christian social meeting,
the wine is that of temperance, the music,
vocal and instrumental, is the expression of
the heart, and the divinity, so worshipped, is
the Lord.

The contrast of the two feasts is but
another mode of exhorting us, whether we
eat, or drink, or whatsoever we do, to do
all to the glory of God.

The art of poetry and the two-fold
science of music incidentally make their
appearance in the context, and thus obtain
the sanction of God Himself, as means to be
employed, in the Gospel Church, for the
proper ordering of His praise, in the assem-
bly of His saints.

A just criticism of this passage cannot
but result in the persuasion that the use of
instruments in Gospel worship is sanctioned,
if not commanded.

100

In our New Testament inqniries, we have
found no prohibition of instrumental praise ;
but have, on the other hand, discovered
what is at least a sanction of it.

It may still be asked, " Is the spirit of
the New Testament for or against instru-
ments? What is the spirit of the New
Testament ? The spirit of the New is the

SPIRIT OF THE OlD TESTAMENT. The tWO

dispensations differ only in Jbrm and letter.
The veriest child in theology knows this,
that the Old Testament and the New in
ynrit are one. If instrumental guidance of
psalmody was according to the spirit of the old,
it is also according to the spirit of the new
dispensation ; and if the New Testament
has not in letter declared the abolition of
instrumental aid, then the one spirit of the
Old and New Testaments is in favour of the
Organ.

CHAPTER V.

CONCLUSION.

The opponents of the Organ have objected
to such an innovation in Presbyterian service
not only on the grounds ahready examined,
but on others, the most notice-worthy of
which I proceed very shortly to consider.

1. The Road to Rome. — Dr. Porteous is
pleased to associate the Organ with Anti-
christ (page 130), and to denounce the doc*
trine that the labours of genius should be
devoted to the service of God, inasmuch as
the mind thereby may be hurried too far
respecting the manner in which the service
of God should be performed, and may be
led into almost every corruption which has
disfigured Christianity.

A theologian, of the type of Dr. Porteous,
did, on a recent occasion, in a ministerial

102

assembly, with a distinctness and force, for
which he is distinguished, deUver hunself of
Dr. Porteoos's notion in the following striking
words : " Bring back the organ, — and bring
back the mass ! " Whereby the majority of
his hearers understood him to mean, that if
the organ were admitted into a Presbyterian
community, that community had icured
tickets right through to the termtnus at
Rome. It is true that a younger brother,
then present, commented on this rhetorical
flourish, thus, " He might widi equal justice
say, * Play on the bagpipe, — ^and bring back
the Pretender!'" But this wretched at-
tempt to reason by example on the part of
the young man was, it is to be trusted, by
every sober thinker little regarded. What
this reverend father announced within a
church court, his admirers have, without that
court, most dutifully and strenuously repeated.
This is no marvel, seeing that, with all our
advancement, there still is a section of Pres-
byterian society in whose dialect organ is
a term convertible with Popery. In fine,
doctors of some theology have suggested,
and men of no theology have aflSrmed, that
to have an organ in the church is to be on
the high-road to Rome.

103

Is iJie organ so intimately connected with
Popery, that, to open ike door to the former
is to have no harrier to the entrance of the
latter f Must the organ and Fopery stand or
faU together "i No. Romanism, the theo-
logy of the unreformed church, and Popery,
which is its ecclesiastical government, are
complete without musical instrument of any
kind. That Soman Catholic churches must
have an organ, is a delusion entertained by
the more superficial Protestants of our large
towns. There are thousands of Popish con-
gregations that have in their service neither
organ, flute, nor fiddle, — but their mass is
nothing the better on that account. The
musical service in the Pope's own chapel is
performed by tiie human voice alone, and
Romanists think his mass noticing tiie worse
on that account In fact, Roman Catholics
attach no religious value to instrumental
music, and use it only as an expedient. If
Romanism enter a Protestant church after
the organ, it is not because they are related
as cause and effect.

Can it be shewn that the presence of the
organ in a reformed church must change the
pastor into a priest^-^jonvert the communion
elements into the wafer — translate extempore

104

prayer into the generally unintelligible fixity
of a Latin liturgy — ^transmute the visitation
of the dying into extreme miction — ^tmn the
scanty dividend of the Sustentation Fnnd
into a statute etrjoining the celibacy of the
clergy — or cause the Memoir of Chalmers to
be regarded as a Bidl instituting the wor-
ship of the saints? I ask these questions,
and, like Brutus, Dr. Candlish, and the men
who ask hard things at municipal and other
assemblies, " pause for a reply."

