mony lawful, cannot look upon a civil contract in the light of a religious ordinance. There may be many who cannot regard marriage as a sacrament. We can easily conceive how good and religious men may question the bestowal of actual grace upon a man and woman united by the Church in the mystical bond of holy matrimony. When baptismal virtue is questioned, and the Eucharistic presence denied, we may scarcely expect to find the idea of matrimonial grace conveyed in the sacerdotal benediction very generally received. But we cannot understand how any Christian man, in whose bosom glows one particle of moral purity, or even decency, can bestow on the unhallowed contract of two persons in the presence of a legal functionary, the august title of holy matrimony: and but that the whole principle of British legislation has latterly been to level all distinctions of religious right or wrong, and swamp beneath the tide of liberalism the very landmarks of the Christian faith, we should wonder how any body of Christian statesmen could have been found to enact a statute which aims a blow at the foundations of social happiness, and the best interests of religion. It is too much to hope that this generation will ever see the repeal of this and other statutes of a similar stamp; e.g. the birth registration act, commonly called the Baptismal registration act. But we must trust to the revival of a Convocation for measures which a temporizing government will never grant. Meanwhile it is our duty as parish Priests, each in his own sphere, to counteract the baneful influence of these enactments. We have pointed out in reference to this subject several weapons by which we may attack the evil spirit. By personal influence, the strongest and noblest of all our available resources, by sermons and catechizings, by adorning the marriage service with all the aids and appliances of ceremonial beauty, and by evincing such supervision over our flocks as will put us in possession of contemplated unions in time to frustrate the wickedness of civil contracts, disclose canonical impediments, and direct, instruct, and exhort those who seek the blessing of GOD upon their marriage. These are the means which every clergyman has in his own power; and these if all the Clergy of the Church in these realms would use manfully, latitudinarians might legislate, government might tyrannize, sectarians might spread dissensions, and all in vain. She would rise, as she is rising from the dust, to fill her own throne, and guide her own people, for they that be on our side are more than they that be against us. HYMNS AND HYMNODY. 1. Sacred Hymns and Anthems. Leeds: Morrish. 2. Church Hymns; with an Introduction. By HENRY STRETTON, M.A., Perpetual Curate of Hixon. London: Rivingtons. 3. Hymns for the Service of the Church. Birmingham: Wrightson. and Bell. London: Masters. 4. The Church Hymn Book and the Church Tune Book. London: Rivingtons. IT is curious to remark how entirely, within the last few years, feelings and sentiments have changed among us with regard to the use of metrical hymns in the Church's service. There were days, and those not far distant, when a stiff and sullen Anglicanism proscribed all metrical hymns whatever, as savouring of the conventicle; and if it ever deigned so far to concede, as to allow the introduction of hymnody into the daily offices, restricted the subject to metrical versions of the Psalms, the unhappy Sternhold and Hopkins, or the still more miserable, because less bold and spirited, Brady and Tate. The need for a Hymnarium was ignored, its propriety and decency questioned, its utility forgotten. Some four or five metrical compositions-Bishop Ken's Morning and Evening Hymns, C. Wesley's "Sacramental Hymn," Doddridge's "Hark! the Herald Angels sing," for Christmas, and the well known Easter hymn, "JESUS CHRIST is risen to-day," composed practically the Hymnology of the English Church, being the only metrical compositions besides Psalms admitted into the services of those who shrank from fraternizing with the meeting house. The theoretical Hymnology of England, viz., the Veni Creator in the Ordinal, was (and unhappily too often is,) converted into a mere Responsory. But all this time men desired and longed for the opportunity of hearing GoD's house resound with the strains of Christian hymns; of expressing at once, and by one sound, their belief and their joy in believing; not to mention their wish to vary the monotony of a somewhat stiff Liturgy, and an unpliant ritual, with some more arbitrary forms of worship. Dissent provided, and still provides this for all who go astray to her. Every meeting-house, from Bethel to Dan, high and low, rich and poor, resounds with the lusty bawling of semi-Christian hymns; Catholic in theory, heretical and sometimes almost profane in practice. The Anabaptists invoke their patron (as we presume) in the earnest supplicatory measure, called "S. Plungent's;" the Ranter and Jum per commemorates his troubles and experiences to the tune of "Wrestling Jacob," while the pastoral Independent wanders in spirit by the purling streams of a schismatical Elysium to the soothing strains of "Shepherd's Crook."* Such are a few specimens of the hymns and tunes which sprang out of a misdirected longing for Catholic practice. But our attention has of late been directed to the introduction into our offices of hymns fit for the service of the sanctuary; and Mr. Stretton does not hesitate to speak of "the formation of the earnestly desired and long prayed for Church Hymn Book." At the present time, every Church has its own Hymnarium, and metrical compositions are everywhere sung in Churches, selected according to the individual taste of the Incumbent, or often of the parish clerk. There is no authorized hymn book,-and indeed, till lately, there has been no hymn book at all— which should serve the purpose that the old Hymnology did in the time of Paul of Samosata, or the earlier heresy of Artemon,† as a witness to, and a defiance of, the true faith; or be the vehicle of such important positive theology as some of the early compositions which have come down to us. We have really stood aghast at the vulgar, irreverent, and often unorthodox character of compositions which have been set forth for singing in churches, where one might have hoped to see a better order of things prevail. It would be tedious to give a list, or even specimens of such impertinences. The most cursory perusal of Simeon's or Watts's Hymns-sources from which a large portion, if not the greater part of the metrical hymns used in most churches are