Connecticut western news., 1897-09-30

and as he began to sing the dying sol dier turned over on his pillow and said to the minister, Where did you learn thatY" Why" replied the minister, "my mother taught me that. " "So did mine," 7" said the dying soldier, and the very foundation of his heart was up turned, and then and there he yielded himself to Christ. Oh, it has an ire sistible powerl Luther's sermons have been forgotten, but his Judgment Hymn" sings on through the ages and will keep on singing until the blast of the archangel's trumpet shall bring about that very day which the hymn celebrates I would to God that you would take these songs of salvation as messages from heaven, for just as cer- tainly as the birds brought food to Eli jah by the brook Cherith so these wing ed harmonies, God sent are flying to your soul with the bread of life. Open your mouth and take it, O hungry Eli jahl
 Soothing Music.
 I have also noticed the power of sa cred song to soothe perturbation. You may have come in here with a great many worriments and anxieties, yet perhaps in the singing of the first hymn you lost them all. You have read In the Bible of Saul, and how he was sad and angry and how the boy David came in and played the evil spirit out of him. A Spanish king was melancholy. The windows were all closed. He sat in the darkness. Nothing could bring him forth until Franei came and discoursed music for three or four days to him. On the fourth day he looked up and wept and rejoiced, and the windows were thrown open and that which all the splendors of the court could not do the power of song accomplished If you have anxieties and worriments, try this heavenly charm upon them. Do not sit down on the bank of the hymn, but plunge in, that the devil of care may be brought out of you.
 It also arouses to action. Do you not know that 8 singing church is always 2 triumphant church? If congregation is silent during the exercise, or partially silent, it is the silence of death. If when the hymn is given out you hear bu6 lh1ub LII hOl 70 duA bllOlO Q 1dbhOI and mother in Israel, while the vast majority are silent, that minister of Christ who is presiding needs to have a very strong constitution if he does not get the chills. He needs not only the grace of God, but nerves like whalebone. It is amazing how some people with voice enough to discharge all their du- ties in the world, when they come into the house of God have no voice to dis charge this duty. really believe that If the church of Christ could rise up and sing as it ought to sing, where we have 100 souls brought into the king dom of Christ there would be 1000. How was 1t in olden timer Cajetan said, "Luther conquered us by his songs"
 But must now speak of some of the obstacles in the way of the advancement of this sacred music, and the first is that it has been impressed into the serv- ice of satan. am far from believing that music ought always to be positive ly religious. Refined art has opened places where music has been secular ized, and lawfully SO. The drawing room, the concert, by the gratifica- ton of pure taste and the produc- tion of harmless amusement and the improvement of talent, have become very forces in the advancement of our civilization. Music has as much right to laugh in Surrey gardens as it has to pray in St. Pau1's. In the kindgom of nature we have the glad fling of the wind as we'll as the long meter psalm of the thunder. But, while all this is so, every observer has noticed that this art, which God intended for the improve ment of the ear, and the voice, and the head, and the heart, has often been inn pressed into the service of error. Tar tini, the musical composer, dreamed one night that satan snatched from his hand an instrument and played upon it something very sweet-a dream that has often been fulfilled in our day-the voice and the instruments that ought to have been devoted to Christ captured from the church and applied to the pur- poses of sin.
 Fear of Criticism.
 Another obstacle has been an inordi- nate fear of criticism. The vast majority of people singing in church never want anybody else to hear them sing. Every body is waiting for somebody else to do his duty. If we all sang, then the inac- curacies that are evident when only 8 few sing would be drowned out. God asks you to do as well as you can, and then If you get the wrong pitch or keep wrong time he will forgive any de- ficienoy of the ear and imperfection of the voice. Angels will not laugh if you should lose your place in the musical scale or come in at the close bar De- hind. There are three schools of sing ing, am told-the German school, the Italian school and the French school of singing. Now would like to add a fourth school, and that is the school of Christ. The voice of 8 contrite, broken heart, although 1t may not be able to stand human criticism, makes better music to Gods ear than the most artis- tic performance when the heart is want ing. God calls on the beasts, on the cat tie, on the dragons, to praise him, and we ought not to be behind the cattle and the dragons.
 Another obstacle in the advancement of this art has been the erroneous no tion that this part of the service could be conducted by delegation. Churches have said: "Oh, what an easy time we shall havel The minister will do the preaching, and the choir will do the singing, and we will have nothing to do." And you know as well as that there are great multitude of churches all through this land where the people are not expected to sing The whole work is done by delegation of four o1 six or ten persons, and the audience are silent. In such a church in Syracuse an old elder persisted in singing, and SC the choir appointed a committee to SC and ask the elder if he would not stop. You know that in many churches the choir are expected to do all the singing, and the great mass of the people are ex. pected to be silent, and if you ute, your voice you are interfering. In that
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