Has the introduction of the organ into the
Congregational and Baptist Churches been
followed by one Romish element in doctrine
or church polity? In regard to doctrine,
these churches are the incarnation of Eng-
lish Calvinism to this day. The Baptist
still stoutly denies that Dr. Candlish is a
baptized man, which is not the case with
Popery ; for, on account of his sacramental
sprinkling, Rome still claims him as one of
her dear, though erring sons. The Inde-
pendent, like a dogged Saxon, as he is, not
knowing when he is beaten, sticks fast by
his Congregationalism still, and maintains
that Dr. CancUisk, preAyter, is only a modem
variety in the spelling of Dr. Ccmdlisky prieisL
In &ci, since the adoption of the organ by

105

English Nonconformists, things doctrinal and
ecclesiastical remain just as they were before.
No visible change has taken place, unless
that in congregational committees of disci-
pline, and in associations of churches for par-
ticular objects, they seem, in some degree, to
look towards Presbyterianism : whether this
be a looking towards Popery, let the men
who ride on the high places of Presbyterian-
ism inform us.

How did Popery at first come into \!ciQ
Church ? (So again will it enter.) By music?
Nay. By any art dedicated to the service of
God ? Nay. These gifts religion renders,
whatever name may be inscribed on the shrine.
Art did not make Popery. Popery did not
make Art : but it laid hold of it, and often
used it for bad ends. Popery grew out of
the positive evil of human nature ; just as
the dedication of mind, body, and estate to
religion grows out of the imperfect good
lingering in our constitution.

How did they manufacture the first pre-
late ? Why, they very properly reverenced
the pastor of some long established congre-
gation : they called on him to preside in their
assemblies : in difficulties, his advice was as
law : and when he died, good men mourned.

106

His place was not long empty, and lo, his
successor, a youth, talented, but not over-
burdened vfiih humility, challenged all the
respect paid to his predecessor, and men
listened to the bishop of the influential con-
gregation, — and when they did so, he became
a prelate, and the father of all such as wear
the mitee and carry the crosier.

If I wished to introduce Popery into a
Presbyterian community, such as the Free
Church, I should not begin with the organ :
I should not even anticipate the fulfilment of
my desire by building cathedrals in the form
of the cross : I should do neither of these
things ; but I should select two or three men,
of such eminent talent and moral worth, that
every man must respect them ; I should ar-
range that they should, in their own order,
and out of their own order, appear in the
General Assembly of the Church ; I should
secure thus a bench oi prelates in an asaembhi
of presbyters ; I should thus, by destroying
presbytery's distinguishing feature, the parity
of pastors, break up the constitution of the
Church, though this might appear, at the
time, only to that class of people who are
continually finding fault; and in all this I
should inaugurate, under another name, the

107

lordly hierarchy of a future time. I should
thus have accomplished an evil, which, un-
less God prevented, would survive me for
ages, and furnish the Church with prelates
and popes to the end of time.

If the Free Church be truly filled with a
hatred of Popery, she should "have mind
upon herself:" and the men, who, within
her, already constitute a Popish element,
should either at once descend to the place
assigned to them by Presbyterianism, or be
of all men the last to affect horror of inno-
vations.

Bui, to render a Presbyterian community
Popish, I should have to introduce the element
of priesthood. Prelacy and priesthood are not
necessarily coexistent. A prelate is the
bishop of bishops — a priest is a medium of
communication between Grod and man. How
in the early Church did they manufacture the
first priest ? If I mistake not the priesthood
made itself ; " was the architect of its own
fortunes."

When the minister of the influential con-
gregation was felt to be a prelate, by the men
who justly were his peers, these men consoled
themselves by saying, " Well, if he is above
us, we are still above the people : " and, while

108

they bowed to their spiritual superior, they
demanded of the people that they, in spiritual
subjection, should bow to them. Thus, in
due time, men, once named the ministers of
the sanctuary, were acknowledged mediators
between God and man. If I were desirous
of re-establishing the priesthood in the Free
Church, I should become an earnest advocate
of the claims of the Sustentation Fund : I
should, in the Church Courts, press the neces-
sity of officially exhorting the people to greater
liberality : I should strive to have it declared
by authority that men should not altogether
be left to their own notions of what duty, in
such a matter, is: I should seek, in some
form or measure, to assess the people, thus
no longer acting as a Protestant pastor, who
exhorts to liberal and conscientious giving,
but as a priest, who, assuming something of
God's prerogative, fxes the proportion of that
liberality. To carry such a measure through
the Assembly of the Free Church would be
to introduce into that Church the priestly
element. Having thus brought in a prelacy
and a priesthood, I should leave them ; per-
fectly assured that human nature and the
devil, if unrestrained by God, would in time
work out of them an unmistakeable Anti-

109

Christ. Once more I say, " Let the Free
Church have mmd upon herself!"

The organ is better than, to Scotchmen,
it seems ; and some things which Scotchmen
admire are very much worse than they
appear.

Popery never grew out of art ; it grew
out of Ae evil of human nature. Popery
never sprung from art, because art is the
expression of a principle in the human con-
stitution which has not been '^ abrogated,** and
which, though often misapplied and abused
by man's vitiated moral nature, is still, as at
the beginning, "very good*' m the sight
of God.

To talk of the organ bringing back Popery,
is to talk very much as a fool doth.

