y significant. There have been
three stages. A couple of generations ago there was no conflict and no
call for compromise. The ecclesiastical musician of the time was
expected, whether as composer, as organist, or as administrator, to do
his best according to his lights: it was his accepted business, as
presumably knowing more about the matter than the artistic laity, to
lead their taste, not to follow. Then came the reign of men like Dykes
and Stainer and Gounod, whose normal attitude involved the sacrifice by
the musician of some of his musicianship in the supposed interests of
religion. The supposed interests, I say; for the whole point of the
third stage of development, the conflict in which English church music
is now involved, is the denial by one of the opposing parties that the
interests of religion are in any way served by such a sacrifice. It is a
very keen conflict, in which the sympathies of the musician _qua_
musician naturally lean towards those who uphold the inalienable dignity
of his art: and even if he feels that ecclesiastical music, _qua_
ecclesiastical, is outside his personal concern, influences from it are
bound to radiate into the secular departments. But what I would more
especially point out is that the religious and the musical developments
proceed side by side. Just as the stricter purists in the one field are,
in the other, generally inclined, even if themselves unmusical, to
uphold plain-song and the Elizabethans and only such modern work as is
inspired by something like a similar spirit, aloof and strong, so those
whose religious mentality is of a more pliable type are, if musically
indifferent, generally inclined to uphold the practical accommodation
afforded by the inclusion of at any rate a certain quantity of music
that is consciously adapted to the more immediately obvious emotions of
the average worshipper.

And, even if there is no question of a lowered artistic standard, we
see, I think, the same spirit of compromise, of ready acceptance of the
more immediately obvious as the average and proper norm for all people,
elsewhere on the boundaries of musical and religious life. It is so easy
to turn a blind eye to logic and minorities, or even to majorities if
they have little pressure, social or other, to back them up. To
illustrate from one or two English examples, the transformations of
cathedrals into secular concert-rooms are as open to blame from the one
side as are, from the othe