The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-07-20 00:00:00

THE "ENGLISH DAY" AT THE BOSTON

JUBILEE.

The following sketch of the "English Pay" at the
Boston Peace Jubilee, sent to The Tina., by a Corres-
pondent, " E II.," is so intensely interesting and so
abounding in good-will, that to abridge it would be
depriving the reader of a pleasure which only the
masterhand of such a col respondent can excite. The
article is characteristically designated "International
Harmony":

"The EogLoh Day" at the Boston Peace Jubilee was
marked above all others that toll ewed it by a peculiar interest
which they could not possess. It was not the grand music
alone that made it surpass, in several most happy character-
iotica, the other oays of the long banquet of melodies, though
this in itself lifted the great multitude to a height as
rapturous as any to which they were borne by any after-
good of symphony. There were histories, memories, as-
sociations, and coincidences which gave to the music
of those hours a power and effect which 2 ,rreo trained
voices and instruments could not alone produce upon the
vast assembly. There were profounder meanings than them ,
alone could express, to be translated into the silent lan- ,
guage of the heart by all who wituessed that scene with the
attentive faculties of reflection, for it was a scene of sub-
lime representation as well as the most multitudinous con-
cert of human voices ever heard on earth. A great history
was enacted, as a variation, in the loftiest songs that human
and metal lips could raise. At this gathering of the nations,
two stood face to face in a relationship that can never
bind two others together by ties so strong and many, by
memories BO mutual, proud, and precioua. The mother
and daughter stood there looking into each other's tams,
with the history of a hundred years between them—a cen-
tury, lacking hut a little, between them and tire last of the
years when the same parental roof tree covered them both.
One could feel that the common memories that reached
across this narrow space between, and dwelt upon those
years of childhood and motherhood in their common home,
made, not a "mournful," but a happy and tender "rustle
in the heart of every thoughtful American and Englishman
under that vast roolage. 1 his sentiment gave to tile thou-
sands of cokes that hailed the opening moment of the scene
the instiration that seemed to thrill the building itself.
It was a moment that only those present could feel and
reinember to ins full inspiration. Ihe first day of the
' Pentecost of oolitic had put the mountain of singers mid all
the varied enginery and instruments of melody in their
heat tune for these English hours. The Jubilee had opened
with that grandest o all Christian songs that ever lifted
the praise of human hearts and lips into the ears of (Sod—
Oh! Hundred.' Never on earth before was it sung with
sueh heart and power, and never, perhaps, sill! it be so
sung again until it ha sung anew by the sacramental hoots
of God's elect in heaven. The effect was Indescribable.
No figurers of speech could give one wire did not hear it any
idea of the impression it made upon the thousands who
sang and the thousands who listened. All the doxologice
of the two Englmds, Ohl and New, for a hundred zeara,
seemed to respond with their soft and solemn echoes, and
to mingre with the flood of molten voices that rolled up and
down Um choral mountain, amending, deepening, and
strengthening, until Its waves of symphony heat against the
luity roof of the edifice, and made the pendent flags of
all nations keep time in fluttering sympathy with tire in.
spiration. if •• Old Dundred " may well be called the
" arecillaise" for the hosts of the Christian world to sing
on their march to " tho battles of the Lord agaihst the
mighty," Nearer, my God, to Thee" was a sung equally
fitting to close the fleet day's feast of music. If music alone
could lift a human congregation arer to God, then none
ever assembled on earth could have been raised higher than
the multitude who listened to that favourite hymn. in which
all, from one end of the building to tho other, mingled their
voices.

