Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-04-02

of the child and seeing famine there
and death there, coming home from
the bakery and saying in the presence
of the little famished ones, "Oh, my
God, flour has gone up!' Yet songs in
| the night! Songs in the night! For
| the widow who goes to get the back
pay of her husband, slain by the
''sharpShoOters," and knows it is the
last help she will have, moving out of
D comfortable home in deSOlatiOn,
death turning back from the exhaust
ing cough and the pale cheek and the
lusterless eye and refusing all relief.
Yet songs in the night! Songs in the
night! For the soldier in the field hos
pital, no surgeon to bind up the gun
| shot fracture, no water for the hot lips,
no kind hand to brush away the flies
from the fresh wound, no one to take
the loving farewell, the groaning Of
others poured into his own groan, the
! blasphemy of others blowing up his
| own spirit, the condensed bitterness of
dying away from home among stran-
! gers. Yet songs in the night! Songs
in the night! "Ah," said one dying
soldier, ''tell my mother that last night
there was not one cloud between my
soul and Jesus!'' Songs in the night!
Songs in the night
Break the Silence.
This Sabbath day came. From the
affairs of 10000 churches has smoked
up the SAVIOR of sacrifice Ministers Of
| the gospel preached in plain English,
in broad Scotch, in flowing Italian, in
| harsh Choctaw. Gods people assem-
bled in Hindoo temple and Moravian
church and Quaker meeting house and
sailors bethel and kings chapel and
| high lowered cathedral. They sang,
and the song f1oated off amid the
| spice groves or struck the icebergs or
| fOated off into the western pines or
was drowned in the clamOr of the
great cities. Lumbermen sang it and
the factory girls and the children in
the Sabbath class and the trained
choirs in great assemblages. Trappers
with the same voice with which they
! shouted yesterday in the stag hunt
| and mariners with threats that only a
| few days ago sounded in the hoarse
blast of the sea hurricane, they sang it.
| One theme for the sermons. One bur-
den for the song. Jesus for the invO-
cation. Jesus for the Scripture lesson.
Jesus for the baptismal font Jesus
for the sacramento cup. Jesus for
the benediction. But the day has
gone. It rolled away on swift wheels
of light and love. Again the churches
are lighted. Tides of people again set
ting down the streets. Whole fami-
lies coming up the church aisle. We
must have one more service. What
shall we preach? What shall we read?
H. lot
be Jesus. We must have one more
song. What shall it be, children?
Aged men and women, what shall it
be? Young men and maidens, what
shall it be? If you dared to break
the silence of this auditory, there
would come up thousands of quick and
jubilant voices, crying out: 'Let it be
Jesus! Jesus! Jesusr'
We sing his birth-the barn that
sheltered him, the mother that nursed
him, the cattle that fed beside him,
the angels that woke up the shepherds,
shaking light over the midnight hills.
We sing his ministry-the tears he
wiped away from the eyes of the or
phans, the lame men that forgot their
crutches, the damsel who from the
bier bounded out into the sunlight, her
locks shaking down over the flushed
! cheek. the hungry thousands who
broke the bread as it blossOmed into
larger loaves, that miracle by which a
boy with five loaves and two fishes be-
came the sutler of a whole army. We
sing his sOrrOwS-his stone bruised
feet, his aching heart, his mountain
loneliness, his desert hunger his storm
pelted body, the eternity of anguish
that shot through his last moments
and the unreasonable ocean of tor
ment that heaved up against his cross
in one foaming, wrathful, omnipotent
surge, the sun dashed out and the
dead, shroud wrapped, breaking open
their sepulchers and rushing out to see
what was the matter. We sing his res
urrectiOn-the guard that could not
keep him, the sorrow of his disciples,
the clouds piling up on either side in
pillared splendors as he went through,
treading the painless air, higher and
higher, until he came to the foot of
the throne, and all heaven kept jubilee
at the return Of the conQueror. Oh, is
there any song more appropriate for a
Sabbath night than this song of Jesus?
Let the passersby in the street hear
it; let the angels of God carry it amidst
the thrones Sound it out through the
darkness: Jesus the night song, appro-
pirate for any hour, but especially
sweet and beautiful and blessed on
Sabbath night.
Everlasting Music.
I say once more Christ is the ever
lasting song. The very best singers
sometimes get tired; the strongest
threats sometimes gets weary, and
many who sang very sweetly do not