Connecticut western news., 1892-05-19

marine band Glorious "Old Hundred" composed by William Franc, of Ger many. In war prison, at ten o'clock at night, the poor fellows far from home and wounded and sick and dying, one prisoner started the "Old Hundred Dox- ology," and then a score of voices joined, then all the prisoners on all the floors took up the acclaim until the building, from foundation to topstone. fairly quaked with the melodious ascription. A British man-of-war lying of for | eign coast, heard u voice singing that doxology, and immediately guessed, and guessed aright, that there was an Eng iishman in captivity to the Mohamme- dams; and in the small boats the sailors rowed to shore and burst into d guard ' house and set the captive free. l don't know what tune the trumpets of resur- rection shall play, but it may be the dox- ology which is now sounding across | Christendom. How much more hearty we would be in our songs, and how easily we could drive back the dumb devil from all our worshiping assem- blages, if we could realize that nearly all our hymns have n stirring history.
 That glorious hymn, Stand Up for Jesus was suggested by the last words of Dudley Tyng, who was dying from having his right arm torn off in thrashing machine. That hymn, What a Friend We Have in Jesus," heard through a telephone, converted an ob- durate soul. Shall We Gather at the Rivery' was a hymn first sung in our | Brooklyn Prospect park, at the chil- dren's May anniversary, and then started | to encircle the world. Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight?' is n song that has saved hundreds of dissipated young men.
 Tom, the drummer boy in the army, was found y.ying, and an officer asked him what was the matter! Oh" he said, "I had dream last night. My sister died ten years ago, and my moth CT never was herself again and she died soon after. Last night I dreamt l was | killed in battle, and that mother and sister cafne down to meet me- After the next battle was over, some one crossing the field heard voice that he recognized as the voice of Tom, the drummer boy, singing Jesus, Lover of | My Soul" But at the end of the first verse the voice became very feeble, and at the end of the second verse it | stopped, and they went up and found Tom, the drummer boy, leaning against a stump and dead.
 Tongues to Sing" was suggested to Charles Wesley by Peter Bohler, who, after his conversion, said, 'I 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 n thousand tongues to sing | My dear Redeemer's praise,
 | The glories of my God and king,
 The trumphs of his grace.
 | Jesus, the name that ealms our fears, That bids our sorrows cease:
 | 'Tis music in the sinners ears,
 rfis life and health and peace.
 While much of the modern music is a religious doggerel, a consecrated non sense, a sacred tonfoolery, 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 Pis- gah and Coronation, with few regi- ments of mighty tunes made in our own time, and storm Asia, Africa and Amer ica for the kingdom of God. But the first thing to do is to drive out the dumb devil of the text from all our churches. A PERSONAL MATTER.
 Do not, however, let us lose ourselves | nf af lt,f 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 our 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 prayer meeting, and the service was thrown open for prayer and remarks, and there was n dead halt--ev- erything silent as graveyard at mid night. Indeed it was Il graveyard and midnight An embarrassing pause took place that put wet blanket on all the meeting. Men, bold enough on business exchange or in worldly circles, shut their eyes 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 fiutter. Some brother with no cold coughed, by that sound trying to i'll up the time, and the meeting was slain. But what killed it2 the dumb devil.
 This is the way l account for the fact that the stupidest places on earth are some prayer meetings. l to 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- fulness? 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"
 THE DUMB DEVIL IN POLITICS.
 But do not let the world deride the | cbprcb bacausa oF all this for tha dtu,b