Refinement has indeed much to answer for; she has brushed the coat threadbare; she has wiredrawn the thread till it can scarcely support its own weight; and in no one instance has her besetting sin been more conspicuous than in her intercommunings with our church psalmody. The old women who, from the original establishment of Presbytery, have continued to occupy and grace our pulpit stairs, are oftentimes defective in point of sweetness and delicacy of voice; in fact, they do not sing, but croon, and in some instances they have even been known to outrun the precentor by several measures, and to return upon him a second time ere the conclusion of the line. What then?--they always croon in a low key; and if _they_ are gratified, their Maker pleased, and the congregation in general undisturbed, the principal parties are disposed of. There is no doubt something unpleasing to a refined ear in the jarring concord of a rustic euphony, when, in full voice, of a sacramental Sabbath evening, they are inclined to hold on with irresistible swing. But what they want in harmony, they have in good-will; what they lose in melody, they gain in the ringing echo of their voices from roof and ceiling. And were it possible, without silencing the uninstructed, to gratify and encourage the refined and the disciplined, then were there at once a union and a unison of agreeables; but as this object has never been effected, or even attempted, and as refinement has at once laid aside all regard for the humble and untrained worshipper, and has set her stamp and seal upon a trained band of vocal performers, it becomes the duty of all rightly constituted minds to oppose, if they cannot stem the tide--to mark and stigmatize that as unbecoming and absurd which the folly of the age would have us consider as improvement. It is of little moment whether the office of psalm-singing be committed to a select band, who surround, with their merry faces and tenor pipes, the precentor's seat, or be entrusted to separate parties scattered through the congregation; still, so long as the _taught_ alone are expected to sing, the original end of psalm-singing is lost sight of, the habits of a Presbyterian congregation are violated, and _manner_ being preferred to _matter_--an attuned voice to a fervent spirit--a manifest violence is done to the feelings of the truly devout.