Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1876-11-01
The Influence of Song.

wave Of sacred song swept over our
Ian last year Beginning in the large cit
les it rolled on and on, till now there is not
"A hamlet on remote mouutailI-sid., or by the
sea, which is not often vocal with the sweet
sounds OF gospel hymns. Passing the little
white school-house by the lonely out-of-the-
way road, you hear blended voices singing :
What friend we have in Jesus,
All our sinS and grefs to bear
What privilege TO carry
Everything 10 God in prayer
From cottages and farm-houses, as you
ride by them in the dusk, you are greeted
by the notes of the piano or cabinet organ ;
and if You pause and listen, there viii fall
upon your ear words like these
" 1t passeth knowledge that dear love Of thine
AIy Jesus, Saviour! yet this soul of mine
Would Of that love, in all its depth and length.
Its heighth and breadth and everlasting strength,
Know more and more
You stand by the dwelling of poverty.
where a weary woman is toiling over the
wash-tub to win her daily bread Her
children are playing by the door There
are six of them to be fed aud clothed and
sent to school and launched upon the world
Their father is dead. There is nobody but
this mother, with her narrow opportunities
aud scant education, to do for those hearty,
hungry boys and girls all that must he done
before they will be men and women. 1t is
a hard lot, and you pity her. and wonder
whether she is not discouraged, whether she
does not lie awake nights and cry, and won
der where she is to get her -four aud wood
and coal next winter. She, wringing out
her clothes, and carrying great basket Of
them over the grass 10 hang upon the lines
gives unconsciOusly her answer:
In some wav or other the Lord will provide
1t may not be my way it may not he uy way
And yet, in His o,cR way, the Lord will provide. 80
OF course there were hymns before Moody
and Sankey bound up their sheaf and gave
it to the Christian world There was the
grand, sublime, all-comprehending liturgy of
the sacred Psalms, and there were what we
still have and prize, the lyrics of Ambrose,
Gregory, Bernard de Cluny, Richard OF Clair
vaux, and the saints who sang their lofty
faith aud their heroic courage from the dark
ness of cloister walls There were the sweet
hymns of Wesley and Toplady, of Cowper,
Lyte and keble of Faber and of Ray Palmer
and Horatius Bonar, All these speak for
the heart when it longs to pour itself forth
in a passion of praise. But what these later
hymns have done has been partly because
they have been welded to fervent and in-
spring tunes. The children catch them up
and sing them as they go to school, The
workman fiuds that their rhythm will keep
time TO the beat of his hammer, while the
mother lulls her little one to sleep with their
silyery cadences. Is it not possible to make
more use in our homes of the power which
dwels in such melodies Before the work
begins in the morning let the daughter
hand strike the keys, while all the family
| i
have an hour of music. Sometimes drop the
sewing and the studying, the planning and
contriving and brighten the busiest part OF
the day with an interlude of sweet song. II
will be tonic TO the weary and rest to the
| tnil.Mnrn.-C Chrisiinn N HOrk.