MORE THINGS IN HEAVEN AND EARTH.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 57, 12 March 1910, Page 6

MORE THINGS IN HEAVEN AND EARTH.

The pipe organ is said by some musicians to be the instrument without a soul, depending on mechanical appliances to produce the various effects of pipe-organ music. The pipe organ has great potentialities, However, as the following little episode will show.

It was the occasion of the building of' the present big organ in the Metropolitan Church, Toronto. The large rear organ was finished, and' Dr. Torrington, the venerable organist of the time, was lingering about one evening trying out the instrument. A number of musical people wandered in, among them two or three very prominent Methodists known to the world of music*. Dr. Torrington was prevail&d upon to give a private recital. He pulled out a number of stops, and played a few full-blooded noiseful passages, after which he paused, and, looking about at the party, he said, with poetic enthusiasm, "Gentlemen, that's earth." Nods from the musical ones present. He pulled out a few more stops, shut off a few, and began to play a ravishing strain on the echo organ. "Ah, gentlemen," he said, happily, "that's heaven."

Approbatory signs from the musical ones present, all glad to know that heaven and earth are both present in one place in a modern pipe organ. But in an unguarded moment one of the party, not so good a Methodist as the rest, and quite carried away by the doctor's analogies, said, crisply:

Say, doctor, now give us hell." But the musical ones said it was language fit not for a church. The doctor declined to play the Hades selection.