We cannot conclude this article without observing, that the general neglect of music as a branch of education, is a serious drawback to its employment in our Church services. Mr. Hullah and other zealous individuals have done much to awaken a popular interest; yet the result of their exertions has proved but very partial. We do not despair of better things. The object is deserving of yet more extensive and serious efforts. It is not, assuredly, our climate or our national character, that makes us an unmusical people. We are Anglo-Saxons-of the same blood, and inhabiting much the same cast of country as produced some of the greatest masters of the art-Handel, Haydn, Mozart. Why, then, are we so apathetic? Clergy and people, in many of our churches, seem to settle down in the conviction, that the music has no other purpose than to afford the minister a little time to rest, and the congregation a little time to look about them. It is not simply that they cannot say with David: "My heart was joyful when I sang unto Thee, and so was my soul which Thou hast redeemed." (Ps. lxxi. 23.) They neither expect it, nor seek for it. And that not merely where a purely worldly spirit pervades the service, but where there is a measure of spiritual life, and the other parts of the service not unaccompanied with intelligence. We will not speak of Papists. Orthodox dissenters are before us in this very solemn and important matter. How is this to be accounted for? Not, as we have said, from elemental national character or climate, but simply, as we believe, from a want of musical education. Men pass from our universities to serve our thousand parishes, the church music being everywhere put into their hands to control and regulate, without being required to know the simplest elements of musical science, or afford the poorest evidence of musical consciousness. What process could be better devised for almost destroying the musical energies of a people! Dr. Maurice, of New College, Oxford, as sound a Protestant as he is an accomplished musician, did no more than justice to the Church herself, when he drew the attention of Lord Derby, on his installation as chancellor of the university, to this neglect, and pleaded that music should resume its proper rank among the studies of the place. That which has given Protestant Germany an advantage in this respect over Protestant England, is, that Luther made music an essential branch of the popular education. "Let no schoolmaster," he said, “apply to me for recommendation or appointment, who is not acquainted with the rudiments of musical science." And that not simply from his own love of the art, but from his conviction of its power as a weapon to advance the cause of truth; and he was right. Papists themselves had to confess, "Luther has done us more mischief by his songs than by his sermons." "Are we," asks Mr. Young, fighting the same good fight, and can we be afraid of the same good weapons?" (xv. xvi.)

All honour, then, to these efforts, whether by word or note, to redeem so hallowed an art to its proper station and proper usage! Let the sacred character of music be admitted as established on a scripture basis, and its power on the heart acknowledged, as sealed by the testimony of ages from the birth of time,-let men awake to its true value as a means of edification, let it be introduced as a general element of education in all our schools, and there is no reason why England should not assume her proper rank as a musical nation; and, what is of far more importance, that, as a divine gift, it should not prove in a far higher degree than it has yet done, an auxiliary to true devotion, and help to stimulate desires after that state of eternal blessedness, of which little more is revealed than that it consists of holy love and holy music.

AMERICAN SLAVERY AND THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.

IN our December number we had an article upon American Slavery and its Remedy," and more recently, in January, we noticed the abortive attempt of Brown and others to raise a negro insurrection at Harper's Ferry. Our remarks on both of these subjects have given great, and, as we think, unreasonable offence, in the United States, to those from whom we expected, not applause perhaps, but at least a silent approval. That slaveholders should be angry with us, was a matter of course; that their newspapers should revile us was no more than we looked for; but we confess we are equally disappointed and surprised that men of the highest character, who are themselves opposed to slavery; who have been for many years, they tell us, our constant readers, maintaining those evangelical principles which are so dear to us, and which give the "Christian Observer" whatever influence it possesses, should be amongst the first to blame our rashness, and to remonstrate with us on the course we have pursued. To say nothing of religious newspapers, clergymen of high standing, and one member of the American episcopal bench, in a letter probably meant for our perusal, though not directly addressed to us, are loud in their remonstrances. The sum of their complaint appears to be, that we are ill-informed and prejudiced, and that we are injuring the cause we profess to serve.

We can very readily admit that, writing in England upon the internal affairs of another country, we are at a certain disadvantage. We must necessarily depend upon the reports of others; and it is not always within our power to detect exaggerations, or, even falsehoods, when they appear in what are generally supposed to be respectable and trustworthy sources. We have stated nothing

upon mere hearing. We have taken our facts from American journals, or from the best-informed of our own. Yet many things, no doubt, would strike us in a different light, if we saw them on the spot; and on many details our judgment would be somewhat modified. But this is true of America in common with all other lands, and of American slavery in common with all other institutions. One of our correspondents, indeed, says, "You cannot reason about this people as you may about any other on the earth;" and we suppose there is some truth in the remark. Another, who writes from Shepherd's Town, Virginia, suggests a scheme for our better instruction, which, with all deference, we submit to our Foreign Secretary for his consideration. "The English government," he says, "could well afford to send your whole editorial fraternity to reside for a twelvemonth in this country, especially in the South and South-western States; no better cure for the supercilious and denunciatory style in which our affairs are so generally treated." We have no doubt the remedy would be complete, and that we should return home from the land of the planters, if we returned at all, thoroughly cured of our impertinence! Yet this writer, whose name we shall withhold, adds, "All this comes from one who sympathizes fully in all your ecclesiastical and doctrinal views, and who is a sincere lover and defender of your country.

