THE APPEAL OF SONG

Evening Star, Issue 19026, 22 August 1925, Page 14

THE APPEAL OF SONG

[Written by Dnxcux Wright, for the ’‘Evening Star.’]

' Let'me go where’er I will, 1 hoar a sky-born music still: It sounds from all tilings old. It sounds from all things young; From all that’s fair,-from all that’s foul. Peal out a chtevfi.il song. It is not only in the rose, It is not only in the bird, Not only where the rainbow glows, Nor iii the song of woman hoard, But in the darkest, meanest things There alway, alway something sings. >Tis not in the nigh stars alone, Nor in the cups of budding flowers, Nor in redbreast’s mellow tone, Nor in the bow that smiles in showers, But in the mud and scum of things There alway, alway something sings. —Emerson. ARCHDEACON FARRAR. Do the readers of these notes appreciate music and song? If so, the words of this distinguished churchman will appeal to you: “Music is the very heart, the very ecstasy of worship. It is the worship of angels. Earthly worship would soon grow dull and dead without it. Does not Scripture ring with music? Does it not tell us how, at the Creation, ‘ the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy ’ ? And as the Bible begins with the song of the morning stars over man created, and ends with the * sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies ’ over man redeemed, so its central moment, liniting both, is the carol of angels at the Saviour’s birth. “Hymns began when Christian worship began, and they revived when Christian love revived. It was after having sung a hymn that our Lord crossed the brook Kedron to enter on His agony in the Garden. It was the hymns at midnight that Paul and Silas sang, their backs still bruised by Roman rods, that turned the prison or Philippi into a Bethel. It was the voice of boy singers at Erfurt with their hymnal that woke Luther from his swoon; it was the hymn of a little girl on a doorstep at Weimar that solaced the exiled Melanchthon. “ They have nerved the martyr’s patience; they have soothed the mourner’s anguish. The generations which have glowed to the fiery appeals of Whitfield, and have been lulled by the soothing songs of Keble, could be content no longer with the halting.doggerel of Sternhold and Hopkins or the drowsy commonplace of Tate and Brady. Thank God for every sweet and moving hymn of Wesley and Toplady, of Ken and Doddridger; and thank God that wo can have these in all their fervor, in all their tenderness, in all their devotion, in every village church.” A SCOTTISH STORY. Far away among the lofty hills of bonnie Scotland was a sweet, lowly home where a Scottish mother of the old school dwelt. She had only one little son who was dear to her In the evening when she rocked him to sleep she always sang the old hymn: Jerusalem, my happy home, Name over dear to me. When shall my labors have an end, Thy joys when shall I see? There happier bowers than Eden’s bloom, Nor sin nor sorrow know; Blest seats 1 thro’ rude and stormy scenes I onward press to you.

The words were the echo of the thoughts of her soul. She Lad, like many mothers well known to us all, passed through deep waters, and had experienced much of the weary, work of life. When the night fell and. the shadows gathered she was comforted by singing:

Jerusalem, my happy home, My soul still pants for thee: Then shall my labors have an end, When I thy joys shall see ? As tho boy grow up she still continued the same old song. How very happy, and precious, too, are the memories of long, long ago, when we remember tho hum and the sweet music of grannie’s old spinning wheel. Ah, me I How soothing amidst tho din and bustle of life! Shall we see again those dear old familiar faces ? Shall wo again hear these kindly, voices? Why not? Indeed we may. Tins mother, when she sat at her spinning wheel! kept time to the old wheel. Sometimes harsh words fell upon her heart, but no murmur escaped her lips, hut only the words— Blest seats! thro’ rude and stormy scenes I onward press to you.

When the boy came home at night, bringing tho cattle across the lea, his mother’s voice and tho words of the cld hymn met his ear long before he came to the door. Up into his little room under the roof, when he went to sleep, did the same words reach him. They wafted him away in dreams thro’ “ pearly gates,” and “ streets of shining gold.” But a time came when the mother’s voice grow weaker, and tho boy heard her sing this verso: Why should I shrink from pain or woe, Or feel at death dismayP I’ve Canaan’s goodly land in view, And realms of endless day.

