touch to the wandering soul, and convert a prodigal from 'the error of his way.' A good man in declining life told me that the first book in which, as a child, he took an interest, was a small edition of Watts's, 'Hymns and Divine Songs' for children. Each hymn was headed by a woodcut, and one especially was his favourite. It represented a little boy, something like himself, as he thought, leaning at an open window, looking with a calm, happy face on the setting sun, which was throwing his parting light upon a quiet country scene. Many of the hymns, and that one in particular, had been read often, until they lived in his soul. But as he grew up, the impressions were worn off by more exciting and less pure thoughts and pursuits. He fell into a course of dissipation and vice, and seemed for a time to be given up to sin, and devoted to ruin. Worn down at last, and threatened with consumption, he was ordered into the country for change of air; and after some time spent in quietness and retirement, far away from the scenes of old temptations, he wandered out one evening about sunset, and hanging pensively over a gate, he watched the sun as it sunk behind the copse, and was throwing its last beams upon the silent and peaceful hill side, There was a hush upon his spirits, and suddenly, as if sketched by an unseen hand before his inward eye, the little picture which used to interest his boyish mind lived again, and the hymn which it illustrated seemed to be spoken sweetly to his heart—

The tear started. He had seen many of his days

go; but as yet his Maker had never heard an evensong from his lips, or from his heart. What an ungrateful life his had been! The remembrance was grievous.' But his heart was broken, and there and then the softened man made his vows of return to God, and offered the prayer which was answered in blessings which filled both the mornings and evenings of his mature life with hymns and songs of thanksgiving and praise."

And how important, and holy, and happy is the office of psalms and hymns in the service of human nature amidst the struggles and toils, the conflicts and victories, the sorrows and joys of mature life. Their mission has been to the multitude as well as the individual heart. How often has the popular use of a few songs swayed the thoughts and feelings of a nation, or quickened, united, directed, and ruled the energies of a people, or permanently given a distinct character to an entire race. Facts would sustain the philosophy of the man who said, "Let me furnish a nation with its songs, and I will govern it." Psalms and hymns, too, have many times afforded the secret of union, and harmony, and strength, and consolation to persecuted households, down-trodden tribes, and oppressed populations. They have been as food to the famine-stricken crowd, and as waters in the wilderness to fugitive churches. How often have they cheered the souls of congregated confessors in Roman catacombs, in the recesses of Eastern deserts, in the fastnesses of Swiss mountains, and in the Highland glens and moorland hollows of Scotland. The psalm and choral chant have sometimes nerved the host for battle on behalf of home, and conscience, and truth. The Divine Spirit himself has recorded an exemplar "hallelujah

victory." Jehoshaphat's appeal for divine help against the enemies of goodness and faith was answered by a revelation of God's order of battle. "And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord, for his mercy endureth for ever. And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, which were come against Judah, and they were smitten." The singers were victorious; the spoil was gathered to the music of psalms. "And on the fourth day they assembled themselves in the valley of Berachah, for there they blessed the Lord; therefore the name of the same place was called the valley of Berachah unto this day. Then they returned every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat in the forefront of them, to go again to Jerusalem with joy, for the Lord had made them to rejoice over their enemies." Yes, and since then many a Christian army has kept up the strain, and have made prayerful hymns and hymns of praise their battle songs. Nor has Jehoshaphat's victory been the only "hallelujah victory." It was probably repeated once on the Welsh border, and has had its antitypes in the history of Protestant struggles for freedom on many a storied field of Europe.

And how much of their youthful freshness, and manly courage, and constitutional vigour, and public spirit, nations owe to the habitual use of their national anthems, who can tell? How France has glowed at the sound of a popular hymn! how Scotland kindles at an old psalm or song which embalms the name of

her hero! and how Englishmen's hearts swell and come together when they sing

Rule Britannia!

or when they uncover and unite in the grand old strain,

God save our gracious Queen!

It is most pleasant to the Christian, however, to trace the influence of devout psalmody in the shaping of a people's happily distinct character. Among the most blessed results of faithfully-administered truth to a teachable and obedient people, is their perpetuated fondness for "psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs." Nor can there be any richer or more agreeable fruits of the Holy Spirit's work upon human masses, than a popular love for psalmody, the culture of sacred music in the people's homes, and the habitual enjoyment of favourite hymns continued from parents to children, and renewing its freshness among children's children. Will the old Scotch version of the psalms ever cease to be music to those who owe so much to the covenanting fathers who first sang them? Will the spiritual songs of the first Reformers ever die out from the mind and heart of Germany? The cheerful character and influence of the primitive churches left memorials for many generations among the hymn-singing populations of many spots in Europe. Richard Baxter's labours at Kidderminster were crowned with many a holy song. He toiled and prayed until from every house within his pastorate there was daily the all but ceaseless voice of psalms and hymns. was literally "compassed about with songs of deliverance." Vital piety makes people cheerful, and their

He

cheerfulness naturally expresses itself in devout and merry rhyme and metre.

Perhaps no district in England has a population so deeply and widely imbued with religious thought and feeling as the county of Cornwall. As a whole, the Cornish folk may be called a religious people, and their great love for sacred music, and especially hymn singing, may be at once a cause and effect of their sustained religious life. Nowhere has the gospel of Christ wrought more happy changes; nowhere has it left a more permanently cheerful impress; nowhere could an entire population so generally illustrate obedience to the apostolic rule, "Is any merry, let him sing psalms." No one who has seen them can forget the lines and knots of merry creatures who preserve a kind of elegant appearance amidst their rough work, in open sheds, and among heaps of tin and copper ore on the surface of the Cornish mines. Who could forget these girls' standard and style of beauty? and who that has heard them will ever forget the music of their hymns, as they sing in concert, while they ply their hammers, that music at once so reverent, so earnest, and so lovely? They seem to have hymns appropriate for all times and seasons, and sometimes their stanzas have been beautifully timed. A few of the more gay and thoughtless of a large group had been indulging a laugh at one good Christian girl, whom they charged with inconsistent conformity to the world because she wore a pair of tasteful ear-rings. The jeers were meekly borne for a while; but at length the persecuted girl lifted up her voice in song, and quietly taking the jewels from her ears, she placed them on the block before her, and demolished them with a stroke of her hammer,