2. The Fathefrs and Reformers. — It has
pleased Dr. Porteous to call in the fathers
and the reformers of the church to aid
him in the demolition of the organ. He
exhibits, in doing so, what all the opponents
of the organ more or less shew, a real and
undeniable Romanistic tendency, a hero-
worship, which, if left to itself, must in due
course become a worship of the saints.
When Dr. Candlish talks of a "common

reverence for the memory of the reforming
fathers of the Church of Scotland, and the
puritan divines of the Church of England,"
he lets out his incipient saint-worship. At
the same time he shews his knowledge of
the opinions held on the Organ Question by
the reforming fathers in Scotland, and his
ignorance of the views entertained, on the
&me subject, by the English Puritan divines ;
&om the writings of whom we can still
draw a defence of the organ, which I
regard as unanswerable, even after Dr. Cand-
lish has entered the field against Richard
Baxter.*

Are the fathers and the reformers of the
church the authors of our faith — are their
views on any subject the rule of our creed
or morals ? All Protestantism answers in one
indignant "No." What place have these
men in this matter? The place which the
reader occupies, the place which any one may
occupy who chooses to push his notions into
public notice.

The word of God is our rule of faith and
manners. And while we admire the wisdom
of the ancients, we claim the right of giving

* Organic versus Inorganic Music. By J. W. Lamb.
London, Ward & Co., 1856.

Ill

their nonsense its own name : and assuredly
the trash attributed by Dr. Porteous to the
fathers and reformers, and the judgment of
the Doctor in building his defence upon it,
are a lesson to us, as long as we live, to put
no confidence in man. A review at length
of Dr. Porteous's extracts from the fathers
and reformers would be one of the most
laughter-exciting productions of modem
times. I judge it best to enter into no ex-
amination of Dr. Porteous's extracts, because
the majority of these have no reference what-
ever to instrumental music, — ^because in some
of them vocal music itself is condemned, — and
because I wish to preserve the solemnity
with which the conscience of Dr. Candlish
has* invested the Organ Question. Where is
this reverence for dead men to end ? The
editor of the reprint is filled with reverence
for the man whose sternest condemnation of
the organ was, his naming it, the " kist o'
whistles : " may we expect, speedily to be
published under his editorship, a reprint of
the " First Blast of the Trumpet against the
monstrous Regiment of Women," dedicated
to her Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria?

3. The use of the organ in Presbyterian
Church service is more or less an innovation

112

" within these realms." Is it to be condemned
on this account? No. If the innovation
subserve improvement, it becomes an impera-
tive duty. Do we hold that whatever is
vitcst be right ? I trust we do not. Has
the Church in its standards pronoimced
against such a change ? No— neither in
spirit nor in letter. Why should we not
change, if we feel that we shall profit there-
by ? Let the men answer, who are possessed
of a conscience which appropriates to itself
all Christian privilege, and portions out no-
thing but Cluistian duty to its neighbours ;
let the men reply, whose tender conscience,
clamorous for its rights, would sway the mass
of Christian men as with a rod of iron ; let
the men reply, who, in their utter selfishness
and unsubdued self-sufficiency, demand of
their fellow-men that they shall become con-
formed to their likeness ; let the men reply,
who having no natural capacity to form a
judgment, do nevertheless decide in things
musical ; let the Free Church reply, if it can
take such a liberty in the face of the " Organ
Question ;" and let Dr. Candlish reply, if
he can.

4. We have been told that the service of
God, under the Gospel, must be spiritual, and

that, therefore, the aid of the organ is inad-
missible. Why so ? Was David's singmg
rendered unspiritual by its infitnimental guid-
ance ? Was his soul dead and dark, when
with his lips he followed its movements in
the utterance of those psalms, which still
most perfectly express the worship of the
Christian heart ? No ; else the Bible is self-
contradictory, and truth a lie. Would that
both the friends and foes of tiie organ were
largely possessed of the spirituality of the
man who said, " Wake paaltery and harp — I
myself will awake early : I will praise thee,
Lord, with my whoh heart I^""

An objection, the same in nature, has been
made to the reading of discourses by ministers
of the Gospel. And even in these days of
progress there are Presbyterians who believe,
that no sermon, written on Saturday and read
on Sabbath, can be a direct communication
of the mind of God through his appointed
prophet. No place, they say, in such minis^
trations is given to the spirit of God ; they
are under tiie impression that, according to
the Divine institution of preaching, the mind,
heart, and lips should be under the Spirit's
immediate mfluence. They thus deny the
spirituality of a sermon read from a paper,

■s

114

simply because it is a piece of preaching by
instrumental guidance.