This first day of the feast was one, virtnaily, of public re-
hearsal and preparations of singers sod listeners —tuning
their lips, ears, anal lietuls for the morrows that were to follow.
Twenty theusand voices that bad given their sweetest mimic
to tlie:-Stinday devotions of hundreds of New England
churches had poured their best notes for the flint time,into
one swellind ft.od of melody; and the hood had up'
borne them to an inspirations of heart and tongue that
had never thrilled the same manlier of human singers be-
fore. Such was the preparation for "The English Day."
There was not a man or .)111411 in the sides of that cresent
MOtaltaill who slid not know and appreciate the affinities,
histories, anti memories that were to make 'the English
Day" duller from all that were to follow it at the festival.
When, therefore, the tile leader of the Batts!. Grenadier
&and emerged Dam under the great organ, heading that
"thins reel Hine" which slowly threaded the mountainous
chorus and orchestra to the base in front of the great multi-
tude, there was a scene, as well as an aeclamation, which
wimld have douse the hearts of the two natiolia good to have
witnessed s ith all their millions. The thousands who saw
and heard for them u ris,ped the fall meaning and sentiment
of the scene. England and her Queen, and her histruical
centuries, and all our own proud inheritance in them, stood
helot e us inn that reel line of men in tad bearskin caps,
facing the palpitating, flattening mountain of singers, with
the cheering multitude behind them, who rolled back the
flood of acclamation that rose and rolled front door to roof,
making the great building tremulous with the emotion of
3.1,000 human hearts beating with welcome and delight.
, There they stood, is a line so immovable that they looked
like a row of red statuary; not a hair of their bearskin
caps, nor a border or hens of their coats, stirring in the
midst of the agitated human sea which rose in such a tidal

wave before them.
Of course there were minutes of multitudinous cheering,
with 30,000 men and women on their feet preceding the
first note from that "thin red line." There was space in
these intervening minutes for the thoughts of other and
many years for the appreciation of the incidents, mind-
dents, and associations of the scene and hour. This British
band of "'musicians had marched lute Boston on the very
day, almost a century gone, when their countrymen
marched In their red, brave lines up the slopes of Bunker's
Hill, reddened by the first conflict that sundered the Enelish-
speaking race in twain This very hour, the same space
between, hundreds of Emilie:l soldiers, who fell on that
day, were being laid in a thin red line in a soldier's grave,
They fought and fell in the very uniform worn by their
grandsons now before us. They charged up those embattled
heights in the same tall bearskin saps. The thoughtful
minutes were foil of memories and associations that reached
into the histories of other nations, suit shich the scene
brought home to our reflections with the freshness of
yesterday's events. This day, 57 years ago, the fathers of
this red coated band before us marched away from the field
of Waterloo, hllieg the air of heaven with their loudest
strains of victory. And here stood now these sons in the same
stalwart, solid stature, waiting a lull in the tempest of cheers
to pour forth the mellow music of huumu brotherhood. Here
were the rival bands of France and Germany to listen with
the great multitude to the British overture, and to respond
with their best music each on the day set al art to its nation.

It needed but a minute, for a mind awake to the inspiration
of the scene, to bring all these historical incidents and
astociatiomi to a vivid focus of view and reflection. Out of
the midst of these in living presence, the band leader's wand
gave the signal. As if all those instruments had but one
breath, their voices poured out a flood of music Bo pure,
sweet, and lull, that even to callßlt silvery would suggest
a metalic accent which would not do it justice. Indeed,
to common ears it would seem impossible that brass,
silver, or gold could be trained to such music of tongue
that the natural accent of neither could be recognized
us the highest tides of their symphony. At their
loftiest reach, bugles, cornets, clarionets, and all the other
Instruments, blended in such soft rotundity of utterance
that it sounded almost with a plaintive cadence. And this
quality was well fitted to feast a lively imaginatb ii with
pleasant fancies. As the tall Grenadiers stood at the base
of that choral mouutain, facing the spellbound thousands
In its towering heights, they seemed to be rehearsing the
experiences of tho common mother country since the day
when her eldest daughter west ont to set up a Separate
home of her own. They seemed to be telling a mother's
' story to sue h a daughter, not proudly, but gently ami ten-
derly, with a mother's voice, as silt as ever with her tint
affection. It Rounded like a story, here and there wet with
! a falling tear, and tremulous with the movement Of a sigh
at souse sad memory that mingled with the thought of in-
tervening years. Then, as lithe whole choral host had been
touched to deepest interest in the sentiment of the story,
they arose anddenly to their feet to respond to it. Their re-
sponse scented a spontaneous and instantaneous expression
! of this feeling. Its words appeared to come to their lips as
naturally as the smile to their eyes at the first outburst of
, those enrapturing strains. At such a moment not a soul In
! the great multitude could have thought of any other rp
spending words than "Gol save the Queen."
••

