Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1893-05-26

LOST not q note during the forty minutes OF
amputation. Filippo Palma. the great must
clan. confronted by an angry creditor,
played so enchantingly before him that the
creditor forgave the debt and gave the debtor
ten gu1neas more to appease other creditors
An eminent physician OF olden time con
far) that all ailments o. tbs world could be
cured by music. The medical journals never
report their recoveries by this mode. But In
what twilight hour has many saint OF God
solsced a heartache with hymn hummed or
sung or played Jerome of Prague sang
while burning at the stake. Over what keys
OF piano or organ consolation has walked
Yea, In church one hymn has rolled peace
over thousand of the worried, perpiexed
and az 1nized-
While there are hymns and tunes ready for
the jubilant, there is a rich hymnology for
the sufferins-..Naomi and ''Eventide" and
Autumn Leaves" and Come We Gisconso-
late" and whole portfolios and nbrettcs of
tears set TO music. All the wonderful
triumphs of surgery and all the new modes
OF successful treatment of physical and men
tai disorders are discussed in medical con-
ventions and spread abroad in medical books.
and it is high time that some of the millions
of souls that have been medicated by music,
vocal and instrumental, let the world know
what power there is in sweet sound, whether
rolling from lip or leapinS from frightened
chord or ascending from ivory key.
Music is a universal language. At the
foot of the Tower of Babel language was
split into fragments never to be again put
together, but one thing was not hurt, and
that is music, and it is the same all the world
over. Last summer in Russia at a watering
place we were greeted as we entered great
auditorium. which was filed with thousands
of Russians, whose language / could not
understand any more than they could under
stand mine.
But after the grand band had, out of COM
g. al %Tryn Av%Nny VI
can airs, stepped on the platform and said
to the bandmaster Russian air Russian
air ~ and then he tapped with his baton on
the music rack, and with splendor and
majesty of power that almost made US quail
the full band poured forth their National
anthem. They understood our American
music, and we understood their Russian
music. It is a universal language, and so
good for universal cure.
I should not wonder If in the day Of iudg-
ment it should be found out that more souls
have been saved by music than by preaching.
I should not wonder if out of the one hun
dred and forty and four thousand ransomed
souls that John foresaw before the throne of
God at least 40, 900 had been saved by sweet
song. Why does not the church on earth
take the hint? Heaven is the great musical
center of the universe, the place of doxolo-
gies and trumpets and harps, and in prepare
ton for that place we ought to make more Of
music on earth.
The band of music at Waterloo played the
retreat Of the Forty-second Highlanders back
to their places, and sacred music has re-
turned many a faltering host of God into the
Christian conflict with as much determina-
and dash as Tennysons six Hundred -
Who can tell what has been accomplished by
Charles Wesley's 1000 hymns, or by the con
gregational singing of his time which could
be heard two miles off? When my dear
friend Dio Lewis (gone to rest all too soon)
conducted campaign against drunkenness
at the West and marShaled thousands of the
noblest women Of the land in that magnifi-
cent campaign, and whole neig hborhoods and
villages and cities shut up their grog shops.
doyou know the chief weapon used? 1t was
the song.
Nearer, my God. to The,
Nearer to Thee
they sang it at the door Of hundreds of
liquor saloons which had been open for
years, and either at the first charge of the
campaign or the second the saloon shut up.
At the first verse of Nearer, My God, to
Thee. the liquor dealers laughed, at the
second verse they looked solemn, at the third
verse they began to cry, and at the fourth
verse they got down on their knees. You
say they opened their saloons again. Yes.
some Of them did. But it is great thing to
have hell shut up if only for week. Give
full swing to q good gospel hymn, and it
would take the whole world for God!
But when in my text see Saul declining
this medicine of rhythm and cadence and ac-
tually hurting iavelin at the heart of David;
the harpist, I bethink myself of the fact that
sin would like to kill sacred music. We are
not told what tune David was playing on the
harp that day, but from the character Of the
man we know it was not crazy madrigal, or
a senseless ditty, Or sweep Of strings sug-
gestive of the melodrama, but elevated music,
God given music, inspired music, religious
music, a whole heaven of it encamped under
a harpstring. No wonder that wicked Saul
hated it and could not abide the sound and
with all his might hurled an instrument of
death at it.
know there are styles of music that sin
admires, and you hear it as you pass the
casino or the dance hall, and the devil has
stolen most of the fiddles, though am glad
the Ole Bulls have snatched up the charmed
strings from their dissertation, but it is fact
that sin has javelin for sacred sounds. In
many churches the javelin of criticism has
killed the music, javelin flung from organ loft
or from adjoining pew OF the representative
Saul's javelin aimed at Davids harp Thou
sands of people so afraid they may not sing
scientifically, they will not sing at all, or sing
with such low tone that no one hears them
In many church the javelin of criticism
has crippled the harp Of worship. II satan
could silence all the Sunday songs
and the hymns of Christian worship, he
would gain his greatest achievement. When
the milennial song shall riSe-and Il Is be-
ing made ready-there will be such roll OF
voices such concentrated power of stringed
and wind instruments. such ma esty, sdch
unanim1ty, such continental and hemisphere
and planetary exclamation, that it will be i'm
possible to know where earth stops and
heaven begins. Roll on, roll in, roll up, thou
millennial harmony!
See also in my subject rejected oppor-
tunity OF revenge. Why did not David pick
up Sauls javelin and hurl it back again?
David had O. skillfTll arm He demonstrated