sion of joy, it cannot be supposed unknown to our first parents,
whose exultation was as intense as it was hallowed.

Milton says:--

"Neither various style,
Nor holy rapture wanted they to praise
Their Maker in fit strains, pronounced or sung
Unmeditated, such prompt eloquence
Flowed from their lips, in prose or numerous verse,
More tuneable, than needed lute or harp
To add more sweetness."

But soon the voice of unalloyed thanksgiving was silenced. Sin brought
with it sorrow; and, ever since, the Hallelujahs of the saints have been
strangely intermingled with the moanings of self-reproach, and the cries
of judicial sufferings. The heart, now become the seat of a tremendous
conflict between sin and holiness, lost its elasticity, and needed some
outward excitement to call forth its song of praise. Hence the invention
of instrumental music, which is assigned by Scripture to Jubal.

Longfellow says:--

"When first in ancient time, from Jubal's tongue,
The tuneful anthem filled the morning air,
To sacred hymnings and Elysian song
His music-breathing shell the minstrel woke--
Devotion breathed aloud from every chord,
The voice of praise was heard in every tone,
And prayer and thanks to Him the Eternal One,
To Him, that, with bright inspiration touched
The high and gifted lyre of everlasting song,
And warmed the soul with new vitality.

"To the element of air," says Bishop Horne, "God has given the power of
producing sounds; to the ear the capacity of receiving them; and to the
affections of the mind an aptness to be moved by them, when transmitted
through the body." The philosophy of the thing is too deep and wonderful
for us; we cannot attain to it! But such is the fact; with that we are
concerned, and that is enough for us to know.

II.--UTILITY.

Of the Utility of Music there can be no question.

Lycurgus, one of the wisest of all ancient legislators, gave great
encouragement to music.

Polybius, one of the most ancient historians ascribes the humanity of
the Arcadians to the influence of this art and the barbarity of their
neighbours the Cynethians to their neglect of it.

Quintilian, the great rhetorician, is very copious in the praise of
music; and extols it as an incentive to valour, as an instrument of
moral and intellectual discipline, as an auxiliary to science, as an
object of attention to the wisest men, and a sourc