March 1932
113
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” Singing will break down barriers unsurmountable. Phillips Brooks had about two hundred and fifty great hymns committed to memory when he entered college, and his biographers say of him that these hymns committed to memory did more for Phillips Brooks in making him a lover of men and children, and in influencing his every' ser mon, than anything else in his life. Let us start today and give to ourselves and to those un der our care that great part of our spiritual birthright, even the great hymns of the church. P Discipline orpora , one of the most illustrious masters of music in Italy, conceived a friendship for a young pupil, and
asked him if he had courage to persevere with constancy in the course he should mark out for him, however wearisome it should seem. When the pupil answered in the affirmative, Porpora wrote upon a single page of ruled paper the diatonic and chromatic scales, ascending and de scending, the intervals of the third, fourth, and fifth, etc., in order to teach him to take them with freedom, and to sustain the sounds, together with the trills, groups, appog- giaturas and passages of vocalization of different kinds. This page occupied both the master and scholar during an entire year; and the following year was also devoted to it. When the third year commenced, nothing was said of changing the lesson, and the pupil began to murmur; but the master reminded him of his promise. The fourth year slipped away, the fifth followed, and they were always at the one eternal page. The sixth found them at the same task; but the master added to it some lessons in articula tion, pronunciation, and lastly in declamation. At the end
of this year, the pupil, who supposed himself still in the elements, was much surprised, when one day the master said to him, “Go, my son, you have nothing more to learn; you are the first singer of Italy and of the world.” He spoke the truth, for this singer was none other than the celebrated Gaetano Caf- farelli, who was born at Naples in 1703, and died in 1783. The above anecdote of him is recorded in Fetis’s History of Music. Such an anecdote as this, like a parable, well illustrates the Lord’s ways with us. As Caffarelli was told by his master, “You have nothing more to learn; you are the first singer of Italy and of the world,” so we, in the higher sense, having learned our lesson, shall find one day to our joy and amazement that we are per fect musicians. And oh, what a song will be ours! Such strains as no ear ever listened to before—telling out, as they will do, the praises of Him who is infinitely worthy, who was slain, who has redeemed us from death by His blood, and with whom our God and Father has assigned to us, poor creatures of the dust, the nearest place to Him, the Son of His love, in that circle of glory and blessedness, of Which He, in “that day” (2 Tim. 1 :12) will be both the light and the center. —-Q uarterly of th e S cripture T estimony L eague . - Illustrations from Music Some of Dr. F. B. Meyer’s most telling illustrations were concerned with music. One day, in the course of an address, he stooped down and picked up a broken violin string, cast at his feet by a member of the orchestra. With the broken string in his hand, he spoke of how a broken life may, by the grace of God, be restored to harmony, and a despairing vio linist in the audience saw the truth and was saved. Another favorite illustration was that of a child tinkling at a piano in a boarding house one morning before the guests were astir. A clever musician entered the room and, taking the child on his knees, allowed her to finger the keyboard as she wished, himself adding such wondrous chords as to astound all who listened.
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