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beings. There are few, and perhaps none, who do not admit its power, in some degree, to affect the feelings. Insensibility to music must be referred to a defective organization, at least in the sense of hearing; while the whole conformation of some men is probably much better fitted than that of others to enable them to receive pleasure from this source. But it is difficult to conceive of a human system-of a set of nerves-which is inIn the beaucapable of being moved by music. tiful language of Cowper,

"There is in souls a sympathy with sounds,
And as the mind is pitch'd, the ear is pleased
With melting airs, or martial, brisk, or grave;
Some chord, in unison with what we hear,
Is touched within us, and the heart replies."

And there is no limit to the refinement and elevation to which the art of music may be advanced. Its power is as immeasurable as the capacities of the human soul for pleasure or pain.

This natural taste and aptitude for music, had man remained holy, would have been to all a source of delight ineffable, like that which is felt in the music of heaven. For there is music in heaven. There was an occasion, as we are expressly assured, when "The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." And on another and greater occasion, a multitude of the heavenly host came down, singing, in the hearing of mortals,

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace; Good will toward men."

The gift of music to man, then, was an a gelic gift. It was a good gift, intended as a source of happiness, and as an instrument of worship and praise; and had man remained in his first estate, he might have continued to possess and enjoy it, in a degree but a little lower than that of the angels. Every bosom would have swelled with grateful emotions, and every voice would have been tuned to the high praises of God. But this "Paradise" was "Lost ;" and the prince of English poets, with his accustomed adherence to the truths of revelation, thus describes the occasion and consequences of the fall:

'disproportioned sin

Jarr'd against nature's chime, and with harsh din, Broke the fair music that all creatures made."

Such was the effect of the introduction of in into our world. It broke up the proportions of things. It destroyed the balance and harmony of man's moral character; and the gift of music,

that delightful pledge of heaven's joy, became the servant of sin. In man, fallen, it was perverted and abused. His song was henceforth the song of fools. His voice, so admirably fitted to celebrate the praises of the Most High, and to awaken in his own heart emotions of piety and reverence, was employed in setting off the festive ditty, and in giving interest and influence to the profane jest; or it was used to inflame the passions of the battle-field, by the death-daring strains of the war-song. And the song of the drunkard was substituted for the hymn of praise.

Yet the power of music and the love of music remains, amid all this ruin. This is proved by the universal propensity of men to employ it in scenes of revelry and vice, and by its efficacy in bearing on its abuses in their downward course to hell.

This, therefore, is one of the perverted powers of man-not destroyed-which God would restore to his own service. He accordingly seized upon this natural aptitude for music in the human race, and made it the ground of an ordinance in his church, the object of which was to restore this faculty in man to its proper and original exercise, as an instrument of worship. Hence, in the history of music, there is a broad distinction between the music employed in religious worship, called Sacred Music, and that which is merely secular and profane. Their elements, it is true, are the same; and the difference between them is, that they are adapted and used for different purposes --sacred music, to strengthen and elevate our religious feelings, in the worship of God; and secular or profane music, to please, excite, and inflame the affections and passions of the natural man. We have to do, however, in this article with sacred music alone. We leave out of view the lower uses of the musical art, and its abuses to purposes positively and flagrantly sinful, desiring only to know and to teach the will of God concerning this delightful accompaniment, this divinely-appointed helper of religious worship.

That singing, as a part of religious worship, is an ordinance of God, is amply proved by scripture. The following considerations are in point.

In the descriptions and injunctions of worship by the sacred writers, prayer and praise are usually associated; and, from the earliest times, praise was expressed in music. "Sing praises," is the scripture injunction in respect to this part of worship. It might be inferred, therefore, that, as early as men began to call upon God in prayer they began also to praise Him with music and song; and it is remarkable that, in the very chap ter, Gen. iv., in which it is recorded, that “then began men to call upon the name of the Lord,"

we read of one who "was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ." There were music, then, and musical instruments, long before the flood; and doubtless they were employed in worship.

A few centuries after the flood, as in Gen. xxxi., songs and musical instruments are spoken of, as if they were in common use. All nations, also, from the earliest times of their history, have associated music with their worship. There is no way to account for this, but to presume that it was enjoined in the first revelations of God to

men.