I pass no opinion on this judgment. I do
no more than announce, that the minister,
who preaches with the aid of what is techni-
cally called a skeleton, does the very same
thing as his congregation, when they take
the first note of the singing from a pitch
pipe ; and that the minister who reads his*
sermon, word by word, from his oton manu-
script, does precisely the same thing as his
congregation, when they express their pndse
according to the melody and time indicated
by the organ. We have pitch-pipe preachers,'
and preachers with a frill organ accompani-
ment. Whether the former alone are the
spiritual preachers, I shall not take upon me*
to determine ; contenting myself with saying
that, if a minister cannot decently fulfil his
duties as a preacher, without the support of
his manuscript, he should have permission \a
use it: just as a congregation that cannot
with decency praise the Lord without an
organ, should not be denied the use of that
instrumental aid.

In order to secure spirituality in the ser-
vice of song, organs avail nothing, neither
precentors, hut a new creature.

115

We have found in this review that there
is throughout the Presbyterian Churches a
movement in favour of instrumental guidance
in the service of song ; — that this movement
is the operation of a principle in the human
constitution, which in these last times of
progress and development cannot but strive
to express itself in the service of God ; —
that the organ is, upon the whole, the best
guide of congregational singing ;— that con-
gregational praise formed no part of the
theocratic economy, which has been for ever
abolished, but was the free-will oflfering of
sanctified humanity under the old dispensa-
tion, and was, under that economy, accepted
by God with signal tokens of his approval ;
— rthat the Jewish service of song was not
abrogated with the theocracy, of which it
formed no part ; — ^that, on the establishment
of the Gospel dispensation, no model of the
service of praise, unless that which the Old
Testament saints employed, was furnished
to worshippers ; — ^that the New Testament
Scriptures furnish no prohibition of the Old
Testament musical service, which was both
vocal and instrumental, but, on the other
hand, convey a sanction of it; that the
use of instnimental guidance in the praises

116

of the Gospel Church affords no necessary
opportunity for the entrance of error, and
has no tendency to nnspiritnalise the mmd
of the worshipper ; — and that thus, the men
who now seek to render to the mediatorial
king the tribute of a comely musical service,
are at liberty to make use of every appliance
which the time affords, in order to present
the thank-offering of their lips in a dignified
manner, and in a way consistent with the
advancement of the age in which they live ;
— ^that, finally, the fiiends of the organ are
more than justified in their pressing on the
Church the employment of that instrument as
the guide of congregational psalmody.

Before bringing this review to a close,
I must record my protest against the spirit
of the Preface to the " Organ Question."
As an English Presbyterian, as an office-
bearer in a Church which has no connection
with that in which Dr. Candlish is a ruler,
unless in doctrinal and ecclesiastical likeness,
I feel aggrieved by this exercise of Scottish
influence on English ground. I am content
that Dr. Candlish should still lead the coun*
sels of that Church whose circumstances he
comprehends, and which owes so much to

117

his zeal and wisdom. But while I have a
voice in the English Church Courts, no ruler
of a foreign Church, utterly ignorant of the
requirements of ours, shall, unchallenged, lay
down to us what we are to do or what we
are to undo in the internal regulation of our
aflfairs. Is the English Synod to be annexed
to the Scotch Assembly? Is the organ
conflict to be the struggle of a few English
congregations to maintain their ecclesiastical
independence against a Northern Potentate,
a Free Church Czar, who insists, in his great
goodness, on being the Protector of their
little Principality ? If so, let the campaign
at once open ; the friends of the organ are
determined calmly, constitutionally, fearlessly,
and persistently, to fight until their liberties
are secured. Whether the contest be brief
or prcJtracted, the end will be the liberty of
the English Church.

The great majority of Presbyterians, I am
confident, are in favour of congregational
liberty in such a matter. Praise is a precept
of the kingdom of Christ, but the law of the
kingdom contains nothing regarding the
musical art or appliances of the service.
Why should man shut up a way of liberty
which God himself has left open ? Leave

X18

the organ alone while it does good, — when it
has done evil, you may call it into court, as
you would any other oflfender.

Christ's kingship, the grand distinguishing
doctrine of Presbyterians, should suggest to
every meditative mind the likelihood of all
talent, skill, power, and zeal ; all things in
private conduct, in domestic life, and in the
economies of nations, and all arts, being one
by one brought under Christ's rule, subjected
to his service, and consecrated to his honour.
Men who only hrww^ and can comprehend
thus the past alone^ may never have been
impressed by this probability of the present
time ; but those who thinks and thus master-
ing the past, become masters in large mea-
sure not only of the present, but of the
things to come, cannot but conclude that all
that is really old in our churches, all that has
not in it the perennial . life of truth, must
give place to higher forms peculiar to the age
of the world's highest civilization and the era
of Christ's highest honour upon earth ; and
that all of talent and art which can add to
the seemliness of the service of God or to the
comfort of his worshipping people must have
a place in the sanctuary of the Church's
highest development.

119

Christ reigns. Bow to him — obey him —
glorify him — make a joyful noise before the
Lord, the King — awake organ — awake voice
— ^heart of man awake early !

APPENDIX.

The mind of the English Presbyterian Church
on the Organ Question may be discovered in the
following extract from the Narrative, published
by the Session of St. George's Church, Liverpool,
of their proceedings in connection with the intro-
duction of an organ into that church.

