Excerpt from Church Music

To write a book on such a subject as this, even on so slight a scale, may seem a gross impertinence in one who can hardly claim the title of an amateur in music. And so it would be, if a knowledge of the theory and practice of that art were the first requirement in a writer who deals with the place music should occupy in the Church's services. This little book, however, may serve a useful purpose, if it does no more than raise a protest against that false doctrine.

Church Music should not be sought in the Encyclopædia as a sub-heading of the article on Music, but rather under the letter L, as a department of Liturgy. For that is its proper place.

Music has more than one role. There is absolute music, such as the symphonies and quartets one may hear in the concert-room, there is the music of the stage, where it has to be the handmaid of the drama, and there is the music of the Church, where its function is to minister to the worthy performance of certain solemn rites and offices, which in strictness are entirely independent of its aid.

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