her distress, God divided the waters before her, and the tribes went safely through the depths. Their foes, essaying to follow them, were overwhelmed in the flood; and while charioteer and horseman were struggling with the waves, and the sea was uttering a loud requiem over the sinking hosts, the redeemed multitude confidently stood on the shore, and mingled their hymn of triumph with the sound of the waters.

The Lord shall reign for ever and ever!

The song which thus first rose "o'er Egypt's dark sea" rose again, ever and anon, along the desert, and in the land of promise. Israel kept up the circlings of her religious dances to the song of Moses and the music of Miriam. In the fulness of her meridian strength, her psalms were her delights as she went up to the house of the Lord, and plaintive hymns have been the solace of her faithful children all through the weary periods of her decline. The primitive and purer literature of even those false or corrupted systems of religion which sprung up against the early claims of the true Messiah take the hymnic form, as if

that form must be the most natural, the most sacred, and the most happy mode of religious utterance. The foundations of the Christian Church, too, were laid amidst the hymnings of her first converts. She owes the preservation of her spiritual life, and the continued purity of her belief, in a large measure, to the service of song; and how many of her generations have left hymns as the only living memorials of their character and works. "Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" form the native language of Christianity. The religion of the new covenant is the happy religion. It calls its people to "rejoice evermore, and in everything to give thanks." When it is allowed to exert its proper and full influence on the human character, it regulates the affections, without destroying man's capacity for delight; it composes and cheers the soul; it banishes mere levity, and checking all vicious and boisterous mirth, it fills the mind with serene joy, and gives a tone of cheerfulness to the manners and to the voice But how many have mistaken the Christian's calling! The Christianity of some has been seemingly made up of depressing recollections of the past, gloomy views of the present, and dark apprehensions of the future. And if an inward joy is ever felt, such people think it their duty to repress it, or at least not to give it expression, but rather to keep up an aspect in unbroken accordance with the gravity of their notions. They are not of this world, they say, and therefore they have no smiles for those around them, no songs for themselves. Theirs are melancholy manners, austere looks, and voiceless lives—a religion which threatens to extinguish all gladness, to dark the face of nature, and to destroy the very relish of life. But does not the Saviour call his people to open a cheerful face upon the world, and

to cheer it with grateful hymns. "Let your light so shine before men," says He, "that they may see your beautiful works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, and clear as the sun?" Is it not the Messiah's spouse, the Saviour's Church? And who should be as cheerful as the sunlight, if Christ's people are not? "Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is to behold the sun; which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.” All nature is glad when the day-spring opens. The sparkling sea, the lucid rivulet, the fluttering leaf, the colours and the tones of creation, all tell how the sunbeams cheer the world. All see the light, and all bless the light-bearer. And what is so cheerful in its character and influence as the Christian religion? "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart." Revelation opens around the Christian solemnities holy enough to chasten his spirit, but it throws a light upon God's character and will which inspires the believer with sacred cheerfulness. All the principles and all the feelings which now command him dispose the Christian to form the habit of turning the bright side of things towards himself—the habit of keeping Divine goodness in sight, of marking the blessings of every moment as it passes, and of communing with a happy future, until he learns to speak to himself "in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in his heart unto the Lord." And when praise thus lives in the heart, it will express itself in pleasant music and lively measures. The peaceful conscience and merry heart will have songs for the outside world. And when all Christians

breathe this happy spirit of their religion, the Christian Church will be the beautiful embodiment of a happy godliness, and will be ceaseless in its service of song.

But as the rise and advance and decline of the human race, or of human empires, or of religious systems, may somewhat answer to the stages of an individual life—or as the history of a single life may picture the course of the world, or the career of a people so those favourite modes of utterance which the world or any one of its communities have used, as distinctive of the different stages of its course, have their answering types in the most-loved forms of individual expression. Childhood loves to lisp its joys in a hymn. Manhood, in its times of purest and most exalted feeling, speaks to itself in hymns. Hymns, too, most naturally weave themselves into the language of declining life, and often supply the departing soul with its most happy words.

There is scarcely anything that maintains a more permanent influence over human thought and feeling in the present life than the hymns and songs which the soul drinks in during our childhood. The simplicity of children makes them capable of being swayed through life by the earliest lessons. The little one's mind is so retentive that first impressions are most lasting and powerful. The first supplies of knowledge find the deepest and most secure lodgement in the soul; and especially when the knowledge comes in an agreeable form as in the rhythm and rhyme of simple hymns. These are entertained for life, and often live to make themselves felt in spite of all the changes and distracting circumstances of the later course. There has been many, many an instance like those which, a few years ago, were recorded in a pastoral address to

a Christian Church. The minister was guarding his flock against the danger of betrayal into hardness and bitter feeling by those trials which spring out of the seeming unequal distribution of good and evil in the world. "I am free to tell you," said he, "that sometimes in the course of my life, I have been powerfully tempted to hardness, when the thought has been insinuated, that my share in life has been wearisome toil and frequent depression, while others have been lapped in ease and plenty, though apparently not a whit more deserving than myself; and I confess that now and then the temptation has been so timed that my soul has gone too far through the process of transformation into something like cold iron or steel. But one gentle corrective has always prevented the hardening process from being complete. When I have been all but shut up to the curse of a stony heart, some stanza from one of the simple hymns or 'divine songs,' which used to touch and soften me in childhood, has come up from its home in my memory, and, like a divine charm, has soothed and melted me into childlike tenderness, simplicity, and love. Verses that seemed to have been lost for years, have suddenly sprung into life again, and brought so many good recollections in their train, that my rugged nature has yielded at once, and all within and all without have responded to the music of the hymn, as the face of nature answers to the genial sunbeams of spring. And I have met in the course of my life with many others whose experience might be taken as a reflection of my own. One remarkable instance, however, somewhat varies from the rest; inasmuch as it shows how the well-timed recurrence of verses, once fondly cherished by the young memory and heart, may give the deciding