Part 4
That afternoon little work was done in the workshops, few lessons were learned in the schools, all the routine of household habits was interrupted. And when it grew dark, the Great Square was filled with people who were afraid to separate and go to bed without the sanction of the cathedral chimes. Many foreboded some terrible disaster to the city, and some thought the end of the world was come.
But when it was dark, a sound very weird and strange, yet with a music like the old familiar tones, came from the church-tower, as it rose dim and grand against the starry sky. It was a voice, not human, yet with a strange likeness to a human voice, silvery as a stream, thrilling as a battle-trumpet, familiar to each listener as his own, like the blended voices of a spirit and a bell.
"We have borne it too long," said the bell-voice. "We were set here on high for other purposes than men have put us to. Is not this a cathedral, a sanctuary, and a shrine, sacred with the dust of martyrs, and dedicated to the service of Heaven? Were not we christened like immortals? Were not we consecrated like priests? The touch of holy hands is on us, and shall we be debased to secular uses? Set apart like sacred ministers in a sacred dwelling, shall we be required to mingle in the common circumstances of your daily life? Raised on high to be near the heavens we serve, shall our saintly voices serve to tell you when to eat and sleep?
"We have borne it too long. We will still serve Heaven, and summon you on Sundays and Holydays. We will call you to the solemn services of the Church. We will, if necessary, sound a triumphant peal on days of national thanksgiving, in remembrance of the Victory which first awoke us into music. We will even condescend to ring at your weddings—because marriage is a sacrament—and at your baptisms. We will toll solemnly when your spirits pass from earth, and when your bodies are laid in the churchyard we have seen slowly raised with the dust of your dying generations.
"But henceforth expect us not to do work which your commonest house-clocks can do as well. Let your eight-day clocks—your gilded time-pieces—call you to work, and eat, and rest. We are sacred things, set solemnly apart from all secular uses. Our business is with Eternity, and the Church, and Heaven. Call on us no more to commune with the things of the world, and earth, and time. We are your cathedral bells, but we will be your household clock-chimes no longer."
Then the voice died away on the night air. For a few minutes there was silence, but soon it was broken by sobs and lamentations, and all the people lifted up their voice as one man, and wept.
The house-father said, "Shall we never more hear your voice calling us to morning and evening prayer? Whenever you told us it was the hour, the mother came from her work, and the children from their play, and together we knelt a united family, and committed each other to God."
And the mother said, "Your voices are blended with every happy household time. Sweet bells, will you mingle with our family joys no more? In the morning you wakened us to begin another busy day, and the sun's beams and your voices came together to call us to serve God in our lowly calling; and both, we thought, came to us from heaven; and both, we thought, were meek and lowly, and ready to minister to us in our daily lives, because both were sent from Him who came among us once, not to be ministered unto, but to minister; and both, we thought, had caught something of the light of the eyes which wept at Bethany, and of the tones of the voice which spoke at Cana and at Nain.
"At mid-day you told me it was time to send the dinner to my husband and my elder sons. At six your voice was welcome to us all, because we knew the father's step would soon be on the threshold. At eight you reminded me it was time to lay the little ones to rest, and many a time have you brought happy and holy thoughts to me in those psalms you sang to me whilst I hushed my babes to sleep; and all my everyday life seemed to be more linked with sacred things, to become, as it were, a part of the service of God, because it moved to the music of your voices.
"And again at night your tones were welcome, as in the morning, when they told us the day's work was over, and, wearied, we lay down to peaceful rest. For through the night we knew your sacred voices would sound to Heaven above our sleeping city, like the voices of the angels, who rest not day nor night, saying, Holy, holy, holy. Sweet bells, will you never chime for us again?"
And the children said, in their clear, sweet, ringing voices, "Dear chimes, do not cease to play to us. You wake us to the happy day, you set us free from school, and send us home laughing and dancing for joy; you call our fathers home to us, at night you sing us to sleep, and your voices are blended with our mothers' in our happy dreams. Sweet chimes, you sang so many years to our fathers and mothers; and our grandfathers remember you when they were little children like us. Dear chimes, sing to us still."
And from the sick-chamber, which looked into the cathedral square, where the windows were darkened all day, and sand was strewn before the door, that the din of the passing wheels might jar less roughly on the aching head within, came a low and plaintive voice,—"Sweet bells, your commonest tones are sacred to me. You are my church music, the only church music I can ever hear. When I hear you chime the hour on Sundays and on the festivals, I feel myself among the multitude within your sacred walls, and your voice seems to bear their songs of praise to me, and I am no more alone, but one of the worshippers.
