The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1892-06-01

A. Garfield. Robert e. Lee, Stonewall jack
son, Admiral Foote, Admiral Farragut,
Ulysses s. Grant, John Milton, William
Shakespeare, Chief Justice Marshall, John
Adams Daniel Webster, George Washing
ton' How do you account for their fondness
for the Christian religion? Among the in
Vulnerable colleges and universities OF the
earth Will you name me three started by
infldels and now supported by inadels?
Down in your heart are you really happy In
the position you occupy antagonistic to the
Christian religione When do you have the
most rapturous views of the next worlds
Go at him with few such questions and
he will get so red in the face as to suggest
apoplexy. and he will look at his watch and
say he has an engagement and must &c.
You will put him in sweat that will beat
On a rout compared with which our
troops at Bull Run made no time
at all. Arm yourself, not with argu-
nsnts but Interrogation points and promise
you victory. Shall such man as you, shall
such woman as you surrender to one or the
neanest spirits that ever smoked up from
the pit--the dumb devil spoken OF in the
text.
But then there are occasions when this par
ocular spirit that Cirist exercised when DE
,aid, II charge thee to come out OF him,
takes people by the wholesale. In the most
responsive religious audience have you no.
ticed how many people never sing at all?
They have a book, and they have yolce,
and they know how to read. They know
many OF the tunel and yet are silent while
the great raptures of music pass by. AIeong
those VINO sing not one out OF hundred
sings loud enough to hear his own voice.
They hum it. They give sort OF religious
gruut They make the lips go, but it is in
audible. With voice strong enough to stop
q street car one block away, all they can af-
ford in tbs praise Of God is about half
whisper. With enough Sopranos, enough
altos, enough bassos to make small heaven
between the four walls, they let the oppor-
tunity 20 by unimproved.
The volume of voice that ascends from the
largest audience that ever assembled ought
to be multiplied about two thousand fold.
But the minister rises and gives out the
hymn; the organ begins; the choir or pre-
centor leads; the audience are standing so
that the lungs may have full expansion, and
a mighty harmony is about to ascend, when
the evil spirit spoken OF in my text-the
dumb devil-spreads his two wings, one over
the lips Of one-half the audience and the
other wing over the lips Of the other half Of
the audience, and the voices roll back into
the throats from which they started, and
nine-tenths of the holy power is destroyed;
and the dumb devil, as he flies away, says:
II could not keep Isaac Watts from writing
that hymn, and could not keep Lowell
Mason from composing the tune to which
it is set, but | smote into silence or bali
silence the lips from which it would have
spread abroad to HESS neighborhoods and
cities, and then mount the wide open heav-
ems" Give the long meter doxology the
% III, nd
lines would take the whole earth for God.
During the cotton famine in Lancashire.
England, when the suffering was something
terrific, as the first wagon load OF cotton
rolled in, the starving people unlocked the
horses and drew the load themselves, sing
ing, until all Lancashire Joined in with tri-
umphant voices, their cheeks sopping with
tears, Praise God from whom all blessings
fow.h When Commodore Perry, with bis
warship, the Mississippi. lay of the coast of
Japan, he bombarded the shores with "Old
Glorious "Old Hundred" composed by Will
lam Franc, of Germany. In war prison,
at ten o'clock at night the poor fellows far
from home and wounded and sick and dy-
ing, one prisoner started the "Old Hundred
Doxology," and then score Of voices joined,
then all the prisoners on the floors took up
the acclaim until the building, from founda-
ton to topstone, fairly quaked with the
melodious ascription.
A British man-of-war, lying of foreign
coast, heard a voice singing that doxology,
and Immediately guessed, and guessed
Alright, that there was an Englishman in
captivity to the Mohammedans; and in the
small boats the sailors rowed to shore and
burst into d gaurd-house and set the captive
free. I don't know what tune tina trumpets
of resurrection shall play. but it may be the
doxology 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 assemblages, If we could realize
that nearly all our. hymns have stirring his
tory.
That glorious hymn, aStsud Up, for
Jesus" was suggested by the last words OF
Dudley Tying. who was dying from having
chine. That hymn, "What Friend We
Have in Jesus" heard through telephone,
converted an obdurate soul. "Shall We
Gather at the River| was hymn first sung
in our Brooklyn Prospect Park, at the chill
dren's May anniversary. and then started
to encircle the world. Where Is My Wan
dering Bow To-night% is song that has
saved hundreds of dissipated young men.
Tom, the drummer boy in the army, was
found crying, and an officer asked him what
was the matterI "Oh," he said, II had
dream last night. My sister died ten years
ago, and my mother never was herself again
ana she died soon after. Last night dreamt
was killed in battle, and that mother and
sister came down to meet me-" After
the next battle was over, soms one crossing
the field heard voice that he recognized as
the voice Of Tom, the drum ner boy. singing
Jesus Lover OF My Soul" But at the end
OF the first verse the voics became very
feeble, and at the end OF the second vers. l.
stopped, and they went up and founi Tom,
the drummer boy, leaning against stump
and dead.
That hymn, 'Oh, for Thousand Tongues
TO Sing" was suggested to Charles Wesley
by Peter Boiler, who, after his conversion.
said. Il had better 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 hymnoloSy psnned
the words:
Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing
My dear Redeemers praise,
The glories of my God and King,
Tho triumphs Of His grace.
Jesus, the name that cauns 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, consecrated nonsense. a
sacred tomfoolery, would like to see some
great musician Of our time lift the baton and
marshal Luther's Judgment Hymn, Var.
mouth, Dundee, Ariel, Brattle Street, U1-
bridge, Pleyers Hymn. Harwell. Antioch.
Mount Pisgah and Coronation, with few
regiments Of mighty tunes made in our time,
and storm Asia, Africa and America 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.
Of lfaua nilrralMaa In