Excerpt from The Family Choir, or Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs for Social Worship: The Music Selected From Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Righini, Romberg, Croft, Webbe, Mehul, Ritter, Rink, L. Mason, Hastings, Silcher, &C Whether music as connected with religion, should be confined to simple Psalmody, or extended to those superior Species of composition of which it. Is found susceptible, is a question on which widely different judgments have been pronounced by some of the brightest ornaments of the Christian church, and on which, any attempt to decide, within the limits of a short preface, might be justly deemed presumptuous. The statement of a few general principles may, however, be neither unacceptable nor useless. The only legitimate object recog nised by Christianity in the exercise of singing in its connection with worship, is spiritual edification, by the more impressive expression of religious sentiment, and the more powerful excitement of religious affections. But sentiments to be rationally expressed, must be understood, and no emotion entitled to be called religious can be awakened or invigorated, except by means of such sen timent. Those compositions, therefore, which, instead of increasing the clear ness and force of the truths they are employed to express, either conceal or perplex them, must be hinderances rather than helps to devotion, whatever the dignity or sweetness of their strains, or the richness or perfection of the barmo nic combinations. It thus becomes abundantly obvious that simplicity should characterize all compositions intended for public worship; that tunes selected to be sung by a congregation should be adapted to the actual requirements of, at least the great majority of, the individuals composing it; and that even in attempts to improve their taste, or in the introduction of compositions better fitted to the solemnities of the sanctuary than those previously in use, all should be so done as to infringe as little as possible on the liberty of the congregation to join in the singing. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.