The Key of C.

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 388, 23 June 1928, Page 8

The Key of C.

THE QUIET CORNER

Written for THE SUN by the Rev. Charles Chandler, Assistant City Missioner. Religion, like music, has sometimes to he transposed. The Bible is considered, rightly, a series of Divine harmonies, set in many keys. God revealed Himself to Moses and the early prophets, as it were to the children of the world, whilst Amos had that same message delivered to him in a higher key, set to match his more profound intelligence. His message embraced the world, so far as it was then known. All great teachers have to be transposers. They have to be able to clothe the highest truths in the simplest language, and reduce their message to a minor key, where it can strike a human chord, and reach a human understanding. Lost sheep, and coins, and pearls, and prodigals, represent a few of the lower settings which iccre used by the Great Teacher, and he who seeks in these enlightened days to be a bearer of the truth, must likewise send forth his words clothed in simple imagery, set in the key of the commonplace, which is the Key of C. Nothing is more offensive to the ear than the sound of a beautiful song being sung in the wrong setting. An unnatural strain takes the place of a smooth rendering. The message of the song, as contained in the words is completely lost. Directly a teacher leaves the key of C, he is in danger of losing touch with his hearers. Furthermore, he is in danger of adopting an unnatural tone, which at once betrays the fact that he is not at his case, and that he is not entirely himself. A teacher icho loses his identity in the substance of his message can never reach the mind and intelligence of his audience. Robert Blatchford says, concerning the " Pilgrim's Progress,” that one might as well try to criticise the Lord's Prayer, or " Annie Laurie,” as try to criticise this literary masterpiece which, written in tinker's English icas, I contend, written in the Key of C. Next Week: Spiritual Dyspepsia.