Musical jottings useful and humorous Author:Joseph Proudman Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE PRAISE LEADER AND HIS DUTIES. (As read before the Tonic Sol-fa College, Christmas, 1871J IT is quite a doubtful question whether the Church has at all ade... more »quately considered, either its duties, or its privileges, in the matter of music in its services. It is quite possible to entertain a doubt whether, the main object of meeting together in the place of worship should be, to hear sermons and celebrate sacraments, or whether, by means of solemn prayer and praise, the personal worshipper should be brought into immediate intercourse with the Divine Spirit. At any rate there are some among us, who dare not look upon the act of what is popularly called Psalmody, as by any means the merely supplementary thing, which usage at least compels us to conclude, that many good people imagine it to be. What is the act of Praise ? If it means anything, it is as serious as prayer. Consisting as it does of utterances in Holy song, of professions and adorations of the most personal kind, addressed in person to the Almighty, it must most assuredly be accepted as a personal sacrifice, or be an " offence against high Heaven." It is possible, that love of music, may lead some of us to forget the responsibility of the act, but the startlingtruth remains, we are either uttering meaningless words, to sounds which only touch our sense, or we are as really praising- God, as if we stood already on the sea of glass, among the sacred harpers, ready to dash our " golden crown " before the majestic throne, in the very audience chamber of heaven. I cannot get from this serious reflection, and I would urge on all interested in true worship, to ponder on the solemn import thereof. If it is true that most of our utterances in Praise, are either personal addresses to the Divine Being, personal professions of ...« less