The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-01-01


privilege of singing with the choir, and
drowning it out with the volume OF
sound.
In those days the elder lined out the
hymn. In high, nasal tone the good
deacon recited in sing-song the hymn
for the occasion, and he couldn't spoil
HAbhn in reading it any more than
Choir could spoil it in singing it-al-
though our choirs of to-day would smile
audibly at the old meeting house music
of the past.
But what earthly voice, with its self
conscious infections, is fit to sing that
ship
While shepherds watched their fiocks by night,
All seated on the ground.
Then came in the TENOR
The angel Of
Then the bass thundered:-
The angel Of
Then the counter
The Lord came down.
And the choir:-
ana glory SnOne around.
This was the fugue or contIapuntai
style, where all parts of the tune respond
to each other, and which was the most
effective singing known in that simple
service of song.
And it is question if that grand pre-
lude to the heavenly music was ever
sung better or more acceptably by the
mezzo-sopranos and basso- profundos of
the modern choir, with their quavers and
trills on the high C's of musical craft.
l had funny story told me about the
dear bigoted old choir singers of that
day, which shows with what extreme
and jealous caution they watched the
slightest innovation on local customs.
some one had gone on journey so or 90
miles distant, and his safe return had
been made subject of prayer.
When he came he was full of queer
notions imbibed in the ''ta-o-w-n" which
he had visited. Among other things he
had the audacity to tell the choir that
there was new way of pronouncing
words, and that ''shone" was pronounced
''shon." There was an immediate re-
volt, and the old deacon sternly asked
him how it would sound to hear the
line:-
"And glory shone around" read
''shon around"
1T be too redikilous, brethren and
sisteren, to contemplate" and the young
man meekly subsidized into his shell.
Quain anecdotes linger in the atmos-
phere of that vanishing past. One old
uomiuie went into the pulpit and, open
ing his hymn-book by the light of glut-
tering tallow dip, looked at the copgre-
CATION and said, with due solemnlty,:-
81 fear mine eyes are growing dim; l
cannot see to read this hymn"
To his surprise, the deacon at once
lined it to the congregation
fear mine eyes are growing dim;
calnot see to read this hymn.
When the choir had sung that, the
minister attempted to explain. Said
he:-
II did not mean that for the hymn.
only said mine eyes were DIM"
Again the deacon lined it, and again
the choir sang the astonishing new ver-
sion.
The unfortunate dominic, believing
himself to be possessed with devil of
versification, bawled out in despera-
tom
"You fools, why will you sing that
hymn l said mine eyes were growing
dim"
As he heard this set to music, he
rushed out of the sacred edifice and went
home after his spectacles.
All the pretty girls of the country vii
lagos were in the choir. All the counting
was done there. They were rosy lips
that sung "Old Hundred and" Corinth"
and China and "Mear."
The ribbons of those big scoop bonnets
and sky scrapers fluttered in the breeze
that came in through the oval window,
scented with the new mown hay and
sweetbriar roses that grew on the graves
outside. The choir was the attraction to
all except the old people of that day, who
were never quite willing to concede any
good thing to inexperienced youth, and
to whom the big viol was an innovation
of the evil one.
But the stranger who strayed into the
old meeting house caring naught for the
first or "fifthly'' of the prosy sermon
looked up at the choir and at once
there was dove-like flutter of ribbons
and hymn-books, and oh, what saucy
piquant earthliness was revealed in the
demure faces Of the choir sisterhood
"Sleep, sleep to-day, tormentng cares
Ofearth and folly borD,'
Solemnly sang the village choir
ON that sweet Sabbath morn.