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i BUSINESS 989 blessing should be kept undefiled; we should strive to know and understand the beauty of it, to appreciate its nobility, to respond to its gayety and to grasp its pathos. Do you recall what John G. Paton said about the effect of music on the can nibals of the New Hebrides? After attending a convention of ministers in Ire land, where the question of music in the church service was being discussed pro and con, he said: “No one was once more opposed to music in the worship of God, especially instru mental music, than I had been, but the Lord who made us and knows the nature He has given us had long before shown me otherwise. A trip to the South Sea Islands and a revelation of how God used the music of harmonium and hymn, as wings on which the Gospel was borne into the hearts of cannibals, would have opened the eyes of. these dear brethren as it has opened mine.” How many, many times this testimony could be duplicated, and under innumerable varieties of circumstances! Battles have been won, faint hearts buoyed up, and sor row itself alleviated, all through the agency of music. Shall we then co-operate with the spirit of the times, “despising that which is good,” and desecrate this noble art, this marvel lous blessing of God to men? Or shall we as Christians carefully guard our homes and lives from the wiles of the evil one by sharply defining the line of demarcation between the good and the bad, the noble and the trivial, the merely entertaining and the spiritually uplifting? Then, and then only can we grow in appreciation and understanding of the wonders of music and as we learn to value it at its true worth we shall understand why God has given it a place throughout eternity in Heaven.
' THE KING’ of the masses, the untrained layman in music? Can he be expected to receive a Bach fugue with unalloyed joy? Certainly not, for music is a language and he is still in the “cat-is-on-the-mat” stage of musical development; unless he understands, natur ally he cannot enjoy it. But between the intellectual heights of Bach, of Beethoven, of Brahms, and the worthless sham of the modern “popular” music lies an immense field of worthy music containing the noblest sentiment and the most spiritual uplift— much of it sublime in its simplicity and within the mental grasp of the masses. The one who listens to good music only, uncon sciously grows in his miftical appreciation and taste. Isn’t it strange that in these days of pianolas and talking machines and sym phony orchestras, when so much of the best music is within easy reach of even the musically untrained, that we do not choose the worthy? We are careful in training our children in literature; we say they must not read the trashy stories, that their minds are peculiarly sensitive and receptive in youth, and that they should read only the best; but we allow them to hear the worst in music, nay we encourage them in this perversion of their musical taste and then wonder why they prefer the music of the dance-hall to that of the symphony orches tra and the oratorio chorus. Why should the professed Christian allow the vulgar and sometimes evil influence of modern “popular” music to be fostered in his home? Will not God demand a strict accountability for the things we allow in our homes? Next to the grace of God, what is so unfathomable as the art of music? Almost universal in its appeal, acceptable to babe and to sage, intangible and indefinite yet beautiful and uplifting, this God-given
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