Des Arc citizen., 1858-12-18
OLD HUNDRED.

| tune, and if the worship of mortals IS car ried on the wings of angels to Heaven, how often has he heard the declaration--- They are singing Old Hundred now" The solemn strain carries us back to the times of the reformers--Luther and his devoted band. He, doubtless, was the first to strike the grand old chords in the public sanctuary of his own Germany. From his stentorian lungs they rolled, vibrating not through vaulted cathedral l roof but along a grander arch, the eternal Heavens. He wrought into each note his own sublime faith, and stamped 1t with that faiths immortality Hence 1t cannot die Neither men nor angels will les 1t pass into oblivion. .#..s...ts,
 Can you find tomb in the land where sealed lips lay, that have not sung that ,unes If they were gray old men, they had heard or sung ".Old Hundred" If they were babies, they smiled as their mother rocked them to sleep, singing !" old Hundred" Sinner and saint have joined with endless congregation where it has. with and without the pealing organ; sounded on the sacred air. hni1t ao
 The dear little children, looking with wondering eyes on this strange world , have lisped it. The sweet young girl, whose tombstone told of sixteen summers she whose pure, innocent face haunted you with it's mild beau,y--loved "Old Hundred,' and she sang it,, closed her eyes, and seemed communing with the angels who were so soon 10 claim 1t. He whose manhood was devoted to the ser vice of God and he who, with the white hand placed over his laboring breast, loved :" Old Hundred; ;" and though sometimes his lips only move, way down in his heart, so soon to cease its throbs, the holy melody was sounding. The dear whi,e-haired old father, with his trembling voice, how he loved "Old Hundred" Do you not see him now, sitting in the venerable arm chair, his hands crossed over the head of his cane, his silvery locks floating of from his hollowed temples, and a tear stealing down his care-worn, furrowed cheeks, that thin, quivering, faltering sound, now burst ing forth, now listening for in vain! Il you do not we do; and from such lips, hallowed by four score years, service in the masters cause, "Old Hundred" sounds, indeed, sacred melody. soi leiAa
 You may fill your choirs with Sabbath prima donnas, whose daring notes emu late the steeple. and cost as much---bu, give us the spirit-tones of the Lutheran hymn, sung by old and young together. Martyrs have hallowed it; it has gone mp from the bed of the saints. The old churches, where generation after genera ton have worshipped, and where many scores of the dear dead have been carried and laid before the altar, where they gave themselves to God, seem to breathe of"Old Hundred" from vestibule to tower top ; the air is haunted with its spirit. aM
 Think moment of the assembled com pany who have at different times and in different places joined in the familiar tune. Throng upon lhrong the strong, the tim id, the gentle, the brave, the beautiful, the rapt faces all beaming with inspiration of the heavenly sounds.
 "Old Hundred!' Y king of the sacred band of " ancient airs r Never shall our ears grow weary of hearing, or oul tongues of singing thee. And when we get to Heaven, who knows but what the first triumphal strains that welcome us may be- at @ as ae 9lae reg
 6 Be thou, 0 God! exalted high~