called the coördination of motions, is said by physiologists to reside in a particular part of the brain, the cerebellum, and it lies at the basis of all improvement in mechanical skill of every kind. Of course, this same cerebellum presides over the mechanical part, the execution, in short the art of music. Without this no amount of practice would give skill, no brilliancy of talents could avail to produce anything more than the rudest music. The immortal part of man, then, seems to have nothing to do with the execution of music, as such.

The composition of music suggests a similar conclusion, though leading us into a higher region. For music as a science is strictly mathematical, that is, mechanical. Its precise division of time and its profound calculation of harmonies employ high mathematical talents. Precision in the performance and pleasure in the hearing, as well as facility and success in the composition of the higher class of music, depend upon the mathematical capacity of the mind. Great composers have often been men of the most splendid talents, nor can we doubt that in the composition of their sublimer works their vast talents have found the fullest scope.

The world is full of mysteries. The most common and simple operations of nature display forces beyond the ken of human science. Equally incomprehensible is the link which connects the soul with the body which it inhabits. It is impossible to explain how the will has power over the bodily organism, and in like manner we can never expect to understand how it is that certain sounds or sights fill the soul with emotion, without regard to association or expectation. In the case of spoken and written language we instinctively feel that its arbitrary signs are interpreted only by the intellect, the personal reason, and that whatever emotional or passional excitement arises thence is a very different thing from the emotions excited through the senses, and results from, if indeed it does not consist in, a deep and absorbing perception of the relations, causes and consequences of the facts thus conveyed, aided, perhaps, by the imagination. Far otherwise is it in the case of music. No operations of the reasoning powers intervene, no arbitrary signs require interpretation, no volition and no imagination has anything to do with its effect. Through

the air and the physical system it reaches at once the seat of passion and feeling. No induction, no deduction, no reasoning, no conception, has anything to do with it. Music, subjectively considered, is purely sensuous.

Plato says that harmony, melody, and rhythm, combined in music, flow from a corresponding state of the mind, and hence music tends to reproduce this state." This harmony of mind, this music of the spirit, is the end and ideal of Plato's philosophy,―as, indeed, is it not also of Christianity? And so, according to Plato, the perception of harmony and relation of sounds must fit the soul for perceiving the higher harmonies of the spiritual world, and excite its desire for them, thus elevating and purifying the mind. But Plato's soul-harmony has no resemblance to that ecstasy or intoxication which we call the excitement of the emotion of music. Yet it need not be demanded that in music, or in anything else, all pleasures of the senses should be despised and denied, and the highest speculative uses should be alone pursued. Pleasure is a good thing. The highest good is not stoical indifference. But let men understand that pleasure, even in the refined and elevated form of music, does not involve the exercise of the highest faculties, that emotion of this kind is not the noblest power with which we are endowed.

This pleasure of the senses should be considered as recreation, and is not worthy to be pursued as an end in life. For it is a fact conveying a useful lesson, and also confirmatory of our theory, that there are some who are consumed by what might be called the lust of the ear, corresponding to the lust of the eye which the Apostle Paul condemned. There are some who seem almost to live for no other end than to enjoy the delights of music. They know nothing of the spiritual uses found by Plato in music, for indeed Platonic souls are rare. They care nothing for the tender or lofty associations connected with the strains they worship,-they live for the titilation of the ear, as epicures for the pleasures of taste. They are music-mad. Music is to them both religion and culture, home, friends, and country. And while love and patriotism and duty and all higher sentiments are thus swallowed up in one absorbing pursuit and passion, they often contrive to be

lieve that their course is the very one which raises them up to a spiritual elevation far above other men. Moreover, it is fashionable to imitate their raptures, and there is a cant in this worship, as in all others. One of these imitators, who had really but slight knowledge or taste in music, once said in our hearing, just after listening to a symphony of Beethoven: "Such music as that lifts me right up above this world; it burns away the human sin and weakness, and purifies and benefits me more than a thousand of your Calvinistic sermons about everlasting punishment." He was doubtless correct in supposing that his mind was not in a fit state to understand Calvinism or any other system of theology. And doubtless, too, he was guilty both of cant and bigotry.

Plato utters another important fact when he says that even a strong and vigorous mind becomes enervated, stupified, and weakened by exclusive cultivation in this direction. And how emphatically is this true now, when the new, modern art of music has been carried to so great perfection. The fact is, no one power of the human constitution can be exercised beyond measure without causing a deformity. Over indulgence of the imagination weakens the judgment. Perception being unduly cultivated, the exercise of the speculative reason becomes irksome and difficult. The astronomer's acuteness of eye is not likely to co-exist with the musician's accuracy of ear. The susceptibilities are not safe without the intellect. The man who lives in a world of feeling, of emotion, of sense-pleasure, cannot rise to any height of moral grandeur, will not meet boldly a great crisis in his fate, or resist nobly and successfully when assailed by temptation. While we admit that music has important intellectual and spiritual uses, we ought not to forget that its undue cultivation, as art, or science, or emotion, is unfavorable alike to intellect and to morals. But we need not on this account banish and condemn music, because others abuse or worship it. No! delightful music, companion of solitude, alleviation of sorrow, which gives expression to our joys, accompanies and assists our worship, shall be our recreation and a worthy attendant upon our festivities and religious services, but not itself worship, nor an object of worship.

The application of the above theory of the nature of music to its use in religious services is almost too obvious to be mentioned here. If music is entirely sensuous, its performance cannot be an act of worship. When we assemble in the house of God, the calming, solemnizing strains of music may serve to turn our minds away from every-day pursuits by soothing our weary brains with their sweetness. But let not the lascivious strains of the opera recall the most trivial pursuits at the most sacred hour, nor let the marvels of difficult execution and the display of perfect training excite astonishment and vulgar curiosity where only reverence or gratitude or contrition have any proper place. This is profanation of the house of God. Let music, too, enliven our social gatherings, but let it not be cultivated by those who care not for it, for mere purposes of display. This is profanation of a noble art, by vanity and foolish ambition.

ARTICLE IV.-BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

CHRISTIANITY is now involved in one of the sharpest conflicts with scepticism in which it has ever been engaged. The men who are making this latest attack on the claims of Christ are men of learning, if not of wisdom. Science and letters have been ransacked for the last thirty years to find material to advance against the religion which prevails over the civilized world, and which rules with marked force our New England thought. Among other branches of study, that which has for its object the comparison of the various religions of the globe has been called upon to bear witness. And notwithstanding the almost universal testimony of scholars to the unquestionable superiority of the Christian faith, it has been very much the fashion for a certain class of writers and speakers, such as those who have made Horticultural Hall in Boston their temple, to hold up in one hand Christianity to a rap and in the other hand Buddhism to praise. If they have not been in the habit of asserting the superiority of the latter over the former, they have been in the habit of dismissing their readers or their popular audiences with the impression that one was just about as good as the other. Out of this habit has come a vague scepticism which floats about in an intangible way, but which shows itself and cries aloud whenever some voice which is thought to be a voice of authority speaks words fitted to summon it from its invisible depths. We propose, therefore, as briefly as we can, to place before our readers the nature of the religion, the style of the morals, and the degree of the civilization, which Buddhism as the most conspicuous, and in some respects the highest, of all heathen religions, offers to mankind.

For this purpose we must begin with the life of its founder. It is a life of romantic interest, but for our purpose it has a deeper meaning than the romance which attends it. The dominating ideas of the religion grow out of the inner experience of its author The pathos of a single life has cast a sombre hue over the lives