The chief argument made use of, both by our correspondents and the newspapers, is, that we in England are quite unqualified to form a correct judgment on the subject of slavery; and to this they add as a conclusive stroke, that the anti-slavery party in America are either fanatics or bad men. On the first point we have little to say. Whether it be right for one man to hold another in endless bondage; to flog him as he likes; to treat him as he likes; to work him as he likes; to sell his wife and his children into slavery to another master, with or without him, as he likes; these, we should have thought, were questions which might be discussed in England quite as well as in America, by those who have no slaves, with at least as much calmness and as fair a chance of coming to a right conclusion, as by those whose interests are involved on the one hand, or whose feelings are goaded on the other, in a land of slaves. Nor can we give up the right of Englishmen to discuss the affairs of other nations, with the same freedom with which we, and they too, discuss our own. We may even think that, standing at a distance from the scene, we possess some advantages which almost counterbalance our want of that more accurate knowledge which close personal observation only can supply. The eternal principles of truth and justice are the same in all countries; and it seems to us, that these principles are outraged wherever slavery exists. The "Southern Churchman," published in the diocese of Virginia, challenges the editor of the "Christian Observer" to answer, if he can, the following questions. We cannot say that

we feel much flattered, either as casuists or divines, in being set down before such an examination-paper. It belongs to the freshmen's year; and we have not the excuse of freshmen for our ignorance; but it will serve to show the tone of thought and feeling even amongst religious people, members of our own church, upon the subject. It seems to us to be answered in two sentences :First, if all the patriarchal usages, and those of the Old Testament, are a law to us, polygamy is a wholesome institution, and, after all, the Mormonite is right, on this point at least. Secondly, if the "royal law to love our neighbour as ourself, be as truly and readily obeyed by the master to his slave, as by the employer to those in his service," will our transatlantic friends inform us how it happens, that the objects of this affection are so profoundly ungrateful, nay, so anxions to escape from it? In England, the bell rings, and the workmen crowd into the manufactory; in Virginia, the night closes, and the slave, at the risk of being shot down like a wild dog, absconds. No less than sixty thousand have found their way, through unheard-of perils, to the safe retreat on British soil in Canada; and yet we have the assurances of our correspondents, that they are both docile and affectionate.

The questions we are to solve are these:—

"1st. In the covenant which God made with Abraham, and his spiritual children, which is understood to be the Gospel covenant, was it wrong to provide for the purchase of bond-men, or slaves? See Genesis xvii. 12, 13.

"2nd. Was it wrong for the angel when meeting Hagar in the wilderness, fleeing from her mistress, who had treated her badly, to send her back into the state of servitude from which she had so happily escaped? Genesis xvi. 9.

"3rd. Was it wrong for Moses, acting under a direct commission from God, to authorize the Israelites to purchase bondmen, or slaves, from the heathen, and leave them as an inheritance to their children for ever ? See Leviticus xxv. 44, 45, 46.

"4th. Was it wrong for the Saviour, when he healed the Centurion's servant, to commend the faith of the master without reproving him for the sin of slave-holding.?

"5th. Was it wrong for the apostle Paul to send a runaway slave back to his master, Philemon, without a single word of admonition about the sin of slavery?

"6th. Was it wrong for the apostle to speak of masters who had servants 'under the yoke' (of servitude) as FAITHFUL and BELOVED," and to state this as a reason why their slaves (under the yoke') should render them a cheerful obedience? See 1 Tim. vi. 1, 2, 3.

"7th. Was it wrong for the apostle, in immediate connection with such teaching, to condemn those who teach otherwise, as ignorant and proud, doting about questions and strifes of words whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, and perverse disputings? 1 Tim. vi. 4, 5, 6.

"8th. Is there anything in the relation of a master to his servant to

make that to be a sin now, which was not a sin in the days of Paul and of Moses ?

"9th. If slave-holding be a sin, have not Paul, and Jesus, and Moses, and the great God Himself (I speak it reverently) given explicit permission for the existence of this sin, without a single word of rebuke ?

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"10th. Is not the royal law,' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,' as truly and readily obeyed by the master to his slave, as by the employer to those in his service-and is there not as much injustice and oppression exercised over those in servitude at the North as there is over the coloured population of the South ?"

These questions, if unanswerable, prove rather too much. They prove that slavery is a good institution; and our correspondents have now to show why they profess to agree with us in our abhorrence of it, and why they determine one day to work its destruction. American churchmen are especially angry with us for presuming to censure the conduct of the Episcopal Convention of New York. They shall express their own sentiments. The following quotation is taken from the correspondence of "The Southern Churchinan :" it is the conclusion of a letter addressed to ourselves :

"Finally, you say, that even the Episcopal Convention (of New York), it appears, is quite prepared, not merely to justify menstealers (meaning the foreign slave trade), but to add the might of its authority to their hideous cause; and to this you add, the Christian Observer has many friends and many readers in New York, men whose cheeks will burn with shame as they read what we have transcribed,' &c. True, they do burn with shame; we have heard them say so; but it is solely for the Christian Observer,' that it should transcribe the ravings of heated political leaders and such men as Cheever, and return them to its American subscribers, to say nothing of its discoursing to its English subscribers of the degraded character and obsequious spirit of the Episcopal Convention' of New York. But with those who fall into such mistakes, with the facilities which the Christian Observer' must have for knowing the truth, it shows that passion and temper is up; and when this is the case, facts are little cared for, and little regarded when known.

"So, thanking you for all the service which you have rendered to the cause of evangelical religion in other departments, and praying that you may be better qualified to treat of it in this-if, indeed, it would not be better for you to leave this subject to Christians in this quarter of the world, while you attend to the pressing calls upon your philanthropy at home, and under your own government in India, I am, very truly, your friend and co-worker in the gospel, "CHRISTIAN."

Our private correspondence, though rather more courteous, is by no means less decided in its tone. Of this, too, we give one specimen; premising only that it comes from a clergyman of high character, and of long standing in the American episcopal church :

"As a member of the Episcopal Convention of New York, I was