PART II
Congressman Judd, returning from a visit to the Pacific shortly after the close of World War II, told an interesting story. In an attempt to land on Okinawa, six American soldiers were captured by the Japanese. Five of them met their death on the way back to the Japanese lines. The remaining one, for some reason unknown to himself, began to whistle, then to sing, the hymn which runs like this:
"We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing; He chastens and hastens His will to make known; The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing, Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own." His Japanese captor immediately recognized the hymn and joined him in the tune. His bayonet dropped, he relaxed, and before long the Japanese officer and the American prisoner knelt together in common prayer for suffering humanity. Then, to add wonder to surprise, the Japanese officer confessed that the only hope for Japan was the Christian message, and that Americans must bring that message to his country. Then handing his gun to the prisoner, he asked him to take him and some of his friends, who thought as he did, back to the American lines. So gathering up half a dozen others, they all marched back to become voluntary prisoners. The Christian hymn had welded them into a fellowship.
Countless times music has proved its power to prevent suicide, murder, or other tragedies! How often has it fortified those on the brink of eternity and comforted the heart aching with sorrow and bereavement!
The Roman Church feared Luther's hymnology as much as his preaching. "The whole people is singing itself into the Lutheran doctrine," complained the pope. Carlyle said of the hymn, "A mighty fortress is our God," "There is something in it like the sound of Al pine avalanches or the first murmur of an earth quake. In its vastness, a higher unison is revealed to us." Luther himself declared that, next to theology, music held the highest place of power. "It is," he said, "a discipline and a mistress of good order and good manners. She makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable."
Music soothes the infant in arms and com forts those who stand at the open grave. There is no mood, emotion, or feeling for which there is not appropriate music. Music uplifts the heart. It brings rest to tired souls, calmness to the distracted and exhausted. It stirs the deep est religious emotion, without which there can be no true worship. It carries us out of our paltry, limited, theoretical knowledge about God to an intimate understanding of the beauty of godliness. Through music, deep religious emotion is not only expressed, but also created. Music therefore speaks a language beyond that which is made articulate in speech. Music is the medium by which men of various creeds and races may understand one another.
A few years ago a great coal strike in Wales threatened almost national disaster in Britain. The situation had become so grave and the Welsh miners had become so threatening that no one in the government cared to intervene. A great colonial statesman visiting in London was asked to address the miners, in an attempt to break the deadlock or to discover some slight ray of a way out. Instead of presenting the desperate national plight and appealing to their patriotism, the statesman asked the miners to sing a song before he began his speech. Thousands of men joined in before the song was over. The musical soul of the Welsh was stirred to the depths. Even as the raging heart of Saul had been soothed by David's sweet minstrelsy, so the Welsh hearts were subdued, and under the magic power of music the tension was broken, and the Welsh miners went back to the pits.
In one reformatory in the Midwest, which houses six thousand inmates, it was learned that not one had ever had music instruction. No active professional musician has ever been committed to Sing Sing prison. I have often re marked during thirty years in our colleges that we never have difficulty with students who make a serious study of music. Music of the proper kind always refines and elevates and ennobles the character. Lord Byron spoke of that firm but gentle molding power of music in his lines:
"It softened men of iron mould, It gave them virtues not their own. No ear so dull, no soul so cold That felt not, fired not to the tune Till David's lyre grew mightier than his throne."
Plato, in the second book of the laws, found a direct relation between morality and proper music. Plutarch, the great Greek biographer of the first century after Christ, discovered that "the right molding of ingenious manners and civil conduct lies in a well-grounded musical education."
Attributes of Music
What are the attributes of music that can produce such profound effects? First of all, music is sensuous that is, it conveys a sensation, it appeals to the senses. It affects hearing as the flavor of food affects taste. Flavor, however, does not make food nourishing, nor does a merely pleasing sound in music make it profitable. Music that appeals merely to the senses is indeed a poor type of music. Ear-pleasing music may appeal tremendously to the indolent or unintelligent, who are satisfied with the pleasures of the senses and want nothing above or beyond sensuous enjoyment; but mere sensuous enjoyment may degenerate into sensualism, so that music that merely pleases the senses may easily slip one stage lower and be degrading, sensual, and crude. However, when we add intellectual quality to music, there emerges a design and such fitness of parts that forbid, for example, such a thing as secular style in sacred music. Music must appeal to the intellect and challenge the imagination. Good music requires thought and study to appreciate its values.
As a further ingredient, we add to the intellectual the emotional. Anger or fear is indicated by high shrieking sounds, mystery or gloom by low tones; calmness by smooth, flowing sounds; agitation by irregular or spasmodic sounds. Music, then, is capable of infinite emotions, some of them just as wrong and degrading as emotions expressed in spoken words may be wrong, for music is a language.
The sensuous, the intellectual, and the emotional combined raise music to an art with power to lift us into a higher realm of thinking and living. Music of this kind is akin to religion, for religion is also something beyond the mere realm of the senses. It too is intellectual and emotional. To confess a lack of appreciation of music that is above the sensuous is merely to confess a lack of appreciation of the finer things of the mind and spirit. The religion of the saw dust trail is too often akin to the music of the purely sensuous type. It goes to the feet instead of to the head and the heart. Under the sensuous power of much so-called religious music, I have witnessed people carried away into a completely ecstatic or hypnotic condition, very similar to the condition in the orgies of the pagan Greek or Syrian festivals. Any music that relies for its appeal on purely sensuous or emotional grounds may be looked upon with reservation, for does not the Lord say, "Come now, and let us reason together"? Man, who is endowed with intellect, can measure merit only where he is ruled by principle. So, a great piece of music is one in which there is not only sensuous beauty and emotional eloquence, but an observance of the laws of form.
Place of Music in Worship
The place of music in worship is a question of direct concern to each of us. Is music merely a time filler, something to drown the conversation while the congregation assembles, or is it a part of worship itself? To some people, music conveys more of religious meaning than even the spoken word. We would not think of entering a service during prayer, because we consider it a part of worship, but we have no hesitancy about entering during the singing of a hymn. When music is considered merely an adjunct to embellish the service rather than an integral part of the service, the result is a lack of unity and coherence in worship. When the music is chosen with no reference to the main theme of worship, it is a sure indication that music is merely subsidiary and not a component part. Until recent centuries church music was equal to Scripture reading in purity, dignity and style, for church music was Scripture set to music. Many of the hymns in our church hymnal are objective in that they point us to the greatness, mercy, and love of God. They fix our attention on Him, and thus are worshipful. Much of recent hymnology presents a subjective approach. We sing about our feelings, responses, needs, and desires. There is a proper place to present our needs to God, but in worship the chief purpose is to fix our attention on Him.
In many churches the one in charge of the music is now called the minister of music, to distinguish him from the minister of the Word. In true worship all the parts sustain and complement one another. A unified impression is created when all the media of worship blend,
"Music forms a part of God's worship in the courts above, and we should endeavor, in our songs of praise, to approach as nearly as possible to the harmony of the heavenly choirs. . . . Singing, as a part of religious service, is as much an act of worship as is prayer." Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 594.
A further comment on the place of music in worship comes to us from Messages to Young People, page 294:
"When human beings sing with the spirit and the understanding, heavenly musicians take up the strain and join in the song of thanksgiving. ... It is not loud singing that is needed, but clear intonation, correct pronunciation, and distinct utterance. Let all take time to cultivate the voice, so that God's praise can be sung in clear, soft tones, not with harshness and shrillness that offend the ear. . . . Let the singing be accompanied with musical instruments skillfully handled." (Concluded next month}