Never, since queens began to reign on earth, was the
English National Anthem snug by so many human tongues
and hearts under one rot. Nowhere antler the British
sceptre, though the linked continents and islands that own
Its sway shall belt the great globe itself, will that anthem
be so sung again. llere, insight of hunker's Hill, and on the
very annivereary of that memorable day fu our common
history, the granddaughter of George 111, received the
grandest choral ovatien that ever honoured a human sove-
reign. Twenty-five thousand American hearts, and nearly
as many of taeir voices, mingled in the uprising flood as
the one "voted of many waters." All the varied and vest
instrumentalities that human skill aLd genius could train
to musical utterance seemed touched with spontaneous
inspiration. The great organ, played by tillerrods as long
as a stemmbipe keel, put in the emphasis of its mighty
bast Scores of brass cannon, whose swill keys were
touched by electric serves like the wires of a piano, heat
time with the accents of their deep met mellow thunder.
Up end down the vocal moui,tain and out up-m the human
sea rolled the ground-swell of the anthem. Anon, Gilmore,
the Napoleon at the Jubilee, leaned over on ore foot and I
smote with his wand at this side and that of the myriad- I
voiced mountain, like another Moses at Horeb, soda deepen- I
ins torrent of melody gushed out into the careering fidod.
At that sublime moment how mauy thousands wished that
Queen Victoria bad boon present in person to bear how
American tongues and hearts could sing the benediction of
that National Hymn !
But the climax of emotion hail not yet been reached.
Seemingly spontaneous as God Save the Queen" had been
the response to the overture of the Grenadier Band, we all
; knew that it was so put down in the programme. As
natural and fitting as it was, its expectation lessened the
pleasing effect of spontaneous inspiration. But what lid-
lowed was as unexpected as a choral song from the clouds
Hardly had the ebb and flow of the British National Anthem
subsided into their expiring ripple, when a sudden wave of
the leader's wand over that thin, red line brought out "The
Star Spangled Banner" in all the proud glory that the beat
musical instruments in tiro wide world could give to it. It
was a Roland for an Oliver in the happiest sense of brother-
hood. If "God save the Queen" wae never sung with such
concert of heart and voice as here under Bunker's Hill it was
initially true that the " Star Spangled Banner " seas never
played with such power and effect on the American continent
as it wet by the British Grenadier Band in response to their
National Hymn. No similes nor illustrations could convey
Ire words an idea of the scene and sentiment at that
moment. The incident was as sudden as lightning, and
thrill,' the vast audience like electricity. All arose to
their feet, and their delight deepened Into a veritable ecstasy
as the grand stridlis of our rational song filled the great
building with watts a glory co imusio. Twenty thousand
hailtUtortlisda worn frittering is) and tro '4llO so many whits

-doves waltzing on the wing. Deeper, rtdier, and grander rose
the notes of those Incomparable instruments, which seemed
to breathe with spontaneous Inspiration and the very build-
ing itself to palpitate with the human emotion that deepened
at every note.

New; since human hymns were sung did one follow
another with such effects upon listening thousands. It was
the happiest incident of all the festal dits of the Jubilee.
No moment in the history of the two nations could have
male the incident more felicitous, beautiful, and touching.
While the astute discussions of wordy diplomacy wire
arraying the two Governments in nrobiguims di.pute, the
two great peoples embractd each t.ther in these two songs
with a sense of brotherhood they never felt Wore. 'they
recognized the "Consequential Claims ' of the old kith and
kin, of the old histories And memories, their glorious and
rorol Inheritantv. as imiivisible as one human life. This
was the sentiment that led and lifted the tile of emott
to its most rapturous height and when the last strain died
away, murmuring spinet Its end, the great triumph of the
Jubilee was felt out owned by every soul present. "The
English Day" was well worth the structure of the Coliseum
end all that It hod cod of filth, hope, genius, and effort to
convene under its roof 20,000 singers mad the best musical
inbtruateuta awl capacities of the world.