The bee., 1883-12-15
Congregational Singing.
RIDICULOUS INCIDENTS OF WHICH IF RAs
BEEN THE CAUSE.

Year. ago some of the incidents aris
ing out of the slovenly and ignoran
manner in which congregational sing
ing" was managed were so ludicrous tha
it was impossible to resist laughing. / re
member being asked one fine Sunday
morning to assist at village Sunday
school. The Superintendent" was {
gardener, and the way in which he read
out one of DIR. Watts ''Divine and Mora
Songs" for the children to sing was very
droll-the separation of "verses" of foul
lines into couplets of two, without refer.
ence to the context, making the greatest
possible nonsense out of some. One Oc.
ours to me now, which made me smile
aloud. Fancy the following read gravely
IS though it were complete sentence
Birds in their little nests agree
Aad lis a Shdnsftd sight!
But on the same day, when we attended
the service at the chapel, it was still
worse. The old gardener having toread
cut the lines:
God Is His own interpreter,
And He Will make il plain,
read the first line:
God is His own intrunpeter!
Sometimes, even in the established
church, the ignorance of the "clerk" gave
rise to amusing contretemps. l remem-
Der an Gid man who was c.erk at st.
Mary's at Leicester forty years ago, VINO
always boggled at one word in a favorite
hymn of the vicar. The hymn was the
Yell-known one:
We've no abiding city here,
and one of the verses commences thus:
We've no abiding city here.
, This may distress the wOridiings mind
That word rorldling was, indeed, q
pons asinorum for the poor old clerk, and
the congr egation was all in litter when
he came to it. "This ma-ay distress the
wor-ru l-wor-r -wor-uld-wor-ruldin
moind," was generally about what he
made of it, and the organist, the clever
Mrs. Wood, always played the organ its
very loudest at that time, to drown the
tittering of the congregation. The great
est tiascoes, however, arose from the Sc
lectoins of inappropriate tunes. In one
the words "And bow before the throne,n
were rendered thus:
Apn pouY-w -wovT-yyow, wOw-rvow-wow, wow-wow-woW
Aud bow-wOw-wOw before the throne
I have been looking through some
letters lately and am able now to give a
few more specimens. There is hymn
Il forget in what collection-in which
the line "With Thy benediction SEAL"
occurs. | have memorandum that this
hymn was sung at a chapel in Cheshire,
to the tune of "Aaron, Is" and this is
how the above line came in the music:
With Thy benny
With Thy benny
With Thy benediction seal.
Another favorite tune in those Gays was
called "Job," which was made to do
duty for all sorts of "long meter" hymns.
Two singular specimens of its inappro-
priatenesss are appended. The line in
one was, "Stir up this stupid heart to
pray" and this was the way it was sung:
Stir up this stupid heart, etc
The other was-"And love thee better
than before'-which was sung
And love thee bet
And love thee better than. etc.
There is a tune-"Miles' Lane"-in
which, when sung to it's Own hymn,
Grown Him Lord of ALL" the repetition
of the words Grown Him" has fine
effect. Unfortunately, in the days l am
speaking of, the people in charge of the
singing thought more of the music they
had to sing than the words, and the fol-
lowing three examples show how "Miles'
Lane" was made ludicrous. In DR.
Watts collection the Hymn 32 in the
second book concludes-"And see saliva
ton nigh" "Miles' Lane" made it thus:
And see sal--see sal-see salvation nigh,
The Hymn 104, first book, same col
lection, has the lines
We would defle our hearts no more,
No more pOllute our hands.
The last line being sung to "Miles' Lane
became
No more poli-more poll-more polute our hands
The 126th hymn, second book OF De
Watts, has
Gilds the whole scene with Dr1gnter rays,
And more exats our joys
"Miles' Lane" translated the final linz
into
And more eggs-more eggs-more exalts our Joys.
There is another tune called "Boyce,"
of which will give an example from
No. II hymn in DR.. Raffles' Liverpool
collection, and the line is "And learn to
kiss the rod" "Boyce" makes this
And learn to kiss
And learn to kiss
And learn to kiss the rod.
Bradford Observer.