Many readers of these lines have without doubt had that rare privilege of singing carols at the Royal Albert Hall in London around the Yuletide. They have thrilled to that triumphant burst of song when from the great choir of hundreds of voices has poured forth Tennyson's New Year's message:
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Then the audience, sometimes numbering eight thousand people, is asked to join the choir in some familiar anthem or carol. To one listener it seemed, in the words of Longfellow,
