St. Landry democrat., 1886-05-22

worldly gayety when we have so many
appropriate songs and tunes composed in
our day, as we'll as that magnificent in
heritance of church psalmody which has
come down fragrant with the devotions OF
other generations-tunes no more worn
out than when our great-grandfather
climbed up on them from the church pew
to glory? Dear old souls. how they used to
sing! When they were cheerful our grand
fathers and grandmothers used to sing
Colchester" When they were very
meditative, then the meeting house rang
with "South Street" and asst. Edmonds."
We're they struck through with great ten
derness, they sang "Woodstock." Were
they wrapped in visions Of the glory of
the Church, they sang "Zion." Were they
overborne with the love and glory of
Christ, they sang Cartel" And in those
days there ere certain tunes married to
certain hymns, and they have lived in
peace a great while, these two old people,
and we have no right to divorce them.
"What God hath joined together let no
man put asunder" Born as we have been
amid this great wealth of church music
augmented by the compositions Of artists
in our day, we ought not to be tempted out
of the sphere of Christian harmony and
try to seek unccnsecrated sounds. 1t is
absurd for a millionaire to steal.
Many of you are illustrations of what
sacred song can do. Through it y GU were
brought into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
You stood out against the warning and
Al 49, ,3,>s& but v1.xx> in
the sweet words of Charles Wesley or
John Newton or Toplady, the love of Je-
sus was sung to your soul, then you sur
rendered, as an armed castle that could
not be taken by host, lifts its window to
listen to harD's trill.
There was a Scotch soldier dying in
New Orleans and Scotch minister came
in to give him the consultations of the gos-
pei. The man turned over on his pillow
and said:
"Don't talk to me about religion"
Then the Scotch minister began to sing
a familiar hymn ofScotland that was COM
posed by David Dickinson, beginning with
the words.
mother, 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. I 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
1t, o hungry Elijah!
But I 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
musical club, the orchestra, the con-
cert, by the qualification of pure taste
and the production of harmless amuse-
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
art, which God intended for the inn
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
AZ 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 fight. In another
church it is question whether the music
shall be conducted by precentor or by
drilled choir. Some want q drilled choir