Life-Music in Chorus

“Walk with thy fellow-creatures; note the hush And whisperings among them. Not a spring Or leaf but hath his morning hymn. Each bush And oak doth sing I am. Canst thou not sing?”

There is more to be said about making life a song than was said in the last chapter. Each one of us should live so as to make music in this world. This we can do by simple, cheerful obedience. He who does God’s will faithfullyeach day makes his life a song. The music is peace. It has no jarring dissonances, no anxieties, frets, or worries, no rebellings or doubts. For a child who asked him to write a song for her, Charles Kingsley once wrote: —

“My fairest child, I have no song to give you; No lark could pipe in skies so dull and gray; Yet, if you will, one quiet hint I’ll give you For every day.

I’ll tell you how to sing a clearer carol

Than lark who hails the dawn or breezy down; To earn yourself a purer poet’s laurel Than Shakespeare’s crown.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever; Do lovely things, not dream them all day long; And so make life and death and that for ever One grand, sweet song.”

But we must make music also in relations as well as singly. We do not live alone; we live in companionships, in families, in friendship’s circles, in churches, in communities. It is one thing for a singer to sing solos, and to sing expressively, truly, in perfect time, in harmonious proportion. There are no other voices then to be waited for, to hurry after, to harmonize or blend with. The soloist can sing at sweet will, without restriction or limitation or fear of clashing or jarring. But it is quite another thing for several persons to sing together, in choir or chorus, and their voices all to blend in harmony. It is necessary in this latter case that they should all have the same key and that they should sing carefully and unselfishly, each watching the others and controlling, repressing, or restraining his own voice for the sake of the effect of the whole, full music. If one sings falsely, out of tune or out of time, he mars the harmony of the chorus. If one sings without regard to the other voices, only for the display of his own, his part is out of proportion and the effect is unhappy. It requires the spirit of self-repression, self-effacement, to be one of a company of singers. One must give* up all desire for personal prominence or conspicuousness, and be content to lose one’s self in the song which all together sing.

Yet it is necessary not only that we make sweet music in our individual lives, but also that in choirs or choruses in which we may find ourselves only individual members, we do our part in making pleasing harmony. Some people are very good alone, where no other life comes in contact with theirs, where they are entirely their own master and have to think only of themselves, and where they can have their own way, who yet make most wretched business of living when they come into relations with others. Then they are selfish, tyrannical, absorbing, despotic, wilful. They will not brook suggestion, request, authority. They will not make any compromise, will not yield their own opinions, preferences, or prejudices, will not submit to any inconvenience, any sacrifice. They are good in many respects. They live morally. They do good in the world. They are even generous in certain ways, and may be refined and cultured. But they cannot live cordially with people; at least other people cannot live cordially with them. They have not the remotest conception of life with self-denials and sacrifices in it, in which others have to be considered.

But we are not good Christians until we have learned to live Christianly in relations. For example, in the family. A true marriage means the ultimate bringing of two lives into such perfect oneness that there shall not be a discord in the blended music. “They twain shall be one,” To attain this each must give up much. Neither can move on independently of the other, without thought or without self-forgetfulness. The relation is not that of master and slave, but that of love. There must be on the part of both, self-repression, self-renunciation. The aim of each must be — what always is true love’s aim — to serve the other, the deeper love to serve the more deeply. Only in perfect love which is utterly self -forgetful, can there be perfect blending of lives.

Then as a family grows up in the home, it is harder still to keep the music without dissonance, with the varying individual tastes and preferences which are disposed to assert themselves often in aggressive ways. It can be done only by keeping love always the ruling motive. But there are families that never do learn to live together lovingly. Ofttimes the harmony is spoiled by one member of the household who will not yield to the sway of unselfishness nor repress and deny self for the good of all. On the other hand, in homes that do grow into the ripeness of love, there is ofttimes one life that by its calm, true, serene peace which nothing can disturb, at length draws all the discordant elements of the household life into accord with itself and so perfects the music of the home. It takes but little things to mar the music; and it takes but the little things of love, the amenities, the thoughtfulnesses, the words in season, the gentle acts of common kindness, to make home’s music almost divinely sweet. Says George MacDonald: —

* ‘Alas! how easily things go wrong; A sigh too much or a kiss too long, And there follows a mist and a weeping rain, And life is never the same again.

Alas! how hardly things go right! 1Tis hard to watch on a summer’s night, For the sigh will come and the kiss will stay, And the summer’s night is a winter’s day.

