The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-06-03
familiar hymn of Scotland that was COM
posed by David Dickinson, beginning with
the words:


q familiar hymn of scotland that was COM
posed by David Dickinson, beginning with
the words:
Omother, dear Jerusalem.
When shall come to thee?
He sung it to the tune of Dundee, and
every body in Scotland knows that; and
as he began to sing the dying soldier
turned over on his pillow and said to the
minister:
"Where did you learn that!"
"Why," replied the minister, "my moth
er taught me that"
$50 did mine," said the dying Scotch
soldier; and the very foundation of his
heart was upturned, and then and there
he yielded himself to Christ.
Oh, it is an irresistible power! Luther's
sermons have been forgotten, but his
Judgment Hymn" sings on through the
ages, and will keep on singing until the
blast of the archangeps trumpet shall
bring about that very day which the
hymn celebrates. / would to God that
those who hear me to-day would take
these songs of salvation as messages from
Heaven; for, just as certainly as the birds
brought food to Elijah by the brook
Cherith, so these winged harmonies, God
sent, are flying to your soul with the
bread of life. Open your mouth and take
it, o hungry Elijah!
But must now speak of some of the OBJ
stacies in the way of the advancement of
this sacred music; and the first is, that it
has been impressed into the service of SUI
perstition. I am far from believing thut
music ought always to be positively
religious. Refined art has opened places
where music has been secularized and
lawfully so. The drawing-room, the
cert, by the qualification of pure taste
and the production of harmless amuss-
ment and the Improvement of talent, have
become very forces in the advancement of
our civilization. Music has as much right
to laugh in Surrey Gardens as it has to
pray in St. Paul's. In the kingdom of,
nature we have the glad fling of the
wind as well as the long-meter psalm
of the thunder. But while all this is
SO, every observer has noticed that this
art, which God intended for the i'm
provement of the ear and the voice and
the head and the heart, has often been
impressed into the service of error. Tar
TIM, the musical composer, dreamed one
night that Satan snatched from his hand
an instrument and played upon it some-
thing 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, captured FROM the
Church and applied to purposes of sin.
Another obstacle that has been in the
way 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 are those who do not like musical
instruments, and so it is organ and no or
gan, and there is a fight. In another
church it is question whether the music
shall be conducted by precentor or by a
drilled choir. Some want a drilled choir
and some want a precentor, and there is a
fight. Then there are those who would
like in the church to have the organ
played in dull, lifeless dron-
ing way, while there are 9TH
Ok0 VIM "OAu nave Id WT6dtQ0u
into fantasies, branching out into jets
and spangles of sound, rolling and tossing
in marvellous convolutions, as when in py-
rotechnic display you think piece is ex-
hausted 1t breaks out in wheels, rockets
blue lights and serpentine demonstrations.
Some would have the 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 a
| 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 the contest which is going on in hun
| dreds of churches of the United States to-
day is mighty hinderance to the ad-
vancement of this art. In this way scores
and scores of churches are entirely Grip
| pied as to all influence, and the music is a
| damage rather than praise.
Another obstacle in the advancement of
| this art has been the erroneous notion that
this part of the service could be con-
Quoted by delegation. Churches have
| said:
"Oh, what an easy time we shall have.
The minister will do the preaching and
the choir win do the singing, and we will
have nothing to do"
And you know as well as that there are
| a great multitude of churches all through
this land where the people are not
expected to sing. The whole work is
done by a delegation of four or six OF
ten persons and the audience are
silent. In such church in Syracuse an
| old elder persisted in such singing, and
SO the choir appointed committee 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 mass of PEG.
| pie are expected to be silent, and if you
utter your voice you are interfering. There
they stand, the four. with opera glass
dangling at their side singing, "Rock OF
Ages Cleft for Me-" with the same spirit
that the night before on the stage they
| took their part in the "Grand Duchess, OF
"Don Giovanni
| My Christian friends, have we a right te
delegate to others the DISCHARGE of this
duty which God demands of us? Suppose
that four woodthrushes propose to do all
the singing some bright day when the
woods are ringing with bird voices. Il is
decided that four woodthrushes shall dc