How few in this world are capable of feeling it, or who have the magnanimity to acknowledge it; how few men who would not cause a woman to feel humiliation that she had thus confided in him.

But in reading this book there is a greater pleasure than any we have mentioned. It is like reading a song of praise and thanksgiving, that purest but rarest offering to God. We make confessions and petitions and our souls are in earnest, but how feeble are the notes of praise which we offer, how weak our efforts to glorify Him. And it will be so while the spirit chafes and rebels against earthly trials. When we can welcome adversity as a friend, when we can clasp the cross to our breast" uttering songs in the night" then can we give acceptable songs of praise. Then from the heaven to which we are journeying will stream a light which will gild the dark places of this world with its own bright coloring. Then we can exclaim "how beautiful is earth, how noble is humanity! "It is a joy to live and to believe in God and man." The religion of our poet is not merely one of feeling, it is one of action, it is a living faith. The holy spirit given at his baptism seems to have illumined his whole life, shining upon the darkest steps with a brighter radiance. From that life the world has yet much to hope. But should we be disappointed, should the star of his brightness cease to shine, we have only to say in his own words, "still it has shone, we have received our portion; let it set." GERALDINE.

STRAY THOUGHTS ON MUSIC.

A GOSSIPPING LETTER.

Good music, dear Timotheus, is one of the best of good things; bad music, one of the worst of bad things. If it is true, as the proverb says, that "walls have ears," no wonder that the walls of Jericho fell down at the blowing of the rams' horns.

What good music is, will probably never be ascertained with precision. It is generally supposed to depend upon the "ear" of the listener-on the length of ear, we think, in some instances. We have seen connoisseurs before now, whose ears have been "cultivated," until their luxurial growth amply repaid the labor of tillage.

Solomon might have liked the music of the four thousand priests, who performed all sorts of tunes on all sorts of instruments, pitched on every key, at his coronation. But what modern tympanum could have stood it? We beg Solomon's pardon. He detested music.

It is true, and perhaps proper, that the persevering pursuit of an art begets a taste for intricacy and microscopic excellences. The ears of musical crities are rarely pleased with the Orphean melodies that charm the multitude. A capricious_undulation of musical tunes, inexplicable mazes of sound excite their raptures. In the confused flourishes of some great violinist, the amateur pretends to see the waving of a magician's wand; troops of canary birds chased by troops of fairies issue from the hole in the sounding-board, and trilling waterfalls precipitate themselves over the bridge of the violin. A rustic is at his side, listening also; but the latter's heart opens to no emotion, save that to which his mouth opens-surprise.

Now it is in vain to deny that simple music is good, or that intricate music is good. Tell the hand-maiden, who is wiping her eyes at the singing of Tennyson's "May Queen," as set by Dempster, that the song is only fit for a lullaby to an infant, and you may expect a second briny out-burst at your barbarity. Dare you then say, that the pathos of genuine music has not wrought these effects?

Next accost the finical lover of musical mazes, whose soul is steeled against all ballads and part-songs, and never expresses pleasure, except by grimaces at the worse grimaces of an opera-singer. Tell him that his taste is artificial; that it is not and cannot be founded on any settled principle; that ingenious sounds wrought out by manual dexterity or a gymnastic training of the voice, are not necessarily expressive of emotion, and have no eloquence in them; that such as he are every day imposed upon, as they ought to be, by musical graces which never existed, by artists without genius, who rely upon the weak wits of a few fools of critics to give them a reputation. He will smirk, and ask you if you execrate all that is strange and far-fetched in music; if you do, he adds, you despise Mozart and Beethoven.

How shall we escape from this dilemna? Easily. Only believe that music has room both for simplicity and ingenuity; that neither are necessarily contemptible; that one palls, after a time, upon the taste; that the other is deceptive; that simplicity is more eloquent, ingenuity more fascinating; that the first will touch the hearts of all, the latter delight the taste of a few. The talk about "cultivation," and the want of it, is arrant folly. We cannot be cheated, either of the delicate natural emotion, with which the choruses of the "Hutchinsons" inspire us, or of the grateful surprises which the fine and polished grace of Herz excites as we listen to his piano.

It is rarely that we can be persuaded to call any music bad. It is better to fancy it good, in its place. For instance, some orchestral performances would be agreeable in any lively barn-yard-if listened to from a distance. They would admirably accord with the notes of the feathered and featherless minstrels of such localities; combining the cluttering and crowing of chanticleer and his wives, the trombone-like gabbling of the geese, the lowing of cows— (cow-bells inclusive)—with a "smart sprinkling" of the braying of Johnny down among the ophicleides

Still we do venture to call some music bad.

You are invited, dear Timotheus, to an evening party. At some unfortunate period of the evening, Miss Smith is asked to sit down at the piano. She is too poor a musician to need to be asked twice. She draws off her scented gloves, and, with vengeance in her eye, pounces, at one fell swoop, upon the finger. board. The piano fairly shrieks under that fearful attack.

The last seem

What twangs,

How have you

Pythagoras, it is said, invented the musical scale by hearing the clink of two hammers, of different weights, upon an anvil. Pythagoras has, perhaps, no disciples in philosophy at present, but he certainly has in music. to think, that the act under discussion consists in pounding." expressive of agony, have you heard from a tortured piano! shuddered to see gentle woman beating her poor instrument with the fierce. ness of a virago! You never thought of music, we know, while witnessing such a scene-unless you supposed the performance to consist of endless variations on the "Battle of Prague," with the "cries of the wounded” interspersed at every other bar.