" The result of the introduction of an organ has
far exceeded the most sanguine expectations of
the\. promoters of the movement. The singing
has become truly congregational ; the entire as-
sembly now takes part in the service of praise ;
and, to use the words of one who opposed the
admission of the organ, ' To hear the singing of
St. George's congregation, is to hear an unan-
swerable argument in favour of a judicious use
of the organ in the Public Worship of God.'

" It is to the Session a matter of sincere plea-
sure, as it will be to all who desire to see our
Church polity naturalized in England, that at a
meeting expressly convened to discuss the organ
question, the Keverend the Presbytery of Lanca-
shire, constituting more than one-fourth of the

122

whole Church, resolved, by a majority of fifteen
to four, that the mode of leading their psalmody
should be left to the Christian wisdom and dis-
cretion of individual congregations. — See note.

" The Session await the decision of the ap-
proaching Synod with confident hope that their
every act in this business will, on due examina-
tion by judges freed from local prejudices, which
warp the judgment of many who take upon them
to pronounce on the matter, be found all that the
statutes and practice of the Church and the exi-
gencies of the case demanded.

'' For the issue of the discussion of the general
question they have no apprehension. The time
is passed for confounding peculiarities of detail,
or the accidents of things, or local practices with
great leading principles. And the Church in
England, freed as much from the influence of
mere Scottish tastes and habits, as from that of
Scottish Ecclesiastical control, will, entering now
folly on its great Missionary career, wearing the
garments and speaking the language of the people
amidst whom her work is to be done, become in
England a mighty power for the preservation of
the purity of Gospel doctrine, and for the intro-
duction and establishment of that form of govern-
ment and discipline, by which is best subserved
in the Church the glory of her Saviour King."

123

NOTE.

Extract from the ^^ Messenger'*^ for December 1855.

" Manchester, November 22. — A special meet-
ing was held to consider Mr. Cleland's overture
anent the use of Organs,

" Mr. Cleland moved the adoption of the fol-
lowing overture : — ' Whereas, the use of organs
in the service of God is viewed by many among
us, both members and office-bearers, as being in-
consistent with the spiritual simplicity of the New
Testament Church ; and whereas, it is a depar-
ture from that uniformity of worship which has
hitherto been maintained in Presbyterian bodies
in these lands, and, consequently, an innovation
which is calculated to give great offence, it is
hereby humbly overtured to the Very Reverend
the Synod of the Presbyterian Church in England,
by the Presbytery of Lancashire, to forbid the use
of organs or of any other description of instru-
mental music, in connection with any one of the
congregations of the Church.'

" The motion was seconded by Mr. W. Smith.

'' It was also moved by Mr. M'Caw, and se-
conded by Mr. Inglis : —

" ' The Presbytery having duly considered the
overture, refuse to transmit the same to the Synod,
and, further, are of opmion, that the use of in-
strumental music, for the purpose simply of lead-
ing the praises of the sanctuary, is not contrary

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18
18
10
18

II. EDITION 1829-33.

FOOLSCAP OCTAVO.

Waverley Novels .

96 Engravings.

Poetical Works

24 Engravings after Tamer, and Fac-
similes.

Miscellaneous Prose Writings .

56 Engravings and Maps.

Life^ by Mr. Lockhart

20 Engravings and Fac-simile.

vow.

48
12

28
10

£ t.

7 4

4 4
1 10

1 16

Ninety-eight Volumes price £14 14

Witli aOO Eiigr«ying8 on Steel, FscHBimiles, &c. ,,

ADAH & CUA£L£» BLACK, EDINBUEGli.
HOUUTON & BTOSBMAN, LONDOK.

G QSfoberUs fioi^tU.

LIBRARY EDITION.

Each Volume containing a complete Novel or

Novels. This Edition is enriched with Portraits after Zacchero,
Sir Godfrey Eneller, Vandyke, Le Tocque, &c., and Illustrations
after Wilkie, Landseer, Frith, Ward, Pickers^ Elmore, Egg,
Hook, Stone, Phillips, Faed, Horsley, &c

In 25 vols, demy Syo, cloth lettered. Price £11 : 5s.
* Separate vols. 9s.

The LiBBART Edition contuns all the latest corrections of
the Author, with some curious additions, especially in Guy Bfan-
nering and the Bride of Lammermoor. ^

A compUXa Index and Gloitary has also been added to this Edition,

ABBANGESIEIirr : —

TOLS.

1. Waverlbt.

TOM.

17. StRonan^Weij^

2. Gut Manneriho.

18. Rrdoauntlet.

• 8. ANnquART.

19. Betrothed, AND Highland

4. Rob Rot.

Widow.

5. Old Mortatjtt.

20. Tausman— Two Drovers—

6. BiiAOK Dwarf, and Le-

MtAuntMaroaret*sMir-

GBND OF MOKTROSB.

ROR— Tapestried Cham-

7. HbABT OF MiD-LOTHIAN.

ber—and Death of the

8. Bride OF Lammbbmoor.

Laird's Jock.

