News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1892-05-19

! Tongues to Sing" was suggested to
Charles Wesley by Peter Boiler, who,
after his conversion, said, Il had bet
ter keep silent about it." No" said
Wesley, IF you had ten thousand
tongues you had better use them for
Christ" And then that angel of
hymnology penned the words:
Oh, for thousand tongues to sing
My dear Redeemer's praise,
The glores OF my God and king
The triumphs of his grace.
Jesus the name that Gains our fears,
That bids our sorrows cease:
IT'S music in the sinners ears,
IT'S life and health and peace.
While much of the modern music is
a religious doggerel, a consecrated non
sense, a sacred tomfoolery, would like
to see some great musician of our time
lift the baton and marshal Luther's
Judgment Hymn, Yarmouth, Dundee,
Ariel, Brattle Street, Uxbridge, Pleyel's
Hymn, Harwell, Antioch, Mount Pts
gah and Coronation, with few regi-
ments of mighty tunes made in our own
time, and storm Asia, Africa and Amer
lea for the kingdom of God. But the
devil of the text from all our churches
PERSONAL MATTER.
Do not, however, let us lose ourselves
in generalities. Not one of US but has
had our lives sometimes touched by the
evil spirit of the text-this awful dumb
devil. We had just one opportunity of
saying Christian word that might have
led man or woman into a Christian
life. The opportunity was fairly put
before us. The word of invitation or
consolation or warning came to the in
side gate of the mouth, but there it
halted. Some hindering power locked
the jaws together so that they did not
open The tongue lay flat and still in
the bottom of the mouth as though
struck with paralysis. We were mute.
Though God had given us the physio-
logical apparatus for speech, and our
lungs were filled with air which, by the
command of cur will, could have made
the laryngeal muscles move and the vocal
organs vibrate, we were wickedly and
fatally silent. For all time and eternity
we missed our chance.
Or it was o prayer meeting, and the
service was thrown open for prayer and
remarks, and there was dead halt-ev-
erything silent as a graveyard at mid
night. Indeed it was a graveyard and
midnight An embarrassing pause took
place that put wet blanket on all the
meeting. Men, bold enough on business
exchange OF in worldly circles, shut
their ewes as though they were praying
in silence, but they were not praying at
all. They were busy hoping somebody
else would do his duty. The women
flushed under the awful pause and made
their fans more rapidly flutter. Some
brother with no cold coughed, by that
sound trying to fill up the time, and the
meeting was slain. But what killed it?
the dumb devil.
This is the way | account for the fact
that the stupidest places on earth are
some prayer meetings. do not see how
a man keeps any grace if he regularly
attends them. They are spiritual re-
frigerators Religion kept on ice. How
many of us have lost occasions of use
fitness? In a sculptor's studio stood a
figure of the god Opportunity The
sculptor had made the hair fall down
over the face of the statue so as to COM
pletely cover it, and there were wings to
the feet When asked why he so repre-
sented Opportunity, the sculptor an
swered, THE face of the statue is thus
covered up because we do not recognize
Opportunity when it comes, and the
wings to the feet show that Opportunity
is swiftly gone"