"But at night it is I prize you most. All through the hours of darkness, so often sleepless to me, your voice is the voice of a friend, familiar as my mother's, yet solemn as the chants of the choir. It helps me to measure off the hours of pain, and say, 'Thank God, an hour less of night, and an hour nearer morning.' And how often, when my suffering is great, you have come with the old psalm-tune, and every tone has brought its word to me, and spoken to me as if direct from God, and filled my heart with trust and peace! Your least sprinkles of sweet sound are precious to me. I fancy they are like the waters of time falling musically from stone to stone on their way to the great sea. I feel they are as the echoes of the footsteps of Him who is drawing nearer and nearer to me, and they draw my heart nearer to Him.
"Sweet bells, your commonest tones are sacred, for what is the world but that which becomes the Church when it learns how God has loved it, and turns from self to Him? And what is Earth but the floor of Heaven, which heavenly feet once trod? And what is Time but the little fragment of Eternity in which we live on earth? Sweet bells, make not my sleepless nights lonely and silent, but sing to me, sing to us all, as of old. Make all our life sacred by linking every fragment of our life to God."
But still no responsive sound came from the cathedral tower, and the people waited on in the silence and the darkness. At last a young priest, an Augustinian friar, ventured a bold suggestion:
"Are not the devils proud, and the angels lowly? Did the angel think it beneath him to say to Elijah, 'Arise, and eat?' Did Gabriel hesitate to descend from the presence of God to bear to an aged priest the tidings of the birth of a child? Did that other angel deem it secular to say to Peter the apostle, 'Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals, and cast thy garment about thee,' before he led him over the stony streets through the cold night air? And should our cathedral bells scorn to bid us 'rise and eat,' or to chime at our births, or to summon us to 'gird and clothe' ourselves for every day's work? Brethren, proud thoughts, and scorn of daily service, and voices which call our everyday life common and unclean, are not from Heaven. The bells are possessed by a proud and evil spirit. Let us exorcise them."
The suggestion at first startled the people as daring, and irreverent to the church bells, but in their despair, they at length agreed to try it. A solemn procession of priests and holy men and women mounted the cathedral tower, and, in ancient formulas, with prayer and incense, and the music of holy hymns, they exorcised the fiend.
Then at once a tide of pent-up music flowed from the liberated bells. They conscientiously rang out all at once every hour and half-hour they had omitted, and then meekly and steadily resumed their wonted chimes, and continued them ever afterwards, like voices of happy and lowly angels calling men to wake and pray, to "rise and eat," to pray and rest, cheering the workman to his daily labour, and welcoming him from it, chanting to the mother as she lulled her babe, and in the sick-chamber soothing the lonely hours with melodious sound, and waking in the lonely heart sweet echoes of the psalms of praise.
Here the Legend ended. I heard, however, afterwards that the young priest, the Augustinian friar, lived to spread Glad Tidings through the city, but that he was at last burned in the cathedral square for preaching to men what he had said about the church bells. Yet in the flames, it was said, he looked up to the cathedral tower, and sang the words of a psalm of praise the old bells were chiming, till his voice was silenced in death. And ever since, the chimes have taken up his message, and chant to those who will listen, hour by hour.
"'Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.'"
What Makes Things Musical?
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WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?
"THE SUN!" said the Forest. "In the night I am still and voiceless. A weight of silence lies upon my heart. If you pass through me, the sound of your own footstep echoes fearfully, like the footfall of a ghost. If you speak to break the spell, the silence closes in on your words, like the ocean on a pebble you throw into it. The wind sighs far-off among the branches, as if he were hushing his breath to listen. If a little bird chirps uneasily in its nest, it is silenced before you can find out whence the sound came.
"But the dawn breaks. Before a gray streak can be seen, my trees feel it, and quiver through every old trunk and tiny twig with joy; my birds feel it, and stir dreamily in their nests, as if they were just murmuring to each other, 'How comfortable we are!'
"Then the wind awakes, and tunes my trees for the concert, striking his hand across one and another, until all their varied harmonies are astir; the soft, liquid rustlings of my oaks and beeches make the rich treble to the deep, plaintive tones of my pines. Then my early birds awake one by one, and answer each other in sweet responses, until the Sun rises, and the whole joyous chorus bursts into song to the organ and flute accompaniments of my evergreens and summer leaves. And in the pauses, countless happy insects chirp, and buzz, and whirl with contented murmuring among my ferns and flower-bells. The SUN makes me musical," said the Forest.
WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?
"STORMS!" said the Sea. "In calm weather I lie still and sleep, or, now and then, say a few quiet words to the beaches I ripple on, or the boats which glide through my waters. But in the tempest you learn what my voice is, when all my slumbering powers awake, and I thunder through the caverns, and rush with all my battle-music on the rocks, whilst, between the grand artillery of my breakers, the wind peals its wild trumpet-peals, and the waters rush back to my breast from the cliffs they have scaled, in torrents and cascades, like the voices of a thousand rivers. My music is battle-music. STORMS make me musical," said the Sea.
WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?
"ACTION!" said the Stream. "I lay still in my mountain-cradle for a long while. It is very silent up there. Occasionally the shadow of an eagle swept across me with a wild cry; but generally, from morning till night, I knew no change save the shadows of my rocky cradle, which went round steadily with the sun, and the shadows of the clouds, which glided across me, without my ever knowing whence or whither. But the rocks and clouds are very silent. The singing-birds did not venture so high; and the insects had nothing to tempt them near me, because no honied flower-bells bent over me there—nothing but little mosses and gray lichens, and these, though very lovely, are quiet creatures, and make no stir.
"I used to find it monotonous sometimes, and longed to have power to wake the hills; and I should have found it more so, had I not felt I was growing, and should flow forth to bless the fields by and by. Every drop that fell into my rocky basin I welcomed. And, at last, the spring rains came, and all my rocks sent me down little rills on every side, and the snows melted into my cup; and, at last, I rose beyond the rim of my dwelling, and was free.
"Then I danced down over the hills, and sang as I went, till all the lonely places were glad with my voice; and I tinkled over the stones like bells, and crept among my cresses like fairy flutes, and dashed over the rocks and plunged into the pools with all my endless harmonies. ACTION makes me musical," said the Stream.
WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?
"SUFFERING!" said the Harp-strings. "We were dull lumps of silver and copper-ore in the mines; and no silence on the living, sunny earth is like the blank of voiceless ages in those dead and sunless depths. But, since then, we have passed through many fires. The hidden earth-fires underneath the mountains first moulded us, millenniums since, to ore; and then, in these last years, human hands have finished the training which makes us what we are.
"We have been smelted in furnaces heated seven times, till all our dross was gone; and then we have been drawn out on the rack, and hammered and fused, and, at last, stretched on these wooden frames, and drawn tighter and tighter, until we wonder at ourselves, and at the gentle hand which strikes such rich and wondrous chords and melodies from us—from us, who were once silent lumps of ore in the silent mines. Fires and blows have done it for us. SUFFERING has made us musical," said the Harp-strings.
WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?
"UNION!" said the Rocks. "What could be less musical than we, as we rose in bare crags from the hill-tops, or lay strewn about in huge isolated boulders in the valleys? The trees which sprang from our crevices had each its voice; the forests which clothed our sides had all these voices blended in richest harmonies when the wind touched them; the streams which gushed from our stony hearts sang joyous carols to us all day and all night long; the grasses and wild-flowers which clasped their tiny fingers round us had each some sweet murmur of delight as the breezes played with them; but we, who ever thought there was music in us?
"Yet now a human hand has gathered us from moor and mountain and lonely fell, and side by side we lie and give out music to the hand that strikes us. Thus we, who had lain for centuries unconscious that there was a note of music in our hearts, answer one another in melodious tones, and combine in rich chords, just because we have been brought together. UNION makes us musical," said the Rocks.
WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?
"LIFE!" said the Oak-beam in the good ship. "I know it by its loss. Once I quivered in the forest at the touch of every breeze. Every living leaf of mine had melody, and all together made a stream of many-voiced music; whilst around me were countless living trees like myself, who woke at every dawn to a chorus in the morning breeze. But since the axe was laid at our roots, all the music has gone from our branches. We are useful still, they say, in the gallant ship, and our country mentions us with honour even in death; but the music has gone from us with life for ever, and we can only groan and creak in the storms. LIFE made us musical," said the Oak-beam.
WHAT MAKES CREATURES MUSICAL?
"JOY!" laughed the Children, and their happy laughter pealed through the sweet fresh air as they bounded over the fields, as if it had caught the most musical tones of everything musical in nature,—the ripple of waves, the tinkling of brooks, the morning songs of birds. "JOY makes creatures musical," said the Children.
WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?
"LOVE!" said the little Thrush, as he warbled to his mate on the spring morning, and the Mother, as she sang soft lullabies to her babe. And all the Creatures said—
"Amen! LOVE makes us musical. In Storms and Sunshine, Suffering and Joy, Action, Union, Life, LOVE is the music at the heart of all. LOVE makes us musical," said all the Creatures.
And from the multitude before the throne, who, through fires of Tribulation and Storms of conflict, had learned the new song, and from depths of Darkness and the silence of Isolation had been brought together in the Light of Life to sing it, floated down a soft "Amen, for GOD is LOVE."
The Acorn.
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"WHEN will my training begin?" said the acorn to itself, as it unfolded its delicately-carved cup and saucer on the branch of an old oak on the edge of a forest. "I understand I am to be an oak one day, like my father. All the acorns say that is what we are to be, but there certainly seems little chance of it at present. I have been sitting here for no one knows how many days, and I feel no change, except that I look less pretty than I did when I was young and green, and begin to feel rather dry, and shrivelled, and old. At this rate, I do not see much chance of my becoming an oak, or anything else but an old, dry acorn. When will my training begin?"
As it meditated thus, a strong breeze sighed mournfully through the autumn woods, and shook down many brown leaves from the old oak, and with them the acorn.
"This will hinder my progress again," thought the acorn, "for it is evident such a downfall as this can have nothing to do with my education. When will my training begin?"
A day or two afterwards, a drove of hogs was turned into the forest, and they began grunting and grubbing among the dead leaves for acorns. Many of its brethren did our acorn see ruthlessly hurried into those voracious snouts. It kept very quiet under the dead leaves to avoid a similar fate, but it thought—"This is a sad delay. It is too plain that being trampled on and tossed about in this way can teach no one anything. When will my training begin?"
Meanwhile, the swine rummaged among the dead leaves, and trod them under foot, and tossed the decaying mould hither and thither with their snouts and feet, until one of them by accident rolled our acorn down a little hill, where it lay buried under some stray leaves many yards from the edge of the forest, in the outskirts of a park. There it lay unobserved all the rest of the winter.
Even this was a pleasant change after having been tossed about and trodden under foot so long, but in its fall its shrivelled brown skin had cracked, and the acorn thought—"This is a sad disaster. How ever am I to grow into an oak when I am so crushed and cracked that scarcely any one would recognise me for an acorn? When will my training begin?"
All the winter the rain pattered on it, and sank it deeper and deeper under the dead leaves and under the earth-clods, until all its acorn beauty was marred and crushed out of it, and it fell asleep in the dark, under the cold, damp earth; and the snows came and folded it in under their white, eiderdown pillows. At last, the warm touch, that comes to all sleeping nature in the spring, came softly on it, and it awoke.
"What a pity," it said, "I should have lost so much time by falling asleep! I can scarcely make out what I am like, or where I am. What a sad waste of time! It is clear no one can go on with his education in sleep. When will my training begin?"
With these thoughts, it stretched out two little green things on each side of it, which felt like wings; and tried to peep out of its hole. And, to its delight, it succeeded, and, with a few more efforts, even contrived to keep its head steadily above ground, and look around it.
"There is my father, the old oak," it said. "He looks quite green again. But I am a long way off from him, and how very small and close to the ground! When shall I begin to be like him?"
But meantime it was very happy. It felt so full of life, although so small; and the sun shone so graciously on it, and all the showers and dews seemed so full of kindly desires to help and nourish it. And more and more little green leaves expanded from its sides, and more and snore little busy roots shot down into the earth, and the leaves breathed and drank in the sunshine, and the roots were great chemists and cooks, and concocted a perpetual feast for it out of the earth and stones.
But it thought sometimes, "This is all exceedingly pleasant, and I am very happy; but, of course, this is not education; it is only enjoying myself. When will my training begin?"
The next spring, the early frosts had much more power over it in its detached, exposed situation than over the saplings in the shelter of the forest. And it saw the trees in the wood growing green, and tempting the song-birds beneath their leafy tents, whilst the sap still flowed feebly upward through its tiny cells, and its twigs and leaf-buds were still brown and hard.
"This must be a great hindrance to me," it thought—"this, no doubt, will retard my education considerably. What a pity I stand here so detached and unprotected! When will my training begin?"