But Miss Smith is beginning to sing. Her mouth opens with one wild gasp. She poises her voice for an instant, on one shrill note, and then there followswhat we cannot describe. Such vocal ricochetting, through all the varieties of runs, trills, and tremolos, such frantic attempts to go through a few Italian shakes, such useless ascensions and descensions of the gamut, rarely heard from other lips than hers. Yet on she sings, with a good deal more of an "air" than is necessary to sustain her part. Run, benevolent Timotheus, I see you grow pale. Run, and ask the paternal Mr. Smith if his daughter has such turns often.

Perhaps the blame of this sad affair is not wholly hers. The composer of such a piece deserves some share of it. Perhaps we do not wish that, as in Egypt, the law had established the songs and music which alone must be used; but who would object to see a stringent statute against such base travesties of the art musical?

You heard no words from Miss Smith. Articulation was out of the question in such a performance as hers. Even her "vain repetitions" of certain sounds carried no intelligent idea to your mind; any more than the psalm of St. Martin's day did to the countryman, whose embarrassed fancy turned "Mihi beate Martin" into "my eye Betty Martin"-giving rise to a term of contempt for all farcical performances, which has lasted to the present time.

Church choirs should observe two rules-first, that the sounds they produce should be music; secondly, that they should be sacred music. Their commonest fault is crudity. This divests music of all sacred associations, and the audience only listen to it as though they were compelled to hear so much singing-school excellence per week. No one can object to new tunes, if a choir is capable of learning them. But to baulk and blunder, to sing without ease, or taste, or expression, is something too intolerable to be made up for by the novelty of a tune. Old tunes are generally better, if sung carefully, because they will be attended with some naturalness and grace. They are less likely to be labored, abrupt, and wholly without devotional meaning.

Talking of expression, we may as well say that bawling and whispering are not the only modes of giving force or delicacy to musical sound. They are excellent for giving no expression.

You know, dear Timotheus, that the violent reaction from popery, which received its impulse from the reformation, induced certain strange types of piety, among some Christians. Our puritan ancestors stripped religion bare of all pageantry. No ordinance of worship would be allowed by them to receive force from any appeal to the eye or ear. The images of the saints never glorified their windows. No Gothic arch made their hearts pant after the lofty and grand. No swelling organ woke deep echoes in the heart, overcome with sacred pomp. No rich music of a hundred voices, trained to heavenly sweetness, thrilled their souls into pious ecstacy. They feared to mistake the morbid poetry of the imagination for the earnest devotion of men sworn to do the will of God. They might have thought of the heathen temple at Delphi, where, as the bewildered devotee consulted the mystic oracle, an immense choir were filling the building with melody. At all events, they discarded prayer-books and priestly vestments, and musical instruments; preferring to wrestle with the devil single handed and unarmed.

Now the true theory concerning such things is, we think, that as such external objects and circumstances do affect the mind of a worshipper, it is better that they should favor devotion than disturb it; better that they should soothe the mind than distract it; without going far enough, however, to operate only on the poetical sensibilities, and substitute a pious dream for voluntary homage.

It is singular what rapidity the reaction alluded to in favor of a naked altar has oscilated back again to the ceremonial services, to organs and Gothic architecture. Stranger still, in our view, is it, that the first instrument introduced into the choirs of New England churches should have been the violin-the most fantastic, vivacious, capricious, unsolemn of all the instrumental tribe, and inevitably associated with ball rooms, cotillions, and chandeliers. When the question of introducing this instrument into an old congregational church, in a certain village in Connecticut, first came up, a sharp debate ensued. The old folks, as a general thing, were opposed to it. They would consider it a sacrilege. The novelty of the arrangement, on the other hand, arrayed all the young people in its favor. As a matter of course, innovation triumphed, and the following Sunday brought both fiddler and fiddle into church. But, after the introductory prayer and reading of the scriptures, as soon as the first thrilling squeak of the violin was heard, Deacon - who sat close by the pulpit, sprang up, danced once or twice" forward and back," then taking a "chassez" down the aisle, keeping admirable time to the instrument, danced out of the chach, to return to it no more.

"AIEN APIETETEIN."*

Whisper not in youthful hearing,
ACTION bides with ripened age;
For the young and persevering,
May outspeed the way-worn sage.

Grey Experience ever preaching
Of the old and beaten track,
Sometimes erreth in his teaching,
Reining rushing genius back.

He alone who framed the spirit,
Wond'rous in its power sublime,

Can foresee its final merit,

When lit up in early prime.

Young man! fired with strong emotions
To uprear fame's fabric high,
Let not this or that man's notions,
Warp thine aim, howe'er he try.

What though all the world oppose thee,
Call thy schemes chimerical,
No one as thyself so knows thee;
No one ought to, half so well.

"Know thyself," was fitly spoken;
Hear the mandate-onward urge,
Thus shall every breeze betoken,
Naught but ripples on the surge.

Along with great men seek thy station;
There thy laurels shall not fade;
For this free and grateful nation,
Will not pass thee by unpaid.

* Homer's Iliad, vi book, 208th line.