One of the earliest of the songs of Israel on record, is that which they sung on the shore of the Red Sea:-Exod. xv., "Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying,

'I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously;
The horse and his ridey hath he thrown into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and song,
And he is become my salvation.'

"And Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her, with timbrels, and with dances. And Miriam answered them,

Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously:
The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.'"'

From this time onward music was cultivated

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among the Hebrews. In the days of the Judges we read of schools, or colleges of the prophets, one part of the design of which was to train up persons to sing praises, both vocally and with various instruments. In the first book of Samuel there is described a company of these prophets, who came down from the hill where their school was, prophesying with the psaltry, the tabret, and the harp. In the days of King David, music was carried to a still greater height, and reduced to a more regular system. Great numbers of singing men and singing women were employed. For the service of the tabernacle, he appointed four thousand Levites, who were divided into twenty-four classes, and marshaled under as many leaders, and whose business it was to sing and to perform instrumental music in public worship.

The one hundred and fifty psalms also, which are recorded in the Old Testament, are all adapted to be sung. Concerning many of them, we are expressly told on what occasions they were performed, and with what instruments they were accompanied. These show how prominent a place was assigned to music in the Jewish worship. And it is not usage only that establishes the ordinance of music as a part of worship, under the law. It is often expressly enjoined, as in the case of the 105th Psalm, which David gave into the hands of Asaph and his brethren to sing.

LOVE not alone the gay,
The beautiful, the bright;

For youth will fade away,

Like day beans into night. But love the heart that's pure, How plain soe'er the face; Such love will long endure, Such love cannot debase.

Love not alone on earth

Those transient things of life, Who like the rainbow's birth

Soon fade 'midst shadowy strife;

But love the power that made

All that to man is given, Whose spirit doth pervade The universal heaven.

-Love all things, great and small,
From man to tiny flower;
Created they were all

By an Almighty power,
For "God is Love" we know.
Whate'er may be our lot

In life, then, let us sow

The Love that dieth not.

THE first teacher of the Hawaiian College at Lahainaluna, Maui, Sandwich Islands, has in possession a mass of old Hawaiian Meles (Songs) which he gathered and wrote down with much care from the mouths of natives. They are somewhat after the old style of the old Greek Rhapsodists, and they are said, by competent judges who have seen them in manuscript, to be good specimens of the decent sort of unwritten Hawaiian Literature, containing the curious jumble of Hawaiian mythology, and all the Norse-like fables of their giant kings and gods. But like the talk of Gratiano in the Play, it is all an infinite deal of confused nonsense and nothing. All that's worth preserving is as two grains of wheat in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them they are not worth the search.

A later mele, on the creation, by Ke-Kupuohi, an old chief woman of Hawaii, composed after hearing read, for the first time, the first chapter of Genesis, Mr. Andrews has translated, as follows:

A MELE ON THE CREATION.

God breathed into the empty space,
And widely spread his power forth,
The spirit flying, hovered o'er;

A spirit 'tis, a shadow of what is good,
A shadow of heaven is the Holy Spirit.

His power grasped the moveable, it was fast,
Fast was the separating mass, lest it should move;
It moved not, God made it fast :

It was fast by the power of His will.

The earth became embodied,

The islands also rose, they rose to view, The land was bare of verdure,

And desolate the earth.

'Twas earth alone;

Earth also was man,
'Twas God that made him,

By him also were all things made.

He caused to grow the verdure; The earth was decked with beauty, He adorned with flower, the shrubs: Beautiful was the earth From the hand of God.

God made this wide-extended heaven;
He made the heavens, long, long ago;
He established the heavens a dwelling-place;
He dwelt alone, Jehovah by himself,
The Spirit with him.

His power created multitudes,
Thousands, myriads, numberless,

Until the heaven was full, and full the earth;
Filled with righteousness, with power, with goodness,
With glory, with holiness, with mercy:
Great were all his works.

Through God's abounding goodness,
Vast are the extended heavens,
Great are the heavens and the earth,
Great are the mountains, and the sea;
The work of God alone,
And his alone the power.

