matic, cold, formal, incrusted with pride and with age, allied or seeking to be allied with the state; the burning waves of reform themselves congealed into mountains of stone. From such a Protestantism we in this land are mercifully delivered; yet there are those who would impose upon us just such a Protestantism; who would cover this virgin soil of liberty with the debris of the crumbling dogmatism of the old world! Had Mr. Pressensé been more conversant with the workings of the voluntary principle, and with the fruits of the Protestant spirit in the United States, he would not have utterly despaired of Protestantism as an agency for social reform. And yet it is to be questioned whether even in this country Christianity has permeated the substratum of society, and infused itself into the whole social order, or whether indeed it is likely to do so with the present spirit and efforts of Christians or associations of Christians which call themselves Protestant and evangelical.

The seventh lecture of Mr. Pressensé's course treats of those aspirations for the future which are the harbingers of important events. Great desires precede great things. Under this head are presented in succession the eclectic Deism of Jouffroy-a leader of the young eclectic school in philosophy; the practical deism of the masses; the religious aspirations of Socialism, as seen in the system of Buchez, and the aspirations of Fourierism in the writings of Gilliot; the young Catholic school both political and theological; and the aspirations of Protestantism as seen in Vinet and Adolphe Monod. It is shown that the grand obstacle to religious reform is in the union of church and state; that the state perpetuates antiquated forms of religion; that state religions keep the people in a delusion; that state protection is an injury to religion; and that it is the duty of men who are convinced of these evils to avow their convictions and seek to enlighten public sentiment in this regard.

The eight and last lecture aims to show that this universal aspiration after a better state of things, must terminate in a return to evangelical Christianity. It is an essential condition of true love, that it shall not compromise either liberty or justice, and that it shall be bestowed as a voluntary gift. In the Christian system Love is based upon one grand fact, the cross of Christ. Around that cross our hearts must center that we may there meet the heart of God poured forth in love for us; and catching the mighty impulse of that love we shall return to society to breathe only love, peace, good-will to others.

Our author proceeds to show how this spirit diffused through society, reigning in the hearts of all individuals, would attemper systems of religion, would modify government, would relieve all distress, would bind mankind together in one holy and happy brotherhood. He concludes by urging upon each individual the cultivation of this spirit.

We have now given our readers a digest, mainly in our own language, of these admirable discourses. The subject they open to view is one of vast moment in its bearing upon the elevation of society and the final success of Christianity in the world. Christianity has not yet been given to the poor. By this we do not mean that the poor have not been furnished with Bibles and tracts, and with the preaching of the Gospel; but the spirit of Christianity has not yet been applied to the physical and social condition of the masses, with a view to their permanent elevation. Christians have been disproportionately intent upon the spiritual welfare of mankind, overlooking the close connection between the physical and the moral in their condition, and too little regarding Christ's method of doing good. The moral renovation of the masses in great cities is well nigh hopeless, while their physical condition remains what it is. In all measures of true philanthropy, in all practical and judicious plans for the improvement of society, wherever in a word, the great interests of humanity are to be promoted, there Christians should take the lead. We believe that the world is to be saved by the church; not by organizations, nor by creeds; but by living Christians applying the spirit and maxims of the Gospel to all the details of human affairs. They who throw aside the church as an agent of reform, divest reform of the religious element which is its sole vitality. No reform can succeed from which that element has been cast out, or into which that element does not fully enter. Christians therefore must look to it that this element is infused into every needed reform; they must themselves be forward in every such reform, in the spirit of love, the spirit of Christ. This is their responsibility. Instead of expending blows upon the dead carcass of Fourierism, let them direct their aim at the monster evils before which Fourierism has fallen. It may be that as the race has been suffered to experiment on a great scale with philosophy, with formalism, and with infidelity, so it shall be suffered in France or on some other field to make full proof of schemes of social reform without the Gospel. But let the church avert the bloody and disastrous trial. The great problem-nay, that is not a problem for the Christian, which Christ himself has demonstrated-the great duty of the Christians of this age is the application of Christianity in its principles and spirit to all interests of society and of humanity.

ART. VIII--ON PERFECT INTONATION AND THE EUHARMONIC ORGAN.

An Essay on Perfect Intonation; with remarks, showing the Practicability of attaining it in the Organ; together with a brief description of the Euharmonic Organ, of Alley & Poole. By HENRY W. POOLE. Extracted from the American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. ix, Second Series, 1850. New Haven: B. L. Hamlen. 1850.

