News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1893-05-18

Strument and lost not a note during the
40 minutes of amputation. Filippo Pal
ma, the great musician, confronted by
an angry creditor, played so enchanting
! ly before him that the creditor forgave
the debt and gave the debtor 10 guineas
more to appease other creditors.
An eminent physician of olden time
contended (of course carrying our theory
| too far that all ailments of the 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 solaced 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 a
thousand of the worried, perplexed and
agonized.
While there are hymns and tunes ready
for the jubilant, there is a rich hymnol-
ogy for the suffering-'tNaomi'' and
"Eventide" and Autumn Leaves" and
Come, We disconsolate, and whole port
folios and librettos of tears set to music.
All the wonderful triumphs of surgery
and all the new modes of successful
treatment of physical and mental dis
orders are discussed in medical conven-
lions and spread abroad in medical books,
and it is high time that some of the mil
lions of souls that have been medicated
by music, vocal and instrumental, let the
world know what power there ism sweet
sound, whether rolling from lip or leap
| ing 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 watering place we were greeted as
we entered d great auditorium, which
was filled with thousands of Russians,
whose language l could not understand
any more than they could understand
mine.
But after the grand band had, out of
compliment to US. played our two great
American airs, l stepped on the platform
and said to the bandmaster, Russian
air! Russian ARR and then he tapped
with his baton on the music rack, and
with a 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.
1t is a universal language and so good
for universal cure.
| should not wonder if in the day of
Judgment it should be found out that
more souls have been saved by music
than by preaching. 1 should not wonder
if out of the one hundred and forty and
four thousand ransomed souls that John
foresaw before the throne of God at
least $780, 900 had been saved by sweet
song Why does not the church ON
,arth take the hint? Heaven is the great
musical center of the universe, the place
of doxologies and trumpets and harps,
and in preparation 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 High
landers back to their places, and sacred
music has returned many a faltering
host OF God into the Christian conflict
with as much determination and dash as
Tennyson's six Hundred" Who can
tell what has been accomplished by
Charles WeslGy's 1000 hymns, or by the
congregational 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 magnificent campaign, and
whole neighborhoods and villages and
cities shut up their grog shops, do You
know the chief weapon used? 1t was the
song:
Nearer, my God, to thee,
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,
Ny 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 a great thing to
have hell shut up if only for week.
Give full swing to good gospel hymn,
and it would take the whole world for
Godl
THE REBELLIOUS NATURE.
But when in my text l see Saul declin-
ing this medicine of rhythm and cadence
and actually hurting a javelin at the
heart of David, the harpist, 1 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 81 sweep of strings
suggestive of the melodrama, but ele-
waited music, God given music, inspired |
music, religious music, a whole heaven |
of it encamped under 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 a 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
supersensitive. Saul's javelin aimed at |
David's harp Thousands 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 criti-
cism has crippled the harp of worship. |
If satan could silence all the Sunday |
school songs and the hymns of Christian
worship, he would gain his greatest
achievement. When the millennial song
shall rise-and it is being made ready
there will be such a roll of voices, such
q concentrated power of stringed and
wind instruments, such majesty, such
unaninity, such continental and hemi-
spheric and planetary reclamation, that
it will be impossible to know where earth
stops and heaven begins. Roll on, rol
in, roll up, thou millennial harmony!
THE MEANNEss OF REVENGE.
See also in my subject rejected OPP
portunity of revenge. Why did not
David pick up Sauls javelin and hurl it
back again? David had slillful arm.
He demonstrated on another occasion he
could WELD a sling, and he could have
easily picked up that javelin, aimed it
at Saul, the would be assassin, and left
the foaming and demented monster as
ifeless under the javelin as he had left
Goliath under a sling. Oh, David, now
is your chance. No, no. Men and women