Year: 1859

/ their slave life. They are the songs of
their captivity, and are sung with touch
ing effect No song of a concert room
ever thrilled us like one of these simple
African airs, heard afar off, in the stiffness
of Summer night. Sailing down the
Mississippi, the voyager on the deck OF the
steamer may often hear these strains, wild,
sad and tender, floating from the shore.


But it is in religion that the African
pours out his whole voice and soul. A
child in intellect, he is a child in faith.
All the revelations of the Bible have to him
startling vividness, and he will sing OF
the Judgment and the Resurrection with
terror or triumph which cannot be con-
cealed In religion he finds also an ele-
ment of freedom, which he does not find IN
his hard life and in these wild bursts of
melody he seems to give utterance to that
exultant liberty of soul which no chain can
bind, and no oppression subdue. AS hum
dreds assemble at camp-meeting in the
woods, and join in the chorus of such a
hymn as


"When can read my title clear


To mansions in the Skies"


the unimpassioned hearer is almost lifted
from his feet by the volume and majesty
of the sound. No voices of well-trained
choir in church or cathedral, no pealing
organ nor mighty anthem, ever moved us
like these voices of multitude going up
to God under the open canopy of heaven
Blessed power of music that can raise the
poor and despised above their care and
poverty. 1t is beautiful gift of God to
this oppressed race, to Tighten; their sor-
rows in the house of their bondage.


Might not our countrymen all learn a
lesson from these simple children Of Afri-
cal We are silent and reserved peo-
pie Foreigners think us tacitum and
gloomy. So we are, compared with the
European nations. The Germans sing
along the banks of the Rhine the Swiss
shepherd sings on the highest passes of the
Alps, and the peasant of the Tyrol fills his
vallies with strains wild as the peaks and
the torrents around him. But Americans,
though surrounded with everything to
make a people happy, do not show out
ward signs of uncommon cheerfulness and
content. We are an anxious, care-worn
race. Our brows are sad and gloomy
Songless and joyless, the laborer goes to
his task. This dumb silence is ungrateful
in those who have such cause for thank
fulness Americans are the most favored
people on earth, and yet they are the least
expressive in their joy, so that we almost
deserve the severe comment of a foreigner,
who, on seeing the great outward prosperi-
ty, and yet the anxious look of the people,
said that " in America there was less mise
ry, and less happiness, than in any other
country on earth"


Let us not be ashamed to learn the art
of happiness from the poor bondmen of the
South. If slaves can pour out their hearts
in melody, how ought freemen to sing If
that love of music which is Unborn in them,
could be inbred in us, it would do much
to Tighten the anxiety and care which brood
on every face, and weigh on every heart.
The spirit of music would beguile the toll
some hours, and make us cheerful and hap
py in our labor


Nor would this light and joyous heart
make us too gay, and SO lead to folly and
iIFolSy' VII lhC WOuIo PlOfC
friend to virtue and purity. The sour
and morose spirit, when it recoils from its
oppressive gloom, is apt to plunge into the
worst excesses. The absence of cheerful
buoyancy is one of the causes which drive
men into vice and sin. If every family
sung together at early morn, that lingering
melody would render their spirits more
light and elastic. With his children's
voices in his ear, the hard-working man
would go more cheerfully to his labor, and
those melodies would make his spirit sun
ny and joyous through the day.


If common domestic joys, home, health,
and fireside love, can thus fill the heart
with happiness, and cause it to break forth
into singing, surely, when that heart is
bounding with immortal hope, it may rise
to the highest strains of exultation and of
ecstacy.


Let those refuse to sing


Who never knew God,


But children of the Heavenly King,


May speak their joys abroad"


-ErangeL1St.