Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-09-24

| economic IN music.
Many Of you are illustrations Of what
sacred song can do. Through it you were
brought into the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
You stood out against the argument and
the warning of the pulpit: but when. in
the sweet words of Isaac Watts, or Charles
Wesley, or John Newton, or Toplady, the
loTe of Jesus vas sung 10 your soul, then
you surrendered, as armed castle. that
could not be taken by host, lifts its win
dow to listen to harp's trill. There was
| 4 Scotch soldier dying in New OrlernS, and
Scotch minister came to give him the
consultations of the gospel. The man turned
over on his pillow, and said: Don't talk
minister began to sing familiar hymn of
| Scotls-.d, that was composed by David
Dickinson, beginning with the words:
| Oh. mother, dear Jerusalem,
When Shall come TO thee:
He sang it to the tune of Dundee and
| everybody 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" re-
| piled the minister my mother taught me
that" so 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 has an
| irresistible power. Luther's sermons have
| been forgotten. but his Judgment Hyma''
4
| singing until the blast of the archange'S
| trumpet shall brin, about that very day
| which the hymn celebrates. | would to
| God that those who hear me to-day would
| take those 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 harInonies, God
sent. are flying TO your soul with the bread
| of life. Open your mouths and take it,
Q, HUNGRY ELIJAHs!
In addition to the inspiring music of our
| own day we have a glorious inheritance of
church psalmody which has come down
fragrant with the devOtiOns of other gener-
| ations-tunes no more Worn out than they
We're when our eatgrandfathers climbed
! up on them from the church pew to glory
Dear old souls. how they used to sing.
When they were cheerful, our graudfathers
and grandmotherS used to sing ''CocheS-
ter When they were very meditatiye.
then the board Westinghouse rang with
South Street" and st. Edmonds.'' Were
they struck through with great tenderness,
they Sang Woodstock" Were they
wrapped i'll visions of the glory Of the
church, they sang Zion Were they over
borne with the love and glory of Christ,
they sang ariel" And IN those days
there We're certain tunes married TO certain
hymns and they have lived IN peace Il great
n'hile. these two old people, and we have
no right to divorce them. What God hath
joined together let no man put asunder."
But how hard-hearted we must be if all
this sacred music of the past, and all the
sacred music of the present does not start
US heaveuward.
| have also noticed the power of sacred
song to soothe perturbation. You may
have come in here this morning with a great
many worrimentS and anXieties, yet, per-
haps in the singing of the first hymn, YOU
lost all those worrimentS and anxieties.
You have read in the Bible of Saul and how
lac was sad aud angry, and how the boy
David came i'll and played the evil spirit
out of him. y Spanish king was melan-
choly. The windows were all closed.
HE SAT IN THE DARKNESS.
Nothing could bring him forth until Fara-
nell came aud discoursed music for three
or four days to him. On the fourth day ne
looked up, and wept and rejoiced. and the
windows were thrown open, and that which
all the splendors of the court could not do,
the power of song accomplished. If you
have auXieties and worriments, try this
heavenly charm upon them. Do not sit
down on the bank of the hymn, but plunge
il. that the devil of care may be brought
out of YOU.
1t also arouses to action. A singing |
church is always a triumphant church! If |
Il congregation is silent during the exercise, |
or partially silent. it is the silence Of death I!
the faint hum of here and there Il father |
and mother in Israel, while the vast ma |
jority are silent. that minister of Christ |
who is presiding needs to have very strong |
constitution if 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 10 !
voice TO discharge this duty. | really be- |
lieve that if the church of Christ could rise |
up and sing as it ought to sing, that where |
we have d hundred souls bro ught into the |
kingdom of Christ,
THERE WOULD BE A THOUSAND.
But / must now speak of some of the
obstacles 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. | am far from believing that
music ought always TO be positively re-
ligious Refined art has opened places
where music has been secularized. and law
fully so. The drawing room, the musical
club. the orchestra, the concert. by the |
qualification of pure taste and the produc-
ton of harmless amusement and the I'M
provement of talent, have become great
forces in the advancement of our civiliza-
ton Music has as much right 10 laugh in
Surrey Gardens il has to pray i'll st. |
Paul's. In the kingdom of nature. we have
the glad fling of the wind rs 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 Improvement OF the ear, and the
voice, and the head, and the heart ha often
been impressed into the service of false re-
igions. False religions have 6eUended
more upon the hymning of their congre-
cations than upon the pulpit proclama-
ion OF their dogmaS. Tartini, the musical
dreamed one night that
Satan snatched from his hand
IN instrument and played upon il
very sweet-a dream that has
JTten been fulfilled in our day the voice
and the instruments that ought to have
Jeeu devoted TO Christ. captured from the
church and applied to
PURPOSES OF SUPERSTITION
Another obstacle has been an inordinate
'ear of criticism. The vast majority of |
people singing in church never want any
Dody else to hear them sing. Everybody is |
waiting for somebody else to do his duty |
f we all sang. then the inaccuracies that |
ire evident when only a few sing would |
Tot be heard at all: they would be drowned |
nut. God only asks you TO do as well as |
'ou can, and then if you get the wrong |
itch or keep wrong time he will forgive |
my deficiency of the ear and imperfection |
If the voice Angels will not laugh if you |
hould lose your place i'll the musical scale
II come in at the close a bar behind. There |
ire three schools of singing, | am told-the | ,
ierman school, the Italian school, and the |
french school of singing. Now. l would 5