The ideal of church music is found in its function. This function is religious: to bring to stronger and clearer consciousness and to greater vitality our inherent religious nature.

At the heart of church music must be the consciousness of this religious nature: the sense of the divine, of goodness and righteousness, of the Almighty, the Eternal; the sense of exaltation of human life to the divine, and accompanying this the feeling of humility into which such a sense must lead us.

There is in all true church music a spirit of adoration, aspiration and reverence, and a sense of assurance. To aid the soul to become more keenly and deeply conscious of itself, its supreme personal quality, its high and enduring worth, is the ideal of church music. This is its mission.

from Music in Worship