The free press., 1893-07-13


| perhaps more tired than you, but she rocked,
and you slumbered. Oh those family songs
Mothers, be careful what you sing your
| children to sleep with. Let it De nothing
| frivolous or silly. Better have in 1t some
| thing of Christ and heaven. Better have in
| It something that will help that boy thirty
| years from now to bear up under the
| bombardment of temptation. Better have In
| it something that will help that daughter
| thirty years from now when upon her come
the cares Of motherhood and the agonies Of
| bereavement and the brutal treatment of one
who swore before high heaven that he would
| cherish and protect
! These family songs are about all we keep
| of the old homestead. The house Where you
were born will go into the hands OF strangers.
| The garments that were carefully kept as
| relics will become moth eaten. The family
| Bible can go into the possession OF only one
Of the family. The lock OF gray hair may be
| lost from the locket, and in few. years all
signs and momentoes Of the old homestead
viii be gone forever. But the family songs,
| those that we heard at two years OF age, at
| five years of age, at ten years OF age, will be
| indestructible and at forty or fifty or sixty or
seventy years of age will give US mighty
boost over some rough place in the path OF
| our pilgrimage.
Many years ago a group of white children
| were captured and carried off blythe Indians.
|
dren in that capture, went among the Indi-
| ans, and there were many white children in
| line, but so long time had passed the moth
er could not tell which were hers until she
began to sing the old nursery song, and her
two children Immediately rushed up, shout
| ing: Mamma ~ Mamma l Yes, there is
an immortality in nursery song. Hear it,
| all you mothers, an immortality OF power to
rescue and save.
What an occasion that must have been in
Washington December II, 1850, when Jennie
| Lind sang "Home, Sweet Home," the author
| Of those words, John Howard Payne, seated
before her. She had rendered her other ia
| vorite songs: "Casta Diva" and her "Fluts
| Song" with fine effect, but when she struck
| "Home, Sweet Home" John Howard Payne
| rose under the power, and President Fillmore
| and Henry Clay and Daniel Webster and the
| whole audience rose with him Anything
| connected with home ransacks our entire
nature with a holy power, and songs thaf
| get well started in the nursery or by the
| family hearth roll on after the lips that sung
| them are forever silent and the ears that hrst
| heard them forever cease to hear.
Be careful how you treat the BIRDS Re-
member they are Gods favorites, and If you
! offend them you offend Him. He is so fond of
| their voices that there are forests where for
| hundred miles no human foot has ever trod
| and no human ear has ever listened.
| Put off startling colors, which frighten the
| winged songsters into silence or fight, and
| put on your more sober attire and move
| noiselessly into the woods farther and far
| ther from the main road and have no CONVEX
sation for many concert in and out ofdoors
/ has been ruined by persistent takers, ana
| then sit down mossy bank
! Where Wild stream with heailons snocS
( Comes brawlinE down bed Of rock
And after perhaps half an hour Of intense
solitude there will be tap Of a beak on
tree branch far up, sounding like the tap OF
| musical baton, and then first there will be
solo, followed by a duet or quartet, and after
| ward by doxologies in all the tree tops and
amid all the branches, and if you have
| Bible along with you and you can without
| rustling the leaves, turn TO the one hun
dred and forty-eighth Psalm of David and
read, "Praise the Lord, beasts and all cattle,
creeping things and flying fowl" and then
turn over quietly to my text and read, by
them shall the fowls of the heaven have
| their habitation, which sing among the
branches" or if under the power of the bird
voices you are transported, as when Doctor
| Worgan played so powerfully on the organ at
! st. Johns that Richard Cecil said he was in
| such blessed bewilderment he could not find in
| his Bible the first chapter Of Isaiah, though
he leafed The book over and over, and you
shall be so overcome with forest harmony
that you cannot find the Psalms of David,
never mind, for God will speak to you so
! nightly it will make no difference whether
| you hear His voice from the printed page or
| the vibrating throat Of one of His plumed
| creatures.
While this summer more than usual out of
doors let US have what my text suggests, an
out of doors religion. What business had
David, with all the advantages OF costly relig-
ious service and smoking incense on the al
tar, to be listening to the chantresses among
the tree branches? All he wanted to make
himself and all who should come after him
more alert and more worshipful amid the
sweet sounds and beautiful sights Of
the natural world. There is an old church
that needs to be rededicated. 1t is older than
st. PauiS or st. Peters or st. Marks or st.
Sophia's or st. Isaac's. 1t is the cathedral of
nature. That is the church in which the SER
vices Of the millennium will be held The
buildings fashioned out OF stone and brick
and mortar will not hold the people.
Again the mount of Olives will be the
pulpit. Again the Jordan will be the
baptistry. Again the mountains will be
the galleries. Again the skies will be
the blue ceiling. Again the sunrise will
be the front door and the sunset the back
door of that temple. Again the
clouds will be the upholstery and the
trees will be the organ loft where
''the fowls of heaven have their hab-
itation, which sing among the
branches" ST. Francis d'Assisi preached a
sermon to birds and pronounced benedic-
tion upon them, but all birds preach to US,
and their benediction is almost supernal.
In the time Of Edward ~ no one was
allowed to own swan except he were a
| kings son or had considerable estate. Through
100 or 200 years OF life that bird was said
never to utter anything like music until its
last moment came, and then lifting its
crested beauty it would pour forth q
song of almost matchless thrill re.
| sounding through the groves And
So although the struggles of life may be
too much for US and we may find it hard to
sing at all, when the last hour comes to you
and me, may there be a radiance from above
and glory settling round that shall enable
US TO utter song on the wings of which ve
shall monnt to where the music never ceases
and the raptures never die.
LORD Randolph Churchill, IL is announced,
| has hacnme q strict total ahsfainer