Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1892-01-09

Again the deacon lined it, and
again the choir sang the astonishing
new version
The unfortunate dominic believing
himself to be possessed with a devil
of versifcation, bawlel out in des-
peratlon:
sYou ols,why will you sing that
hymng | said mine eyes were grow
ing 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
villages were in the choir. All the
counting was done there. They were
rosy lips that sung, "OId Hundred
and "Cornith,' and "China" and
"Mear.n
The ribbons of those big scoop
bonnets and sky-scrapers luttered
in the Dr. exc that came in through
the oval window, scented with the
new-mown hay and sweet briar 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 con-
cede any good thing TO inexperienced
youth, and to whom the big viol
was an innovation of the evil one.
But the stranger who strayed iuto
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 futter of ribbons and hymn
books, AID oh, what saucy, piquant
earthliness was revealed in the de-
mure faces of the choir sistefhood.
6 Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares,
OF earth and folly born,'
Solemnly sang the village ohoir
On that sweet Sabbath morn.
Long was the good mans sermon,
Yet it seemed not so to me.
For he spake of Ruth the beautiful
And still thought Of thee.'
The precentor, too, has gone with
the old choir. He was often an ig-
norant, bigoted, self assertlve man,
but he belonged to that dear domes-
tic age of simplicity and good-fellow-
ship. There are stories told Of him,
too. It is said that a noted city
preacher went to village to officiate
over Sunday, and was called upon
by the precentor of the choir who
said to him:
"First we sings four or five varses;
then you prays, not long; then we
sings again, and you says few
words, and we sings again. You see,
| in our meetin's we gives good bit
of time to the singing. Alb, that's
Heaven, sir-all singing and no
preaching or praying-that's pleas
| ant thought to me, SIR"
81 also have pleasant thought
about Heaven" said the coed minis
ter, ''and it is, that you will not be
| preeentor there"
And yet it is true, as Herbert says,
that hymn well sung.
'May catch him who sermon flies"
| The truth is that in the old times
the choir was but the mouthpiece Of
the congregation Everybody sang,
from the lisping child to the white
haired grandparent, and the music
gave expression to all the elfrepres-
sion, the unspoken desires, the cry
for light beyond, which were the
stronger emotions of that age. The
power and pathos of that singing
often reached to the sublime, just as
to-day the plaintiye minor chords of
a Scotch song will draw tears to the
| eyes of all who hear it.
| Dear, simple souls who sang in the
choirs of the past, where are they
to-day? We cannot even find their
counterparts in the New England
village choir where the contralts
scorns the soprano, and the tenor
looks askanee at the bass, and the
fugue is a traditional method of
song. They are all gone now, and
their histories are buried with them.
ITO the land of the leal they have gone
with their song,
Where the choir and chorus together be-
long.
Oh, be fitted, ye gatesl Let me hear them
again,
Blessed song. blessed singers, forever,
Amen!''