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away. The next time he said nothing about spiritual things, but at the close of a little general conversation, he asked whether he might repeat a hymn. She gave him permission rather ungraciously, and he repeated with great earnestness and pathos this hymn, "Just as I am." She turned her face to the wall and he left her without a word. The next day she sent for him, and as he entered the door she cried with a radiant face, “O Dr. McCook, I've come!" Then let him ask the choir to sing the third verse without accompaniment.

Before singing the fourth verse the minister may tell the pathetic story of the native of India whom a missionary found dying along the roadside. He found he was a Christian and his last breath whispered the words, "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." Some stray seed had fallen into even a heathen's heart and had sprung up for the eternal harvest. Let this verse be sung by the ladies of the choir and congregation.

Before the fifth verse is sung, the narrative of the dying Sunday-school teacher may be given. Taken ill away at college, she was told that she had only a few days to live. She asked to be taken home. Arrived there, she sent for her Sunday-school class, not one of whom had accepted Christ. She talked with them and urged their committing themselves to Christ with seemingly little avail. Then she began singing this hymn. One by one the scholars knelt at her bedside, and before her failing voice had whispered out the last stanza, all were in prayer and weeping, submitting themselves to the Christ whom their dying teacher had so earnestly recommended. Let the whole congregation sing the last verse softly. Properly and sympathetically done, such a rendering of the hymn cannot fail of blessed results.

Here is another hymn that it is almost blasphemy to sing carelessly and mechanically, yet how often it is the fault of the minister and leader that this sin is committed. "A great hymn by a small man" may be the introduction of "Alas, and did my Saviour bleed," for Isaac Watts was but five feet high. To the semi-ironical exclamation of a stranger, "And is this the great Dr. Watts?" he replied:

"Were I so tall to reach the pole,

Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measured by my soul;

The mind's the standard of the man.”

Then speak of the wonder that a frail little man should have risen to the conception of the tragedy on Calvary expressed in this hymn and set the great English Christian world to singing of its wondrous love, the hymn being passed on from generation to generation, until hundreds of millions have at least with their lips made the consecration of its closing stanza.

Instead of the foregoing introduction, the minister may speak in a few words of the degraded condition of current psalmody before Watts—its uncouthness, crudity, baldness and how it was transformed by the father of English hymnody. The stupendous height on which this hymn stands above the prevailing doggerel of Watts' time should be made clear, and the congregation led to the elevation of mind and spirit from which Watts looked and sang regarding the crucifixion.

Even biographical data may be used to lead up to an interested and genuine singing of this hymn. Watts was born in 1674. He began Latin at four years, Greek at nine, Hebrew at thirteen. He was a marked case of

early piety. The hymns then used disgusted him. His father jocularly remarked he should write something better. The undersized young fellow accepted the suggestion and wrote "Behold the glories of the Lamb," which is still found in many hymnals. Thus in a kindly jest began the new hymnology which has transformed the worship of every English-speaking congregation, and led to this marvellous hymn, " Alas, and did my Saviour bleed."

If the service is a popular one, the anecdotal introduction will be effective. Hammond, the great evangelist, especially among children, was converted in the midst of a general spiritual drought by the singing of this hymn. In illustration of the last stanza, the story of the little girl who was distributing gifts among her friends may be told. Asked what she was giving to Jesus, she replied, "I give myself to Him!"

A lad who was under great conviction of sin went into a hayloft and prayed all night, apparently without any mental relief. As he came down in the morning, he said, "It is all that I can do," and that moment the tide of blessing was poured out upon him.

As indicative of the unwillingness of average human nature to sing the last stanza with absolute sincerity and earnestness, the story of the stingy man may be quoted. He was much wrought upon by a great missionary address, and felt an unwonted impulse to give largely to the cause; but the habit of a lifetime still had hold upon him, and the battle was fierce. Finally, he seized his wellfilled purse and threw it vehemently into the collection box, crying out loud in his mental absorption in his inner battle, "Now squirm, ole natur'."

Of course, so elaborate and full a comment is not prac

ticable on every hymn in every service. Judgment and discrimination and adaptiveness must be applied here as elsewhere.

To some preachers such an emphasis upon the musical service will seem like a depreciation of the sermon. Quite the contrary! If the hymns are sung with the feeling and sincerity that ought to be brought to them, the congregation will have been prepared for the proper reception of the discourse. They will be like a harp that has been properly pitched and tuned, and the preacher can play upon them with a facility, with a completeness, he could secure in no other way. There will be a responsiveness of soul, a power of spiritual apprehension, a tenderness of spirit, a pliability of will, that will lighten his task and make large results tenfold more certain.

VI

THINGS TO AVOID IN CONGREGATIONAL

SINGING

N closing the consideration of this part of my subject may I indulge in a few miscellaneous warnings that seem to me important?

Perhaps no habit is so disturbing to devout minds as that of some ministers who scold if the people do not sing quite to their liking. I have known the singing of a hymn to be stopped by a minister to demand that the people sing louder and faster, when neither the hymn nor the occasion called for either noise or animation. It was clear that his only idea of successful singing was volume and stirring rapidity.

Scolding is never in place! If a people are dull and unresponsive, it is probably due to the fact that there is nothing to animate them, nothing to which to respond. Wake them, interest them, inspire them, thrill them, and they will sing with the spirit and the understanding. Scold them, and they may make a little more noise, but their singing will have less rather than more spiritual value.

I ought also to give some solemn warnings regarding the free treatment of the hymns in church service. In the first place, don't talk unless you have something to say, and can put into that something the earnest feeling you desire to develop among your people. Do not gauge the value of your remarks by their intellectual interest, but by their emotional impressiveness. Do not

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