He fixed the sun his place;

But the islands moved, moved the islanda,
With sudden, noiseless, silent speed;
We see not his skillful work,

who was

God is the great support that holds the earth. The following is by the same woman, one of the wives of Kalainopu, the reigning King of Hawaii, when the island was first visited by Capt. Cook. When she composed it she was on a visit to Mr. Ruggles, at Kuapehu, where there was growing a luxuriant grape-vine, which was the occasion of this mele. The fragment of it that follows, is a good specimen of the old Hawaiian poetry Christianized, and suggested probably to the mind of this ancient survivor of heathenism, by the New Testament figure of Christ as the true vine:

Once only hath that appeared which is glorious; It is wonderful, it is altogether holy;

It is a blooming glory; its nature is unwithering; Rare is its stock, most singular, unrivaled,

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Que only true vine. It is the Lord.

The branch that adheres to it becomes fruitful;

The fruit comes forth fruit; it is good fruit,
Whence its character is clearly made known.
Let the branch, purely making fair show, be cut off,
Lest the stock should be injuriously encumbered;
Lest it be also by it wrongfully burdened.

One of the graduates of the Lahainaluna Seminary wrote an ode, a sort of funeral elegy, on the death of a son of Dr. Judd, a translation of which is inserted in Mr. Jarves' History of the Sandwich Islands, that is truly touching and beautiful. Some others have occasionally appeared elsewhere that possess considerable merit. I have been not a little amused with perusing some intercepted letters that passed at one time between sundry lads of the Lahainaluna Seminary and certain of the lasses of Lahaina. They are too good specimens of the Hawaiian madrigal, and of an Hawaiian's sensibility to love, to pass unnoticed. Anacreon himself certainly never did better in an ode to his mistress. We transcribe some extracts, taken down as Rev. Mr. Alexander, the missionary teacher, was interpreting them for our amusement. The first is from one of the damsels of Lahaina, to her lover, up at the Seminary.

Love to you, who speakest sweetly, whom I did kiss. My warm affections go out to you with your love. My mind is oppressed in consequence of not having seen you these times. Much affection for thee dwelling there where the sun causeth the head to ache. Pity for thee in returning to your house, destitute as you supposed. I and she went to the place where we had sat in the meeting house, and said she, let us weep. So we two wept for you. And we conversed about you.

We went to bathe in the bread-fruit yard: the wind blew softly from Lahainaluna, and your image came down with it. We wept for you. Thou only art our food when we are hungry. We are satisfied with your love.

It is better to conceal this; and lest dogs should prowl after it, and it should be found out, when you have read this letter, tear it up

FROM ONE OF THE LADS, BOKI.

Love to thee, thou daughter of the Pandanus of Lanahuli. Thou hina hina, which declarest the divisions of the wind. Thou cloudless sun of the noon. Thou most precious of the daughters of the earth.-Thou beauty of the clear nights of Lehua.-Thou refreshing fountain of Keipi.

* Supposed to mean a beautiful flower that grows on the tops of the mountains, where the sea and land breezes meet.

A THIRD FROM ONE OF THE STUDENTS.

Love to thee, by reason of whom my heart sleeps not night nor day, all the days of my dwelling here. O thou beautiful one, for whom Here also is this-at my love shall never cease. the time I heard you were going to Wailuku, I was enveloped in exceeding great love. And when I heard you had really gone, great was my regret for you, and exceeding great my love. My appearance was like a sick person who cannot answer when spoken to. I would not go down to the sea again, because I supposed you had not returned. I feared lest I should see all the places where you and I had conversed together, and walked together, and I should fall in the streets on account of the greatness of my love to you. I however did go down, and I was continually Your father said longing with love to you.

to me, won't you eat with us? I refused, saying I was full. But the truth was I had eaten nothing. My great love to you, that was the thing which could alone satisfy me. Presently, however, I went to the place of K, and there I heard you had arrived. I was a little refreshed by hearing this. But my eyes still hung down. I longed to see you, but could not find you, though I waited till dark. Now, while I am writing, my tears are dropping down for you; now my tears are my friends, and my affection to you, O thou who wilt forever be loved. Here also is this: consent thou to my desire, and write me, that I may know your love. My love to thee is great, thou splendid flower of Lanakahula.