9. IVANHOB.

21. Woodstock.

10. MONASTERT.

22. Fair Maid of Perth.

11. Abbot.

•

23. Anne of Geierstrin.

12. Kenilwobth.

24. Count Robert OF Paris.

18. Pibate.

14. Fortunes OF KiQEu

25. Surgeon's Dauohter—Cas-
TLB Dangbbous — Index

15. PEYERni OF the Peak.

and Glossary.

16. Quentin Durward.

" ABBOTSPOI

J) EDITION.

With 120 Engravings on Steel, and nearly 2000

on Wood.

In Bets, 12 vols, snper-royal octavo, cloth lettered, L.14, 148.
OiUy a veryfojD Sets remain.

WiKf^ttUjSi fitsfxtU.

in.

EDITION 1829-33.

{The Atdhor's Favourite,)
FORCY-EIGHT VOLUMES, FOOLSCAP OCTAVO.

With Ninety-Six Engravings on Steel by the most eminent

Artists of the day.

C0HTEHT8.

VOLS.

1,2. Wavkrlet.
3, 4. Gut Mannebiso.
5, 6. Antiquabt.
7, 8. Rob Rot.
9. Black Dwabf —

Old MoRTALirr.
10 Old Mortality.

11. Old Mortality —

Heart of Mid-Lo-

THIAK.

12. Heart of Mm-Lo-

TRIAN.

13. Heart of Mid-Lo-

THIAI7 — Bride of
Lammbrmoob.

14. Bbide of Lahmeb-

MOOB.

15. Legend of Mon-

trose.
16, 17. Iyanhoe.
18, 19. Monastery.
20,^1. Abbot.
22, 23. Kenilwobth.
24^ 25. Pibats.

VOLS.

26. 27.
28-30.
81, 82.
33,34.
35,36.

37.

38.
39, 40.

42, 43.

44,45.
46, 47.

48.

FOBTUNES of KiOEL.

Pevebil of the Peak.

QUENTIN DdBWABD.

St Ronan's Well.

Redoauntlet.

Betbothed.> Tales of ike

Talisman. } Cnuaders.

Woodstock.

The Highland Widow
— Two Dbovebs — My
Aunt Maboabet*s

MlBBOB — TAPESTBIED

Chambeb — Death of
THE Laird's Jock.

Faib Maid of Perth.

Anne of Geiebstein.

Count Robebt ofPabis,
AND Castle Danobb-
ous.

Castle Danoebous —
Subgeon's Daughtbb
and Glossary for the en-
tire Work.

In Sets, 48 Volumes, doth lettered, £7 : 48. Separate Volumes, Ss.

8 WiKbttUtu fitxtitii.

IV.

EDITION 1841-43.

TWENTT-FIVE VOLUMES FOOLSCAP OCTAVO, CLOTH.

WITH

Vignettes, Fac-siinile, and Engraving from Greenshields'

Statue of the Author.

ARRANGEMENT

VOLS.

1. Waverlet.

17. St. Ronan's Well.

2. Guy Manneeinq.

18. Redgauntlet.

3. Antiquaey.

19. Beteothbd and High-

4. Rob Roy.

land Widow.

5. Old Moetality.

20. Talisman — Two Deo-

6. Black Dwarf and Le-

VEES — ^My Aunt Mae-

gend OP Monteose.

garet's Mirror — Ta-

7. Heart OP Mid-Lothian.

pestried Chamber —

8. Beide op Lammeemooe.

Death of the Laird's

9. Ivanhoe.

Jock.

10. Monasteey.

21. Woodstock.

11. Abbot.

22. Faie Maid op Peeth.

12. Kenilwoeth.

23. Anne op Geieestein.

13. Pieate.

24. Count Robeet op Paeis.

14. FoETUNES OP Nigel.

25. Suegeon's Daughter —

15. Peveeil op the Peak.

Castle Dangerous —

16. QUENTIN DURWAED.

and Glossary,

In Sets, 25 Vols, doth lettered, £3 : 13 : 6. Separate Vols. 48.

^Sta&erles i^obels.

PEOPLE'S EDITION,

IN FIVE VOLUMES, ROYAL OCTAVO,

Containing all the Introductions and Notes, with Pobtbait,

Facsimile, and Vignette Titles, after designs by Habvet,

Complete for TWO GUINEAS, Cloth Lettered.

Each Novel separately. Sewed in a heantifally Illuminated Cover,

PRICE EIGHTEENFENCE.

ABRANQEHENT.

1. Waverley, vnth Portrait
of Sir Walter Scott, and
Vignette Title.

2. Guy Mannerino.

3. Antiquary.

4. Rob Roy.

5. Old Mortality, with a

facsimile of the Author's
Hand-writing.

Comprising Vol. I.

6. The Black Dwarf — A

Legend of Montrose,
with Vignette Title,

7. Heart of Mid-Lothian.

8. Bride of Lammermoob.

9. IVANHOE.

10. Monastery.

Comprising Vol. II.

