Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1886-05-21
Dpon your mouth and take it, o hungry Eli

and anxieties, yet perhaps in the singing of
the first hymn you lost all those worriments
and anxieties. You have read in the Bible
of Saul, and how he was sad and angry, and
how the boy David came in and played the
evil spirit out of him A Spanish king was
melancholy. The windows were all closed.
lie sat in the darkness Nothing
could bring him forth until Fra
nell came aud discoursed music for
three or four days to him. On the fourth
lay he looked up and wept and rejoiced, and
the windows were thrown open, and that
which all the splendors of the court could
a t do, the power OF song accomplished IL
sou have alxieties and worIiments try this
heavenly charm upon them Do not sit down
IN the bank of the hymn, but plunge in, that
The devil of care may be brought out of you.
1t also arouses to action. Do YOU not know
That a singing church is always triumphant
church! If congre cation is silent during the
exercise, orpaTtally silent, it is the silence of
Heath. II when the hymn is given out You
AGAR the faint hum of here and there a father
and mother in Israel while the vast ma iority
Are silent, that minister of Christ who is pre-
siding nee1s to have 4 very strong constitution
If he does not get the chills He needs not only
hc grace ofGod but nerves like whalebonn. 1t
S anna ing how some people with voice
enough e. discharge all their duties in the
ave no voice TO discharge this duty.
really believe that if the church of Christ
could rise up and sing as it ought TO sing,
hat where we have hundred souls brought
INTO the kingdom Of Christ there would be h
thousand. How was it in olden time;
Caietan said: Luther conquered us by his
songs
But must now speak of some of the OBJ
,ta"les in the way of the advancement of this
sacred music; and the first is. that it has
been impressed into the service of SUI ersti-
ton. am far from believing that music
ought always to be positively religious. Re-
lined art hai opened places where music has
been secularized and lawfully so. The draw
ing-room, the musical club, the orchestra, the
concert, by the qualification of pure taste
and the produ ction of harmless amusement
anil the improvement of talent, have become
ve"y forces in the advancement of our civili-
zatiOu. Music las as much right to laugh IN
Surrey Gardens asst has to pray inst. PauPS
In the kingdom of nature we have the glad
fling of the winds as well as the long metre
D aim of the thunder. But while all this
Is so, every observer has noticed that
this art, which God intended for the i'm
rrovement of the ear and the voice and the
head and the heart has often been impressed
into the service Of error. Tartini, the must
cal composer, dreamed one night that Satan
snatched from his hand an instrument and
played upon it something very sweet-a
dream that has often been fulfilled in our
day, the voice and the instruments that
ought to have been devoted to Christ, cap
tured from the church and applied to pur'
poses of sin.
Another obstacle has been an inordinate
fear Of criticism, The vast ma ority of peo-
pie singing in church never want anybody
else to hear them sing. Everybody is wait
ing for somebody else to do his duty, l. we
all sing then the inaccura les thatare evident
when only few sing would lie drowned out:
God asks you to do as well as yOu can, and
then. if YOU get til wrong pitch or keep
wrong time, lie will forgive any deficiency
Of the ear and imperfections of the voice.
Angels will not laugh if you should
lose your place in the musical scale, or come
in at the close bar behind. There are three
schools of singing, am told-the German
school, the Italian school and the French
school of singing Now, would like to add
fourth school, and that is the school OF
Christ The voice of a contrita, broken heart,
although it may not be able to stand human
criticism, makes better music to Gods ear
than the most artistic performance when
the heart is wanting. know it IS
easier to preach on this than it Is
to practice; but | sing for two reasons
first, because l like it and next because l
want to encourage those who do not know
how ] have but very little faculty in that
direction and no culture at all, yet | am re-
solved to sing though every note should go
OIL like a Chinese gong. God has commanded
it aud l dare not be silent. He calls on the
beasts, on the cattle, on the dragons to
praise him, and we ought not to be behind
The cattle and the dragons.
Another obstacle that has been in the w~y
of the advancement of this holy art has been
so much angry discussion on the subject OF
music There are those who would have this
exercise conducted by musical instruments
In the same church there arc those who do
not like musical instruments, and so it is or
gan and no organ, and there is fight. In
another church it is a question whether the
music shall be conducted by precentor
or by a drilled choir. Some want q
drilled choir and some want pre-
centor, and there is a fight. Then there
are those who would like in the church to
have the organ played in dull, litee5s,
droning way, while there are, others who
would have it wreathed into fantasies,
branching out into jets and spangles of
sound, rolling and tossing in marvellous CON
volutions as when in pyrotechnic display
YOU think piece Is exhausted it breaks out
in wheels, rockets blue lights and Serpentine
demonstrations. Some would have tie organ
PLAYED in almost inaudible sweetness, and
others would have it full of staccato
passages that make the audience jump,
with great eyes and hair on end as though by
q vision of the Witch of Endor; and he who
tries to please all will succeed in nothing.
Nevertheless you are to admit the fact that
this contest which is going on in hundreds
of the churches of the United States to-day,
is a mighty hindrance to the advancement Of
this art In Chi way scores and ores of
churches are entirely crippled as to all inhu-
ence aud the music is damage rather thai
O pra So.
Another obstacle in the advancement Of
this al t, has Lean the erroneous notion tha5
thi; part OF the service could be conducted
by delegation. Churches have said: ooh.
what an easy time we Shall have. The minis
ter viii do the preaching and the choir will
do the singing aud we will have n1:hing to
do Aud You know as well rs / that there
are great multitude of churches all through
this land where the people are not expected
to sing. The whole work is done by delega,
lions of four or six or ten persons and the
audience is silent. In such church i'll
Syracuse, an old elder persisted in
singing, and so the choir appointed commit
tee to go and ask the squire if he would not
stop You know that in great multitude
OF churches the choir are expected and do all
the singing and the great masses OF people
are expected to lie silent, AMI if you utter
your voice you are interfering. There they
stand, the four, with opera glasses dangling
at their side, singing, Crock of Ages, cleft
for me, with the same spirit that the night
before on the stage, they took their part in
the Grand Duchess" or "Don Giovanni"
My Christian friends, have we right tc
delegate to others the discharge of this duty
which God demands of usl Suppose that
four wood thrushes propose to do all the sing
ing some bright day when the woods are
ringing with bird voices. 1t is decided that
four wood thrushes shall d. all the singing
o: tile forest. Let all other voices keeT
silent. How beautifully the four warbled
1t is really fine music. But how long viii
you keep the forest still! Why Christ wout
come into that forest and look ur rs he lookot
through the olives, and hs would raise hi,
htnd and say: LET everything that hath