Luther's hymn, "Great God, what do I hear and see," led the way. Henry
VIII. hated the German reformer, and all that he did, but he burned to
rival him in every thing, and he gave a stimulus to the public taste,
by composing words and music for the service of the English church.
In France, soon after the middle of the sixteenth century, when it was
doubtful whether the nation would become Protestant or remain Roman
Catholic, the pathetic tunes and devotional stanzas of the reformers
obtained so great an influence over the minds of men, that the
music of the temples, as the Protestant sanctuaries were called,
to distinguish them from the Roman Catholic churches, became the
fashionable melodies of the day. This taste found its way even to
the court, and to the great alarm of the Romish party, some of the
sweetest and most stirring of the psalms, which had been translated
into French metre by Clement Marot, were set to music by Lewis
Guadimel, and were constantly in the mouths not only of the Protestant
families of the provinces, but of the ornaments of the saloons of
Paris, and of the palace of the Louvre. It is said to have been quite
astonishing how much this pious and simple device found favour for
the Protestant cause, and induced people, who had never read Scripture
before, to search the holy volume out of which those treasures were
drawn, which so charmed their ears and their imagination. It is still
the practice in most of the mountain churches to make sacred music a
part of family devotion, and many of the tunes which Guadimel composed
with such success are still sung to the praise of God. I can bear
witness to the forcible manner in which these strains, rising to
heaven from the lips of parents, children and domestics, quicken
piety, and stir up the best affections of the heart towards God and
man. I have seen and felt the effect produced by them in the humble
dwelling of the village pastor, where none but human voices swelled
the notes; and in the chateau, where the harp and the organ have