The Monitor-register., 1897-10-01

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. 1 would to God that you
would take these songs Of salvation as
messages from heaven, for just as GER
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
jahi
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 Franeli came and discoursed
music for three or foHr 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 ont of you.
1t also arouses to action. Do you not
know that a singing church is always a
triumphant church? If a congregation
is silent during the exercise, or partially
silent, it is the silence of death. Ii
when the hymn is given out you hear
the faint hum of here and there a father
and mother in Israel, while the vast
majority are silent, that minister of
Christ who is presiding needs to have q
very strong constitution if he does not
get the chills. He needs not only the
grace of God, but nerves like whalebone.
1t 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. 1 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 it in olden time? Cajetan
said, Luther conquered us by his
songs"
But 1 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
lied, and lawfully SO. The drawing
room, the concert, by the gratifica-
ton of pure taste and the produc-
ton of harmless amusement and the
improvement of talent, have become
very forces in the. advancement Of u
civilization. Music has as much right
to laugh in Surrey gardens as it has to
pray i'll St. Paul'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 i'm
pressed into the service of error. Tar
TIM, 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.