And yet how easily things go right, If the sigh and the kiss of the winter’s night Come deep from the soul in the stronger ray That is born in the light of the winter’s day.

And things can never go badly wrong If the heart be true and the love be strong; For the mist, if it comes, and the weeping rain Will be changed by the love into sunshine again.”

In all relations the same lesson has somehow to be learned. We must learn to live with other people and live with them in harmony of love. And people are not all good and gentle. Not many of them are so self-forgetful that they are willing to do all the yielding, all the giving up or sacrificing. We must each do our share of this office of love if we are to live happily in relations. Some people’s idea of giving up is that the other person must do it all. That is what some despotic husbands in Turkey and some other places think that their wives ought to do.

In all associated life there is the same tendency to let the yielding be done by the other person. “We get along splendidly,” a man says, referring to his business, or to some associated work. “So and so is very easy to live with. He is gentle and yielding and always gives up. So I have things my own way, and we get on together beautifully.” Certainly, but that is not the Christian way of getting on together. The self-repression and self-renunciation should be mutual. “In honor preferring one another,” is St. Paul’s rule. When each person in any association of lives does this, seeking the honor and promotion of the other, not thinking of himself, the music is full of harmony. The essential thing in love is not receiving, but giving; not the desire to be helped or humored, but to help or humor.

Then, not in relations only, but in circumstances also, must we learn to make our life a song. This is not hard when all things are to our mind, when we are in prosperity, when friends surround us, when the family circle is unbroken, when health is good, when there are no crosses, and when no self-denials are required. But it is not so easy when the flow of pleasant circumstances is rudely broken, when sorrow comes, when bitter disappointment dashes away the hopes of years. Yet Christian faith can keep the music unbroken even through such experiences as these. The music is changed. It grows more tender. Its tones become deeper, tremulous sometimes, as the tears creep into them. But it is really enriched and made more sweet and beautiful.

Our lives are harps of God, but many of them do not give out their sweetest music in calm of quiet, prosperous days. It is only in the heavy storms of trial, in adversity, in sore pain or loss, that the richest, noblest music comes from our souls. Most of us have to learn our best and truest lessons in the stress of trial. In few homes is the music of the glad, tearless days so deep and rich as it is after grief has come. The household song is sweetest when the voices choke with sobbing.

We should seek to have our life so trained, so disciplined, that no sudden change of circumstances shall ever stop its music; that if we are carried suddenly out of our summer of joy to-day into a winter of grief to-morrow, the song shall still go on unbroken, the song of faith, love, peace. Paul had learned this when he could say,” I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know also how to abound.’1 Circumstances did not affect him, for the source of his peace and joy was in Christ.

How can we get these lessons? There is an old legend of an instrument that hung silent upon a castle wall. Its strings were broken.

It was covered with dust. No one understood it and no one could put it in order. But one day a stranger came to the castle. He saw the instrument on the wall. Taking it down, he quickly brushed the webs and dust from it, tenderly reset the broken strings, then played upon it.

“Then chords long silent woke beneath his touch, And hearts and voices round were strangely stilled

As deeper rolled the harmony and grand, Till all the castle with the notes was filled;

It pealed the war-notes ‘mid the conflict’s din, Then sank into a solemn requiem.

Beneath the lingers of the master hand Gladly it echoed youth’s ambitious dream;

Then, gently, like the ripples on the shore, Whispered sweet confidence in love supreme.

Changeful the theme as waves upon the sea, From low-breathed hope to psalms of victory.”

Every human life in its unrenewed state is such a harp, with broken strings, tarnished by sin. It is capable of giving forth music marvellously rich and beautiful. But first it must be restored, its strings reset; and the only one who can do this is the Maker of the harp, the

Lord Jesus Christ. Only he can bring the jangled chords of our life into tune so that when played upon they shall give forth rich music. We must, therefore, surrender our hearts to him that he may repair and restore them. Then we shall be able to make music, not in our individual lives only, but in whatsoever relations our lot may be cast, and in whatsoever circumstances it may fall to us to dwell.

11 Learn thou the noble lesson, O my soul,

To find in life’s grand symphony thy part; And seek the soul-harps in a darkened land To lay beneath the Master’s skilful hand.

For myriad souls there are, on distant shore, O’er which the dust of sin has settled deep;

Ah! could the tender Christ but brush away, And o’er the slumbering tones his fingers sweep,

A world would pause to catch the echoing chord Of music wakened ‘neath the touch of God.”