Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1891-09-21

may have come In here this morning
with a great many worriments and
anxieties. yet, perhaps, in the singing
of the first hymn. you lost all those
worIilnents 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 Spanish king was
melancholy The windows we're all
closed. He sat in the darkness. Moth
ing could bring him forth until Fara.
nell came and discoursed music three
or four days to him On the fourth
day he looked up and wept and re
joiced. and the windows were thrown
open, and that which all the spIendors
of the court could not do the power OF
song accomplished. If you have anxi
eties and worriments. try this heavenly
charm upon them DO not sit down on
the bank of the hymn, but plunge in,
that the devil Of care may be brought
out of you
II also aTouses to action. A singing
church is always a triumphant church !
II congregation is silent during the ex
ercise or partially silent, 1t is the silence
of death If, when the hymn is given
out, you hear the faint hum of here
and there father and mother in Israel,
while the vast majority are silent, that
minister of Christ who is presiding needs
to have a very strong constitution II he
does not get the chills He needs not
only the grace of God, but nerves like
whalebone 1t Is amazing how some
people. who have voice enough to dis
charge all their duties in the world
when they come into the house of God
have no voice to discharge this duty. ]
really believe that Il the church OF
| Christ could rise up and sing as it ought
to sing, that where we have hundred
souls brought into the kingdom Of
Christ there would be a thousand.
ALL PURE MUSIC is WHOLESOME.
But must now speak of some of the
obstacles in the way of the advance
ment of this sacred music, and the first
Is that 1t has been impressed into the
service of superstition. am far from
believing that 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 concert, by the gratifica
ton OF pure taste, and the production
of harmless amusement, and the i'm.
| ~ t.I hot do haontna
great forces in the advancement of our
civilization. Music has as much right
to laugh in Surrey gardens as it has to
pray in st. Pauls
In the kingdom of nature we have
the glad filing 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 in
tended for the Improvement of the ear,
and the voice, and the head, and the
heart. has often been impressed into
the service of false religions. False re-
lgions have depended more upon the
hymning Of their congregations than
upon the pulpit proclamation of their
dogmas Tartinl, the musical com
poser, 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, captured from the
church and applied to purposes of su
perstition.
Another obstacle has been an inor
dinate fear of criticism. The vast ma
jority of people singing in church never
want anybody else to hear them sing
Everybody is waiting for somebody
else to do his duty. II we all sang,
then the inaccuracies that are evident
when only few sing would not be
heard at all; they would be drowned
out, God only asks you to do as well
as you can, and then, If you get the
wrong pitch, or keep wrong time,
he will forgive any deficiency of the ear
and imperfection 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 Ital-
ian school and the French school OF
| singing Now, would like to add a
fourth school, and that is the school
Of Christ. The voice OF contrite,
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 reasous- arst be-
cause like It, and next, because want
to encourage those who do not know
how have but very little faculty in
that direction, yet am resolved to sing,
God has commanded II, and dare not
bebilent He calls ON the beasts, on
the CATTLE ON the dragons 20 praise
him, and We ought not TO be behind
the cattle and the dragons
TIMIDTrY AND CAPIIoUsNRss.
Another obstacle that has been In
the way of the advancement of this
holy art has been the fact that there
has been 80 much angry discussion on
the subject OF music There are those
who would have this exercise conduct
Oh boy musical Instruments In the
same church there arc those who dc
not like musical Instruments, and SO il
Is organ and no organ, aud there Is q
} fight In another church Il Is a cues