Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-07-02

free TOT all anu asked IdCu0l 10 sing.
Rachel Winslow had grown into
very strong, healthful, humble Chris
tan during that wonderful year in
Raymond dating from the Sunday
when she first took the pledge to do as
Jesus would do, and her great talent of
song had been fully consecrated to the
service of her Master. When she began
to sing tonight at this settlement meet
ing, she had never prayed more deeply
for rssults to come from her voice-the
voice which she now regarded as the
Masters to be used for him.
Certainly her prayer was being an
swered as she sang. She had chosen the
words:
Hark, the voice Of Jesus calling,
Follow me, follow me!
Again Henry Maxwell, sitting there,
was reminded of his first night at the
Rectangle in the tent when Rachel sang
the people into quiet The effect was
the same here. What wonderful power
a good voice consecrated to the Masters
service always isl Rachel's great nat
ural ability would have made her one
of the foremost opera singers of the age.
Surely this audience had never before
heard such melody. How could it? The
men who had drifted in from the street
sat entranced by voice which ''back
in the world never could be heard by
the common people because the owner
of it would charge So or So for the
privilege. The song poured out through
the hall as free and glad as if it were
foretaste of salvation itself.
Carlson, with his great black bearded
face, absorbed the music with the deep
love of it peculiar to his nationality,
and tear ran over his cheek and glis-
tened in his beard as his face softened
and became almost noble in its aspect.
The man out of work who had wanted
to know what Jesus would do in his
place sat with grimy hand on the back
of the bench in front of him, with his
mouth partly open, his great tragedy
for the moment forgotten. The song
while it lasted was food and work and
warmth and union with his wife and
babies once more. The man who had
spoken so fercely against the churches
and the ministers sat with his head
erect at first, with look of stolid re-
sistance, as if he stubbornly resented
anything that was even remotely con-
nected with the church or it's form of
worship, but gradually he yielded to
the power that was swaying the hearts
of all the persons in that room, and
look OF sad thong htfulness crept over
his face.
The bishop said to himself that night
while Rachel was singing that if the
world Of sinful, diseased, depraved, lost
humanity could only have the gospel
preached to it by consecrated prima
donnas and professional tenors and altos
and bassos he believed it would hasten
the coming of the kingdom quicker
than any other one force. ''Why, oh,
why" he cried in his heart as he lis
tened, ''has the world great treasure in
song been so often held far from the
poor because the personal possessor of
voice or fingers capable of stirring di-
vinest melody has so often regarded the
gift as something with which to make
money? Shall there be no martyrs
among the gifted ones of the earth?
Shall there be no giving of this great
gift as well as of others?''
And Henry Maxwell again, as before,
called up that other audience at the
Rectangle, with increasing longing for
a larger spread of the new discipleship.
What he had seen ana heard at the set
Element burned into him deeper the be-
lief that the problem Of the city would
be solved If the Christians in it should
once follow Jesus as he gave command
ment But what of this great mass of
humanity, neglected and sinful, the
very kind of humanity the Saviour
came to save, with all its mistakes and
narrowness, it's Indebtedness and loss
of hope-above all, it's unqualified bit
terness toward the church? That was
what smote Henry Maxwell deepest.
Was the church, then so far from the
Master that the people no longer found
him in the church? Was it true that
the church had lost it's power over the
very kind Of humanity which in the
early ages of Christianity it reached in
the greatest numbers? How much was
true in what the socialist leader said
about the uselessness of looking to the
church for reform or redemption be-
cause of the selfshness and seclusion
and aristocracy of it's members?
He was more and more impressed
with the appalling fact that the COM
paratively few men in the hall, now
being held quiet for awhile by Rachel's
voice, represented thousands of others
just like them, to whom church and
a minister stood for less than a saloon
or beer garden as a source Of comfort
or happiness Ought it to be so? If the
church members were all doing as Jesus
would do, could it remain true that
armies of men would walk the streets
for jobs and hundreds of them curse
the church and thousands of them find
in the saloon their best friend? How