A knowledge of history always tends to promote humility
and reverence, and to check the spread of capricious
perversions of judgment. Even a feeble sense of the
grandeur and beauty of the forms which ecclesiastical
music has taken, and the vital relation which it has
always held in organized worship, will serve to con-
vince a devoted servant of the Church that its proper
administration is as much a matter of concern to-day
as it ever has been in the past.

A few of the chapters in this work have appeared in
somewhat modified form in the American Catholic Quar-
terly Review, the Bibliotheca Sacra, and Music. The
author acknowledges the permission given by the editors
of these magazines to use this material in its present
form.

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