Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1901-02-11

enough to stop street car one block
| away, all they can afford in the praise
| Of God is about half a whisper. With
enough sopranos, enough altos, enough
bassos to make a small heaven be-
tween the four walls, they let the op-
| portunity go by unimproved. The vol
ume of voice that ascends from the
largest audience that ever assembled
ought to be multiplied about two thou
sandfo1d. But the minister rises and
gives out the hymn, the organ begins,
the choir or precentor leads, the audi
ence are standing so that the lungs
may have full expansion, and a mighty
harmony is about to ascend when the
evil spirit spoken of in my text-the
dumb devil-spreads his two wings,
one over the lips of one-half the audi
ence and the other wing over the lips
of the other half Of the audience, and
the voices roll back into the Threats
from which they started, and only
here and there anything is heard, and
stroyed, and the dumb devil, as he
flies away, says, 81 could not keep
Isaac Watts from writing that hymn,
and L could not keep Lowell Mason
from composing the tune to which it is
set, but I smote into silence or half
silence the lips from which it would
have spread abroad to bless neighbour
hoods and cities and then mount the
wide open heavens Give the long
meter doxology the full support of
Christendom and those four lines
would take the whole earth for God.
The Power of Song.
During the cotton famine in Lanca-
shire, England, when the suffering was
something terrific, as the first wagon
load of cotton rolled in the starving
people unlocked the horses and drew
the load themselves, singing until all
Lancashire joined in with triumphant
voices, their cheeks sopping with tears,
''Praise God, from whom all bless
ings flow" When Commodore Perry,
with his warship, the Mississippi, lay
off the coast of Japan, he bombarded
the shores with "Old Hundredth" play
ed by the marine band. Glorious "Old
Hundredth," composed by William
Franc of Germany! In a war prison at
10 o'clock at night, the poor fellows far
from home and wounded and sick and
dying, one prisoner started the "Old
Hundredth DoXOlogy," and then a score
of voices Joined, then all the prisoners
on all the floors took up the acclaim I'M
til the building, from foundation to top
stone, fairly quaked with the melodious
Inscription. A British man-of-war lying
off a foreign coast heard a voice sing
ing that doxology and Immediately
,,<-l~4 L111 -
was an Englishman in captivity to the
Mohammedans. and in the small boats
the sailors rowed to shore and burst
into a guardhouse and set the captive
free. | do not know what tune the
trumpets of resurrection shall play, but
it may be the doxology which is now
sounding across Christendom. How
much more hearty we would be in our
songs and how easily we could drive
back the dumb devil from all our wor
Shipping assemblages if we could realize
that nearly all our hymns have a STIR
ring history. That glorious hymn,
'Stand Up For Jesus" was suggested
by the last words of Dudley Tying, who
was dying from having his right arm
torn off by a thrashing machine. That
hymn. "What a Friend We Have In Je-
sus,'' heard through a telephone, con-
verted an obdurate soul. "Shall We
Gather at the River?" was q hymn first
sung in Brooklyn Prospect park at the
children's May anniversary and then
started to encircle the world. "Where
Is My Wandering Boy Tonight?'' is
song that has saved hundreds of dissf-
pated young men.
Tom, the drummer boy in the army,
was found crying, and an officer asked
him what was the matter. "Oh," he
said, 81 had a dream last night. My
sister died ten years ago, and my moth
er never was herself again, and she
died soon after. Last night I dreamed
I was killed in battle and that mother
and sister came down to meet me-"
After the next battle was over some
one crossing the field heard a voice
that he recognized as the voice of Tom,
the drummer boy, singing, "Jesus,
Lover of My Soul" But at the end Of !
the first verse the voice became very
feeble, and at the end of the second
verse it stopped. and they went up and |
found Tom, the drummer boy, leaning
against a stump and dead.
Drive Out the Dumb Devil.
That hymn 80 For a Thousand
Tongues to Sing was suggested to
Charles Wesley by Peter Boiler, who,
after his conversion, said, 81 had better
keep silent about it," "No," said Wes-
ley. eff you had 10000 tongues, you
had better use them for Christ" And
then that angel Of hymnology penned
the words:
Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing
My dear Redeemers praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of his graeei
Jesus. the name that Gains our fears,
That bids our sorrows cease;