A Singing Heart.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13828, 13 February 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

A Singing Heart.

KEEP YOUNG BY SONG. A Christmas message to our readers came through - The: London ,Da ; j Chronicle" office window on December 11th. It was that if they «ish to keep" happy, healthy and wise they should all sing no matter how small the voice. . li - "David knew what ho was talking about," wrote our correspondent, "when he said 'Shout and sing, oinging overcomes depression, and creates the merrv heart which goes all the way. With the uplifting in joyous melouy your cares and sorrows will take to themselves wings; you will be filled with a sense of exhilaration, and your spirits will be borne aloft, rising as light as air upon the wings of song. . Therefore: Come shout and sing, Make Heaven ring With praises to our King. There is something of the old spirit of Christmas joy in that message, and a "Daily Chronicle" representative made a 'special journey to the writer of the letter to inquire whether lie practised what he preached. It was worth the journey.. It is always wortu while to find an old man with the singing heart of youth. Our correspondent was Major-gene-ral Martvr. who describes himself "as anoldb'ovofSo." He is right in calling himself a" boy, for the keen bright eves int a noble old face, which would make a portrait for Father Christmas .himself, were not tired with old age. but -sparkled with the gaiety of the springtime of. life. Before more than a few words had passed General Martyr began to sing. He sang to the accompaniment of a five-stringed instrument, like an Elizabethan lute. It is a Portuguese instrument, and he bought it many years ago in Maderia. Touching its strings with a gay lilting melody the old man broke into a joyous chant. It was a hvmn praising God for all the good things of life, and his voice rose and fell m merry cadences, so that, instead of a hvmn, it seemed like a jovial student song. The general sang many other songs. "I can hardly keep irom •.singing." he said. "I find that it makes me grow young." CVrtainlv this medicine, which the General prescribes- for weary hearts and aching heads and disordered stomachs, and above all for disordered souls, has worked wonder! ully with himself. He is n tall, heavily-built man, a tvpical old soldier, and he carries his So vears as a light load. Sixty-seven vears ago he embarked at Portsmouth, with fiftv voung officers, in the sailing ship .Stag," which three and a half months later reached the port of Maclris There he became an officer in the' old "John Company," fifteen vears before the outbreak of the Indian Mutinv. During that tern hie time he was stationed with his native regiment, which did not revolt in the hill-couiitrv, and only heard the tales ,f massacre and heroism from atar. H is curious, also, that although he *,.rvetl i" many P :,rts of the "; orld ',. . never once saw the horrors of actua. warfare. "A soldier has to do hi., dut-v at his post." he said. " even it it j. not in the fighting line . For vears now he has been singing +„ the'tune of his " machete, as tin instrument is called, and Ins Jifc who has been with Inn. or the .neater Dart ot his hfi>, hcsii!, testify tl.it singing keeps h.m bright ,d" voung. It can tru y he said o bin. that 'he " praises the Lord with a glad heart."