THE subject of music is of wide and varied interest. Its laws demand for their investigation the intellect of the student. Its execution gives scope to the highest attainment and perfection of art. Its strains breathe sweetly on the heart through the portals of sense soothing us in infancy, cheering us in life's conflicts and changes, elevating the soul in hours of worship, and breathing on the ears of the dying the notes that commingle with the melodies of heaven. As connected with the organ and the sanctuary, it enters into the most sacred department of life-that of the public worship of God. There, on the solemn day, it sets forth an emblem of the heavenly world when the praises of God, flowing from the heart and lips of his people and sustained in their expression by that instrument, fill the air with the incense of pure and sweet tones enveloping the whole assembly, and ascending toward the deep empyrean, with their harmony. There may be too much that is sensuous in the forms of religious worship: but so long as man is a being compounded of sense and reason, we see not well, how he can be true to the inward thought that inspires religious feeling, except by outward and appropriate utterance; or how he can be true to a communion of thought and feeling with others in devotional praise, except by united utterance with them in agreeing forms of musical chant or psalmody. We need not, however, argue the question whether music should be admitted into public worship. Our readers generally and those religious congregations which we represent, admit this form of worship to be a true expression of devotion: and what is more, they generally admit that the interest which belongs to such a form of expression is deepened in power and effect, as human voices in their communion mingle in notes of pure harmony, and as they are sustained and sweetened by the accompaniment of true-toned and clear-toned instruments. admission above as to what may be too sensuous in worship, we would apply, therefore, so far as church music is concernednot to the use of instruments or organs in the worshiping assembly as accompaniments to the voice in sacred psalmody; but to their use as instruments only, for entertaining the ears with light

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and fantastic interludes, unsuited to divine praise, that draw away the mind and heart from the sacred themes of devotion.

As an instrument to accompany the music of the church, the organ has ever held the place of preeminence, for two reasons especially; that on its capacious wind-chest may be gathered stops of almost every variety of voice belonging to orchestral instruments; and that these many stopped voices through all their ranks are placed at the perfect and instantaneous command of a single musician presiding at the key-board. Yet there has ever been a defect in the music of the organ, notwithstanding the sweetness and the mighty thunderings of its distinct voices: that these voices have not been capable of uniting with each other in the utterance of a full continued flow of perfect harmony. There are intermingled waves of discord to dissatisfy the ear and voice of the choir, which are banished from the performances of the more perfect orchestral instruments.

To overcome this defect and thus perfect the music of this instrument there have been heretofore some attempts made; but, for reasons into which we will not here euter, they have failed of success. To this point, the investigations of the author of the essay to which we have referred at the head of this article have been directed, in connection with another gentleman-an experienced organ builder, by whose united efforts, an instrument has been planned and built, of great perfection in its harmony, to which they have given the title of the Euharmonic Organ.

In order to make the plan sure, it became necessary to investigate the mathematical laws that regulate the intervals of the musical scale and which determine the relation of one scale to another, so that it might be clearly seen what number of distinct tones it was necessary to introduce into the compass of each octave, in order to provide for as many distinct and perfect scales as were to be compassed by the instrument. To this branch of the subject the first part of the essay is devoted, which treats of perfect musical intonation. The writer thus states his subject in the opening sentence: "This paper will treat only of one department of the science of music-the laws which fix the tune of all musical scales, and determine all musical intervals."

After speaking of the territory as but partly explored and as still disputed, and of the universal agreement as to the imperfection of the scale as executed on key-board instruments and other instruments of a variety of fixed scales; and after alluding to the attempts hitherto made to remedy the scales of the organ and put them on a mathematical basis, and of the neglect of the subject, if not ignorance of it, manifest in modern treatises; he enters the subject himself as an independent writer, attempting to avoid the errors of theorists by experiments and studies of his own. The fundamental position which serves as the basis of all his calcula

tions is thus stated. "We find by experiment that if two or more sounds heard together, are, in the rapidity of their vibrations, in a sufficiently simple ratio, their relations are perceived by the ear, producing an agreeable sensation, and this effect we call harmony."

Without following the writer on his course, we would present a few remarks on the subject of the scales, which may meet, perhaps, the objections which musical artists might alledge, and bring the subject before them and the common reader as one whose laws are clearly laid in the unerring science of the mathematics.

The assertion is sometimes made that different intervals of progression in an octave are equally pleasant to the ear; and that it is the fancy of the ear, and not science that settles the scale. But there is a musical scale, the notes of which are fixed by the simple ratio which their vibrations bear to those of the fundamental note: and it is found that these are the notes that, when wrought into melodies or harmonies, agree most perfectly with the demands of the ear. The ear is therefore endowed with the faculty of perceiving the accord arising from those vibrations which by their simple ratios pile themselves together, as one, on every 2d, or 3d, or 4th, &c. vibration; and this accord of vibrations is the deep unchangeable foundation of the melodic and harmonic intervals of the scale. The science is founded therefore in laws as precise as mathematical ratios: to the perception of which the Creator has endowed the sensibilities of the ear and mind of man. The musical scale is not therefore a mere creature of fancy, chosen and shaped at will; but a fixed reality, a thing true to nature, a series founded on proportionate vibrations which are appreciated at once by every ear which the Creator has endowed with the usual degree of musical perceptions.

This harmonic proportion of vibrations is demonstrated by means of a musical string. The discovery is attributed to the ancient Greeks, and it arose from the use of stringed instruments in their music: a discovery which led the natural philosopher and the mathematician to enter, with their calculations, within the domain of sounds, and demonstrate the laws by which they are governed; and which furnished the basis for the calculation of the sections of 'the musical canon' which has been attributed to Euclid.

It was found that, a string of given length and given tension, when bridged or divided in the center, gave on each division the same pitch of sound; and that the pitch of the half division agreed perfectly, as an octave above, with the pitch of the whole string or that vibrations in the proportion of 1 to 2, produced sounds in octave unison: so they proceeded to other aliquot parts of the string, and found that harmony of interval arising from