Each day the voice grow fainter, until at last it was quite still. No more did the bov hear that voice, for it had passed from the lowly Scottish home among the bonny hills to the choir of the redeemed above. The cold clay was laid in the auld kirkyard. Unfortunately the father was cold and hard. The boy could not stand the quiet persecutions which the mother had borne so long and so patiently for years. So one night he stole softly and quietly out of that dark, desolate home, with his modest bundle, to become a wanderer on the face of the earth. He found his way to America, mingled with doubtful associates, and in the end became both godless and reckless. But “Jerusalem, my happy home,” and the voice of the mother were not forgotten—couldn’t be. For years he led a dissolute life, until, worn out with dissipation, he lay down in an upper room in the city of New' Orleans to die. _ A preacher of the old Go seel found him, and acted the part of the Good Samaritan. It seemed to the preacher as if the poor fellow was not only cold, but dead to all good influences, and he was in despair. One evening, however, discouraged and broken in spirit, the good man turned away from the dying one, and with his face towards the dingy, broken window, he began singing: “Jerusalem, my happy home!” Happy thought I A chord in the soul at last was touched where reasoning had failed. The wanderers eyes were filled with tears. “My mother,” he said, “used to sing those words.” He recalled the sweet morning of life and the modest cottage among the bonnie hills of Scotland. He remembered his mother’s voice as she sang in the, days of long ago. “Oh, that hymn!” he said. “ How many times has it called mo home again when I had gone out angry at mv father resolved never to go back?”

It was not long till the prodigal was called home through the “pearly gates ” to the City of God. Such is life. Do you ask: Is this fact? Is it fiction? I cannot say for certain. Nor am I greatly concerned on the point, and leave it there. KINGSLEY’S ENDORSEMENT. “There is something very wonderful in music. Words are wonderful enough, but music is even more wonderful. It speaks not to our thoughts as words do —it speaks straight to our hearts and yjajqg; core gad EQpfa

our souls. Music soothes us, stirs us up: it puts noble feelings into us; it melts us to tears, we know not how; it is a language by itself, just as .perfect Jn its way as speech, as words; just as divine, just as blest. ‘ “ Music lias been called tbc speech of angels. I will go further, and call it the speech of God Himself. . . . Yes, 1. say it, with all reverence, but I do say it. There is music in God; not the music of voice or sound, a music which no ears can hear, but only the spirit of a man when awakened by the Holy Spirit of God and taught to know God—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. There is one everlasting melody in Heaven which Christ, the Word of God, makes for ever, where He does all things perfectly and wisely and righteously and gloriously, full of grace and truth; and from that all melody conies, and is a dim pattern thereof here, and is beautiful only because it is a dim pattern thereof.”

THE MIGHT- OF MUSIC.

[By John Oliver Hobbes.]

“ She began to strike out chords which he had never heard before. They then broke, like waves within waves, into melodies and counter-melodies. And as he listened he thought of meadows where lovely flowers grew and of sunshiny orchards; gardens where' l young girls were laughing, chatting, dancing, pelting each other with primrose balls in the moonlight; knights in armor rushed past him on white horses, and he mot Death; and he met Youth, who was cross-gartered, tall, and comely, who sucked an orange whilst he read his lesson book; and he met Love, whose feet were white and spotless, though the road was black with mire, and whose face was like the dawn, although the evening was come. The wind—now it moaned! And the rain nsver ceased 1 Mist, darkness, and yet a choir chanting in the distance; the odor of incense and the sweet breath of pure air and spring; the little laugh of water when it strikes a pebbly shore; the trill of a brook running through the fields to the sea; the sound of many wings in the air, and then singings Fear no more the heat of the sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages. Thou thy worldly task host done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages. Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney sweepers, come to dust!”