The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-04-27

of the river which maketh glad the
city of God9 And, my friends, to
these, your joyous Psalms, hymns,
and spiritual songs, your restored or
gan will add the high element of the
finest religious music. Do you think
that slight and purely human addi-
tion' If SO, you can hardly have felt
the
Power and Spell of Music.
"By musical sounds" says Cardinal
Newman, great unknown wonders
seem to be typifed. There are but
seven notes in the scale; make them
fourteen, yet what slender outfit for
so vast an enterprise What science
brings so much out of 80 littles Out
of what poor elements does some
great master in it create his new
world! Shall we say that all his ex-
uberant inventiveness is mere in
genuity-a trick of art, without real
ity, without meaning! Is it possible
that the inexhaustible evolution and
disposition of notes, so rich yet SO
simple, SO intricate yet so regular, so
various yet so majestic, should be a
mere sound, which is gone and per-
ishess Can it be that those mysteri-
GUS STRINGS of the heart, and keen
emotions, and strange yearnings after
we know not what, and awful impress
sions from we know not whence,
should be wrought in us by what is in
substantial and comes and goes, and
begins, and ends, in itself? 1t is not SO.
1t cannot be. No. they have escaped
from some higher sphere; they are
the outpourings of eternal harmony
in the medium of created sound;
they are echoes from our home; they
are the voices of angels, or the Mag
nificat' of saints, or the living laws of
divine governance. Something they
are besides themselves which we can
not compass which we cannot utter,
though mortal man-and he, perhaps,
not otherwise distinguished among
his fellows-has the heart of eliciting
them"
My friends, may God ever more
and more make your services in this
church very dear to you. Let us not
lose the love with which, in earlier
days, they were regarded by the
saints of God. "The angels are pres
ent when we assemble for worship"
said the Venerable Bede, the earliest
of English historians, "What will
they say if they find me moi theres
Will they not ask Where is Bedea
Why comes he not to prayers with
the brethren?'"
Now this love of worship had been
cherished in him from early years,
and especially by sacred song. In
the eighth century plague, which
ravaged England, swept away every
inmate of the monastery at Jarrow
who could take part in the choral
services, except the Abbot Celfrid
and one little chorister. But these
two, in spite of the sobs which would
break forth sometimes as they thought
of their lost brethren, kept up the SER
vices alone till the gaps could be filed
up in the choir, chanting even all the
psalms, though they had to drop the
antiphones. That little chorister-
that little sobbing chorister who
joined his childish treble to the bass
of the aged abbot in the plague
stricken monastery-was Bede. And
dearer, think, to God was that fee
BILE service. poured forth from the
heart of love, than many lordly
function of many voices. Only re-
member that, whether the voices in
the music of service-aye, and in the
music of life itself-be few or many
your voice, however feeble-is needed.
/ have read OF great musical CON-
poser who was conducting rehear
sal of a thousand performers, when,
in the midst of one of the mighty
choruses, he suddenly threw up his
baton and exclaimed "Flageoletl" In
an instant the whole rehearsal ceased
One of the fageolets had stopped
and the keen cared conductor missed
it; its absence spoilt the complete
ness of the performance. All! it is
even so in the mighty chorus of life
in Gods universe. If your music
cease, be it but as
The Thin sound of the Flageolet.
something will be wanting to the
chorus of creation in the ear of God.
He will miss his little human praise.
Perhaps you may have heard the
strange sound of the wind when it
sweeps over brown leagues of wintry
moor. There is in that sound pc
culiar element. What is iti / will
tell you. 1t is the commingled MUIR