The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1912-05-31

intended the world to be black, SON.
Der and forbidding, he would not have
tinted it with so many colors, and
enriched the landscape with scenery
so beautiful and varied.
While the daily bread must al
ways be considered, and is becoming
all the while a more difficult prob
lem to be solved, we were told. ages
and ages ago, that imam cannot live
on bread alone"
/ cannot believe Lnar life was In
tended for hard work all the time,
for continual daily grind, that its
stern realities should always and for
ever be in evidence.
We must have some pleasure and
some play.
We are told that Ralph Wal
do Emerson, our country's great
philosopher and scholar, lost the pow
ers of his mind when he was six
years younger than am now because
he labored in one rut so long and so
persistently.
In his autobiography, Mr.. Charles
Darwin, author of the Descent of
Man." and other ponderous scientific
works, says:
If / had my life to live over again
Ii would have made a rule to read
some poetry and listen to some mu-
sic at least once a week, for perhaps
the parts of my brain now atrOphied
would thus have been kept active
through use. The loss of these
tastes is loss of happiness, and may
possibly be injurious to the intellect,
and more probably to moral char
acter, by enfeebling the emotional
part of our nature.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, who writes SO
breezily and delightfully."- on so many
subjects, says that "the skilled Chef
garnishes his meats with sprays OF
green" So our everyday life should
be garnished with music and flowers.
One among the first things that l
can remember when boy was about
a great church fight in our little COM
munity.
Mrs. Gilchrist, the mother of our
present governor, was then a young
and handsome woman. She is still
living and is still beautiful and act
i've.
She was not only leader of socio-
ty, but was a leader in church work,
and incidentally in church reform.
She would now be called a pro
gressive." Without, perhaps, con-
sulting the elders, she had melodian
installed into the church to assist in
the song service This was objected
to by some of the deacons and older
members, for they believed it to be
a mortal sin, a dissertation to the
building, to have musical instru-
ment in it. The hymns were lined
out, for the pious and devout beliey-
ers felt that God could not be proper
/ y worshipped in any other form.
| After hard fight the melodian won
out, and there is heard in that church
today the pipe organ and other must
cal instruments.
Churches are no longer cold, cheer
less places, the nightmare of the
young, but are made attractive and
inviting. Stoves, electric fans and
flowers are among their adornments,
vocal and instrumental music form q
chief attraction and add immensely
to the attendance and spirituality of
our public worship.
The four cardinal agencies that
gave pre-eminence to the great EN-
lpires of the past and have added to
their immortality, are: Architecture,
sculpture, painting and music.
| AS the nations of the earth gradual
| ly ascend to the higher slopes of civ
ilization these agencies will the more
and more exert their refining and pu-
rifying influences.
We are told by some of the poets
that at the dawn of creation the heav-
emily bodies sang together in sympho-
i ny, and it has taken our age, through
the invention of Marconi, to demon
strate that that were true. We now
know that music is everywhere, that
| it glides along on the waves of heat
and light, as well as ON the waves of
the sea.
Byron has beautifully said:
There is a pleasure in the painless
woods,
There is rapture on the lonely
shore,
There is society where none in
| trudes,
| By the deep sea, and music in its
roar
AS expressed by another poet: