xii. 1-3.

[29] Luke xiv. 14.

[30] Luke xiv. 14.

[31] Neh. viii. 10.

[32] Deut. xiv. 27.

[33] Isa. lviii. 7.

[34] Luke xiv. 12, 13.

[35] Matt. xxiii. 6.

[36] Matt. xx. 27.

[37] Luke xiv. 10.

[38] I Pet. v. 5.

[39] Sir Matthew Hale thus charged his grandchildren: "I will not have
you begin or pledge any health; for it is become one of the greatest
artifices of drinking, and occasions of quarrelling in the kingdom. If
you pledge one health, you oblige yourself to pledge another, and a
third, and so onward; and if you pledge as many as wilt be drunk, you
must be debauched and drunk. If they will needs know the reasons of your
refusal, it is a fair answer: 'That your grandfather that brought you up,
from whom, under God, you have the estate you enjoy or expect, left this
in command with you, that you should never begin or pledge a health.'"

Music

"What do you mean by 'the world'?" said a gentleman to me. "I suppose
of course you rule out music and painting." So people judge; taking
for granted that whatever is pleasant, religion makes wrong. Rule out
music?--why it exorcised Saul's evil spirit! Yet even for the
enjoyment of sweet sounds there are laws and limitations.

It will be a good day when our so-called sacred music (much of it) more
nearly resembles that of old time and has less kinship with the title
of a little book yclept "Rhymes and Jingles." A paid choir (no
objection to that, if you can buy up their hearts as well) an operatic
organist, a silent, criticising congregation. Is there much praise in
that? much worship? much refreshment for a tired heart? Look how it
was when the ark of God, the visible sign of his presence, was brought
home to Jerusalem,--all took part in the music, from the king down; and
did it _unto God_.

"And David and all Israel played before God with all their might, and
with singing, and with harps, and with psalteries, and with timbrels,
and with cymbals, and with trumpets." [1]

"The singers went before, the players on instruments followed after;
among them were the damsels playing with timbrels. Bless ye God in the
congregations, even the Lord, from the fountain of Israel." [2]

Not much like a quartette and its mute audience! Or how does this
compare, with the way we hand over the praise to some who do not even
profess to feel it?

"And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren
to be singers with instrument