The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1904-12-11

sermon there is the jubilant note of the
approaching Christmas festivities, which
the preacher contends, should be charac-
terized by cheerfulness, kindness and
beheficence to the poor and the dis
dressed The text Is Psalm xevi "Oh,
sing unto the Lord new songl"
The finest of pictures is yet to be
painted; the most perfect sculpture is yet
to be chisled; the best of poems Is yet
to b penned; the sweetest and the most
inspiring of songs is yet to be composed.
We speak of the master poets, artists.
sculptors and musicians as though the
poetical and artistic deeds of the past
could never be excelled. This, however
is not true. Homer and Virgil and
Scott and Wadsworth and Burns and
Tennyson and Longfellow and Lowell
and Poe are master poets to us merely
because their poems excel in beauty OF
expression or delicacy of rythm or depth
of thought the production of all other
poets who have yet appeared. Raphael
and Leonardo da Vinel and Turner are
master artists to us merely because no
artists have yet appeared who could APP
proach them In perfection of form and
glory of color. Beethoven and Haydn
and Mozart and Chopin and Mendelssohn
and Wagner are master musicians to us
because they surpass all other musicians
in perfection of harmony and grandeur
of conception. No composers before
them and none since have attained the
mastery that they reach in their sublime
art.
But, though these old master musi-
clans are masters to us, they were not
masters to themselves. They struggled
continually to give expression to higher
and nobler conceptions that they were
never able to write. Even in their minds
there were harmonies far better than
those that they have given us. Their
masterpieces fell far short of their
ideals. In their rhapsodies and dream
lives they were continually exploring
whole realms of perfect sound harmo-
MES which were continually crying to
them: "Set me to music. Play me up
on the piano or the harp. Sing me in
solo and oratorio." The result these old
masters were continually trying to make
more perfect combinations of sound to
echo to mortal ears the strange. weird,
transcendent voices that were calling to
them out of the musical worlds of
perfection"
To imprison behind musical bars the
perfect voices which they have heard
in their strang words became to the
great musical masters a lifes passion.
One moonlight night Beethoven was
walking through one of the streets of
Bonn. Suddenly he heard from an OPEN
ed parlor window some one playing one
of his sonatas. 1t was so beautifully
rendered that the great composer enter
ed the house and, seating himself at the
piano, began to play 1t himself. Beetho-
ven seemed to be lost in dreamland. He
said, 'Iisten; 1 will improvise song to
the moonlight" Then he went on, hear
ing the voices of the unseen world and
producing them as part of his matchless
song called the Moonlight Sonata
After he had finished he rushed out of
the house, saying to his companion:
do not talk to mel Let me hasten TO
my room that I may write out that dream
of the moonlight while I yet remember
it." All great musicians, like Beethoven,
are continually reaching out for new
combinations of song They do this even
though, like Count Zinzendorf they may
have written over 1000 songs, or like
SchmolSe. they may have written over
100 pieces.
A New Song
David, the psalmist, was great musi-
cal composer He always strove to orr
climate new musical themes. II he could
not compose new ones, then he wanted to
hear what some one else had composed.
The first time Mozart heard one or
Bachs hymns played he cried out In
ECSTASY "Thank God. I learn something
absolutely newt" So David again and
again in his psalms cries out for some
thing new in musical praise. We not
only find the words of my text, Sing
unto the Lord a new song In the Nine
G.,d hnUl
Ninety eighth and in the Onehundredth
and Forty-ninth, and we also find the
same words In the book of Isaiah. The
song they long to hear will yet be sung
in the heavenly land. The Seer of Pat
mos caught the echo of 1t as he listened
to the new song that no man could learn
but the host that had been redeemed ana
stood around the throne. What exquisite
music 1t will be we cannot conceive, but
we know the the theme that will inspire
It. II Is the theme of salvation. the in
carnation of the son of God, the coming
to earth of that Divine Being whose
birth among us we are about TO cele-
brate Let the same theme inspire our
humble strains; let us even now as we
mediate on that wondorous event, at
tune our hearts to that glorious mar
mony.
orr holiday song in the first place,
should be cheerful song. 1t should
NOT be sung in a minor key; it should
not be a dirge or requiem, lament or
a dead march in SAUL" 1t should not
be an antiphony for the mathis OF the
dead; 1t should be joy on the wing; 1t
should be the chorus of Laughing Wa
ters;" it should be hosanna a hallelu-
iah, a paean, a doxology and a praise.
Tears and sobs have no place In the new
song which we should sing during our
coming holiday season. What said David
in reference to this new song-make
sad song unto the Lord? No. In seven
distinct places in the Psalm the great
singer of Israel cries, Make joyful
noise unto the Lord The first great es-
sential of our coming Christmas song
should be cheerfuIness. We should hear
1t in every sound that is uttered; we
should hear it In the loud notes; we
should hear it in the soft notes as well.
A Cheerful Message.
The new song of Moses and the Lamb
should be a cheerful song. And yet the
strange fact is that many people. when
they try to sing their gospel songs, have
the chargers which they harness to their
musical chariots walk with leaden feet
instead Of flying with the wings of the
song birds. No minister of the Lord
Jesus Christ, no Sunday school teacher,
no Christian teacher will ever make the
new songs for Christ truly tuned songs
l.