Favorite Songs and Hymns For School and Home, page: 0138

450 Of The World's Best Songs And Hymns, With Lyrics & Sheet music for voice & piano.

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Words and Music___In the teaching of music,
great attention should be given not only to the read�ing of exercises at sight, but also to the manner and method of singing songs. It should never be for�gotten that music is a mighty power for good or evil, and for that reason the character of the music, as well as the words, is a matter of the highest impor�tance. Profanity, sometimes blasphemy, is encour�aged by the setting of sacred words to music that is most frivolous. What Herder, the great German philosopher, has said, in speaking of the influence of poetry upon the mind of a child is equally applica�ble here: "How dry and sterile some men imagine the human mind, the child's mind, to be! And what a great, excellent ideal world it would be to me, if
I ever should attempt to write songs for it! To fill
the whole youthful, child-like soul; to put songs int« it, which will generally remain in it through life and give it its tone; which will be to it lasting voices, encouraging to generous deeds and noble fame, to virtue and consolation, like the heroic ballads and stirring war songs of the ancient nations; what a great aim, what a glorious work would this be!"
The Doxology.�Wherever the English language is spoken, the stanza most frequently on the lips of Christian congregations, is the long-metre doxology. It was written by Thomas Ken, a celebrated English prelate, born in 1637. He was a man of devoted piety, broad and generous benevolence, and great firmness and loftiness of character, united with ten-
ALL TOGETHER.
Moderate.
George F. Root. Permission John Church & Company.
derness of spirit. He was one of the seven Bishops committed to the Tower for disobedience by Jame6 II., but proved his loyalty by refusing to take tho oaths to William and Mary, and was consequently deprived of his bishopric. He was regarded with the highest esteem even by his enemies, and Queen Anne, upon her accession to the throne granted him a pension. He was the author of several volumes of elaborate sermons, and of many poetical produc�tions of a religious character. Hi? morning and evening hymns are still repeated in thousands of English families. The doxology is the closing stanza of a morning hymn beginning with the familiar line, "Awake, my soul, and with the sun."
We owe a debt of gratitude to any man who has put the thought and aspirations of humanity into words that linger in our memories or voice them�selves in the popular heart, and we cannot but feel that we are rearing a monument of song in honor to the author of our peerless doxology every time we join in the grand and solemn hymn of praise, Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise him all creatures here below, Praise him above, ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.. The effect of good music is not caused by its novelty. On the contrary, it strikes us all the more forcibly the more familiar we are with it�Goethe.
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