borrowed, will supply amply that which will amuse, and still more often shock or disgust the reader. Thus in one of the selections alluded to, the following line Occurs "They shall as a right Thy righteousness claim." In another we are invited to sing of the time "When we can read our title clear And in another to address our Blessed REDEEMER in terms of familiarity, which even the French, with their "Votre nom soit sanctifié," and the Portuguese, with the polite and fashionable phrases in which they address the KING of kings, would reject with somewhat of dislike ; nay, even the Oratorians would, we venture to say, repudiate— * We find these among a collection of Tunes dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury, then Bishop of Chester! + Euseb. H. E. v. 28. E.g. the hymn preserved by S. Basil. (Routh. Relliqu. Sac. iii. p. 229.) Not only has the neglect of the Church Hymns, and the absence of an authorized Hymnarium, led to the use of objectionable lucubrations such as these, but considerable errors are abroad respecting the periods in the service at which it is allowable to introduce the hymn. We constantly find hymnody, or rather metrical psalmody, introduced at the commencement of the offices, and after the second lesson; not to mention the occasional propensity to use a hymn or metrical psalm in the middle or at the end of that portion of the English ritual, which having quoad verba retained more, perhaps, of what is truly Catholic than any other portion of the English Prayer Book, is nevertheless condemned to be gone through in the most miserable, chilling, and repulsive manner-the Burial office.* For all these portions of Divine service appropriate Antiphons, Psalms, Canticles, or proses, are already appointed; and the propensity to metrical psalmody in such places only shows how natural is the impulse which leads man to "break forth into singing" at those periods, and how truthful the goodly order of the services of the Catholic Church. The only places where hymns are needed, or indeed can with strict propriety be introduced, are two. The first is after the three Collects both at Matins and Evensong; where the rubric directs that "in quires and places where they sing, here followeth the Anthem." Unhappily this rubric seems to allow the possibility of places existing where they do not sing; but it certainly does away with the notion, that a set, or paid choir, is necessary for hymnody; "quires" being distinguished (as a species) from the generic term, "places where they sing." The hymn introduced here takes the place of the anthem in more artistically trained choirs, as in Cathedrals and Collegiate Churches; and may well be called by the same name, the anthem. The other place where the use of hymnody in some shape is admissible, is at the end of Matins, or of the Litany, immediately before the commencement of the Communion Office; the place which in the First Book of King Edward, and the unreformed service books, was occupied by the introit. The hymn may also be introduced in the corresponding place at Evensong, viz., after the conclusion of the offices, and immediately before the Sermon. A complete Hymnarium, therefore, will contain a set of hymns for * This sweeping accusation must be limited, in order to do justice to some excellent Priests who have endeavoured to bring about a better state of things. In the parishes of S. Thomas of Canterbury, and S. Paul, Oxford, S. Mary, Stoke Damerel, and one or two others, the bodies of departed Christians have been committed to the earth with that goodly amount of Catholic ceremony, which "our pious reformers" always contemplated and provided for. the feria; two for each day; four for each Sunday and festival day, viz., an anthem and an introit for Matins, and an anthem and hymn before Sermon for Evensong: two for each vigil or eve; and a collection of hymns for special occasions, such as the dedication feast, a national fast, or thanksgiving, and the like. It is the general practice to sing a hymn after the Nicene Creed to fill up the interval in which the preacher is supposed to be removing his vestments, and putting on what the Puritan in the "Pleasant Dialogue" would call his "swouping black gown." This practice, though occasionally under present circumstances convenient, as allowing the assumption of special vestments for the celebration, is quite incorrect; and we may observe how one error follows upon another. The absurd and uncanonical custom of laying aside the ministerial vestments in preaching leads to forcing upon us a breach of that continuity which should exist between gospel, creed, and sermon. The books whose names we have placed before the reader are intended to supply the want of some provision of this kind, a want which has, we have seen, led to such irregular and often such disastrous attempts to supply it. Mr. Stretton, in the preface to his "Church Hymns," after an apology in favour of the Church hymn, in which we may detect a little too much of the Anglican tone, proceeds to draw attention to the distinction between the psalm and the hymn which it is needful not to lose sight of. The character of the psalms as a whole, and the fact that they are appointed a special place in the daily offices, should lead us to be very cautious in introducing metrical versions of them into the hymnarium. The psalm and hymn are distinguished from one another in the passage we have above alluded to from Eusebius; and kept asunder by S. Isidore of Seville, as well as by the constitutions of Elfric, which mention the psalter as quite distinct from the book of hymns. It seems therefore most correct to abstain from making any use of metrical versions of the psalms; though it may be, under present circumstances, judicious on the part of the compilers of Church hymn books, to introduce some few of those metrical psalms to which our people are most accustomed, and which so many of them retain in their memory. But the fountain from which our Church hymns must be mainly drawn is that rich store of Catholic hymnology which is preserved in great part in the Breviary, and which has been handed down to us and swelled by the contributions of divines of all ages from the time of Prudentius, the father of Christian poetry. It is truly delightful to find that the compilers of all these selections of hymns have not forgotten the living cisterns from whence it behoves us to draw. We feel indeed the reality of Catholic Communion with Saints departed, when we are called on to join in such solemn strains as those which year by year and day by day have risen up to |