11. Abbot, ivith Vignette Title,

12. Kenilworth.

13. Pirate.

14. Fortunes of Nigel.

15. Peveril of the Peak.

Comprising VoL IIL

16. QuENTiN Durward, with

Vignette Title,

17. St Ronan's Well.

18. Redgauntlet.

19. Betrothed — Highland

Widow.

20. The Talisman — Two

Drovers — My Aunt
Margaret's Mirror-
Tapestried Chamber-
Death OF the Laird's
Jock.

Comprising Vol. IV.

21. Woodstock, ivith Vignette

Title,

22. Fair Maid of Perth.

23. Anne of Geierstein.

24. Count Robert of Paris.

25. Surgeon's Daughter —
Castle Dangerous, and

Glossary for the whole Novels,

Comprising Vol. V.

soEcmn OF the waverut hvels

from the ABBcmroBD Eornoa, in Soper-BcTal odaro, tmA
Tolnnu amUaning a complete Koce/ or Xoeda, mmtnted with
BummOBt BflgniiDgs oti Wood tai Bteel, iaaiamMidj dona

Price VIVE SHILLIHOS, Seired.

8LZ SHILLIHQS, Cloth k^tercd.

1. Watzrlet.
a Out M . _

5. Fobtdhei of Nioei..

6. Pbvebii. of the Peak.

7. QOEWTJH Ddbitabd.

& 8t RoNAira Wbli:-
(I. Rehadhtui.

10. Bbtbotbed.

11. Talirmaw,

13. WOODBTOCK.

13. HioaLAFD Wnxnr— Two

Dbo VB KB— SrasBOtra
Daoohtbb.

14. Faik Maid of Pbxth.

15. Anni or Gbtbrbtsik-

16. CODBT BOBBKT OF PA-

17. Castle Dakobboub— Mr

Amrr Haboarbt^

HlRROft—DBATH OF

TBE Laibcs Jock.

Tbe aboTe are Hlnstrated nrith upwards of

BIZTEEH HTTNSKED ENaBATIHGS

On Wood and Steel.

g^iv WSMtv g^taWi ^aetiad W^afki. n

POET ICAL WO RKS,

EDITION 1851.

One Vol. Foolscap 8yo. Inclading the Lord of thb Islbs,
Author's Notes, &c., which all other editiont of this tize toarU,
With a Memoir of the Author, and Illustrations on Steel after Tomer
and others.

Cloth lettered, gilt edges, 5s. Morocco antique, 10s.

THE SAME, large paper, with Steel Engravings after Sir David
Wilkie, Stanfield, &c.

Cloth lettered, gilt edges, 6s. Morocco antique, 10s. 6d.

II.

EDITION 1838-34.

In 12 Tola. fcap. 8yo, cloth, uniform with the Novels, 48 Vols.

Containing the Author's Last Introductions, Notes by the Editor,

and 24 Engravings, all from Turner's Designs.

In Sets, cloth lettered, £1 : 16s. Separate Vols. Ss.

in.

EDITION 1844.

In 6 Vols. fcap. 8vo, cloth, uniform with the Novels, 25 Vols.

Including 112 New Pieces, and Notes, 12 Engravings after Turner,

and Fac-sinule.

CONTENTS.

VOL.

1. Lat of thb Last Minstrel, Stc

2. Marmion.

3. Ladt of thb Lake — Bridal of Triermain.

4. RoKEBY— Don Roderick— Harold the Dauntless.
6. Lord of the Isles, &c,

6. Contributions to Border Minstbelst— Dramatic Pieobs.

In Sets, Cloth lettered, 24s. Separate Vols. 4s.

12 ^ CBUIIer j^mtfi 90eticil WSUnM.

IV.

PEOPLE'S EDITION 184&

One YoL Royal Octavo, nnifimn with the Novels, Pboflk's Edition,
containing 112 New Pieces, and Notes, Yignette Title, and Fac-
simile. Cloth lettered, lOs.

THE SAME, Large Paper, with 26 Engrayings from Tubher, &&,
forming a Companion to the Novels, Abboisfobd Edition.
Cloth lettered, 188. Morocco, elegant, 32s.

POCKET EDITION FOB T0VBIST8.

Lat of the Last Minstrel — ^Mabmion — ^Ladt of the Lake —
BoKEBT — Lord of the Isles — ^and Bridal of Trikrmain.

XUominated Covers, gilt edges. Is. 8d. each.
Cloth lettered. Is. 6d. Morocco, gilt edges, 2s. 6d. ^

MINSTRELSY OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER,

WITH SIB WALTER SCOTTS INTRODUCTIONS, NOTES,

AND ADDITIONS.

In Four Vols. Foolscap Octavo, with 8 Engravings from Turner.

Cloth lettered, 10s. 6d.

*«* Many of the Ancient Border Metodiea^ set to Music^ tnU be

found in this Edition,

PROSE WORKS.

