Chant on! Chant on! ye sightless choir;
Still bow the heart to music's sway,
And fill the stranger's eye with tears,
As ye As ye have done for us this day.
Liverpool,
Sunday, August 23, 1840.
It is impossible to listen without emotion to the sacred music of the blind, in their Church at Liverpool. They chant as in the cathedral-service, accompanied by the organ, and sing anthems and other compositions with a soul-thrilling sweetness. Of course, all these performances are acts of memory, which is doubtless rendered more retentive by the concentrativeness of thought, which blindness promotes. The noble Asylum for these sightless worshippers is well patronized. Their Church is adorned with two large paintings, and a transparency; and was filled by a respectable audience. The seats for the objects of the Institution are in the gallery. Sweet and heaven- born is that Charity, which, if she may not like her Master open the blind eye to the works of nature, pours upon the afflicted mind the light of knowledge, and lifts up the soul to the "clear shining of the sun of righteousness."
We were taken by the kindness of a friend to the afternoon worship in the Chapel of the Blue Coat Hospital. Two hundred and fifty boys, and one hundred girls, were assembled there, in the neat uniforms