EDITION 1834-86.

28 Vols., uniform with the Novels, 48 Vols., 56 Engravings from
Turner ; Portraits and Maps.

CONTENTS.
VOL.

1. Life of John Dry den,

2. Memoirs of Jonathan Swift.

3, 4. Memoirs of Eminent Novelists, <&c,
6. PauVs Letters to his Kinsfolk,

6. Essays on Chivalry, Romance, and the Drama, <&c,

7. Provincial Antiquities of Scotland,
8-16. Life (^Napoleon Bonaparte, 9 Vols.

17-21. Miscellaneoics Criticism, <&c,, 5 Vols.
22-26. Tales of a Grandfather (History of Scotland), 5 Vols.
27, 28. Tales of a Grandfather (History of France), 2 Vols.
In Sets, Cloth lettered, £4 :4s. Separate Vols. 88.

II.

EDITION 1841-2.

Three Vols. Royal 8vo, uniform with the Novels, People's Edition.

VOL.

1. Biographies of Swift, Dryden, Essays, Criticisms, <&c,

2. Life of Napoleon Bonaparte,

3. Tales of a Grandfather, History of Scotland.

In Sets, Cloth lettered, £1 : 6s.
Vols. I. and II. separate, 10s. each— Vol. III., 68.

14 S(r SBaltcr Stott'a ^rosc aHoiis.

TALES DF A GRANDFATHER-ohstort of scotliid.)

With six Engravings after Titbneb, and upwards of Fifty on Wood.

Three Vols, foolscap 8vo, cloth, 12s. ; extra, gilt edges, 158.

THE SAME, 1 Vol. Royal 8ro, uniform with the Novels, People's

Edition. Cloth, lettered, 68.

LABGE PAPER, uniform with the Novels, Abbotsford Edition,
11 Engravings after Tubkeb, doth, lettered, 168. 6d.

TALES OF A GRANDFATHER-(Histort of friice.)

With Two Engravings from Tubner, and upwards of Fifty on Wood.
One Volume foolscap 8vo, doth, 4s. ; extra, gilt edges^ 58.

HISTORY OF SCOTLAND FOR SCHOOLS.

In two Volumes, with Coloured Map, Crown 8vo, Bound, lOs.

This EditwrCis extensively used in the Schools under
Government Superintendence.

COLLECTION FOR SCHOOLS

From ihe Works of Sib Waltbb Scott, Crown 8to, Bound, 8b. 61

LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

Five Vols, foolscap 8vo, uniform with the Novels, 25 Vols., Maps,
Portrait, and 9 Engravings after Tubnbb.
In Sets, Cloth, lettered^ 208.

THE SAME, 1 Vol Royal 8vo, uniform with the Novels, Pboplb^^

Edition, Cloth, lettered, lOs.

LARGE PAPER, uniform with the Abbotsfobd Editiov, 20
Engravingii afttr Tubneb and others, Cloth, lettered, IBs.

lELilt at S>iv WSiKlttt g^tatt. 15

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT,

By J. G. LOCKHART, Esq.

I.
EDITION 1837^9.

In Ten Volumes Foolscap 8vo, uniform with the Author's
FaYourite Edition of the Novels, 20 Engravings
on Steel, and Fac-simile.
In Sets, Cloth, lettered, £1 : 10s. Separate Volumes, 3s.

11.
EDITION 1846.

In One Vol. Royal 8vo, uniform with the Novels, Peoplb^s
Edition, with Portrait and Fac-simile.

Cloth, lettered, lOs.

THE SAME, Large Paper, uniform with the Novels,

Abbotsfobd Edition, with 11 Engravings from Tubneb,

Portraits, &c.

Cloth, lettered, 18s.

III.
EDITION 1852.

In One Vol., Crown 8vo, with 12 Engravings from Tuknbb

and others.

Cloth, lettered^ 7a, 6d. ; extra, gilt edges, 88. 6d.

This Edition contains much new and interesting matter
relative to Abbotrford and Sir Walter Scot^s Family,

SIR WALTER SCOTT'S

WRITINGS AND LIFE.

CONTENTS OF THE CATALOGUE.

1. Works suitable for Presents

2. Works and Life in Sets, of each of the Series

3. Waverley Novels, Various Editions .

4. Poetical Works, Various Editions

5. Prose Works, Various Editions

6. Tales of a Grandfather, Various Editions

7. Life of Napoleon, Various Editions

8. Life of Sir Walter Scott, Various Editions

PAGE

2-5

4-5

6-10

11-12

The public AEE WABNED, Hmt no hook published
under the title of the Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott

is complete, unless it hears the imprint of Robert Cadell, or

Adam & Charles Black, Edinburgh.

THESE WORKS, with the Author's latest Notes, as well
as several of the principal Poems themselves, heing all copy-
right. Printers and Publishers are Jiereby cautioned against
violating the said copyright.

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Full text of "A vindication of the organ: a review of dr. Candlish's publication entitled 'The organ question'."

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