1492 The Cornell Reading-Courses 



family is there that can afford to rest its family traditions and future 

 memories on songs of uncertain quality when good ones can be had? 



FOUNDATION FOR THE MOVEMENT FOR GOOD SONGS 



In order that the reader may know that the present movement for the 

 betterment of songs for homes is not a new idea, the following quotations 

 are given. These quotations are the thoughts of some well-known men and 

 women who lived long enough before they spoke to realize that they were 

 saying neither new nor startling things, but that they were speaking 

 the belief of all and the experience of many. 



The first of the quotations is from the preacher Phillips Brooks, who 

 loved boys and girls and was loved by them: 



Much stress shoiild be laid upon the fact that the youthful memory being exceedingly 

 tenacious, impressions :nade upon the child are likely to be indelible. The great 

 incidents in the history of the Israelites were woven into song, and these eucharistic 

 epics were required to be diligently taught to their children. So, in the present day, 

 the simple doctrines and thrilling events of Christianity should be wrought into verse 

 and impressed upon the mind of the teacher by the power of music. Truths thus 

 inculcated will cling to the soul forever. We all know that cherished memories of 

 home and friends are ours with such enduring vividness that the record can never 

 be effaced. But in all the reminiscences of days gone by there is nothing that so haunts 

 the spirit as the songs to which we were accustomed in childhood. The sweet tones 

 of a mother's voice will live and speak in the heart long after the voice has been hushed 

 to silence. The recollection of the hymns which were first heard amid the throng 

 of worshipers in the city, or in the embowered country church, may remain in morning 

 freshness long after the sanctuary has mouldered into ruins. We may cross oceans, 

 and wander in foreign climes; the erect frame may be bowed with the weight of years, 

 and raven ringlets may be changed to locks of snowy whiteness; but the old home 

 songs heard in the distance in the still morning, or sung by ourselves in some calm hour 

 of reflection, or by the home-circle on a winter's evening, will bring around tis the friends 

 and the scenes of other days and of far-off lands; and while the dim eye of age sparkles 

 with unwonted brilliancy, the heart will beat with the buoyancy of early youth. It is 

 not at all improbable that the songs learned in the nursery, or around the fireside, will 

 be used by the Holy Spirit in after years as a means of conversion toabetter life, it may 

 be our final salvation from endless ruin. On the contrary, bacchanalian or ribald 

 Bongs, which are apt to be learned and used by those who are unaccustomed to religious 

 melodies, are, in the hands of the Destroyer, a potent means of ruin. Shall we quietly 

 allow this tremendous power to pass into the hands of the enemy, or shall we not eagerly 

 seize itpon it as our lawful right, and wield it for the good of our race and the glory of 

 our God? 



The second is from Henry Ward Beecher, the singing of whose congre- 

 gation would have served as a model and inspiration to the country church : 



The tunes which burden our modern books, in hundreds and thousands, utterly 

 devoid of character, without meaning or substance, may be sung a hundred times, and 

 not a person in the congregation will remember them. There is nothing to remember. 

 They are the very emptiness of fluent noise. But let a true tune be sung, and every 

 person of sensibility, every person of feeling, every child even, is aroused and touched. 

 The melody chngs to them. On the way home snatches of it will be heard on this side 

 and on that; and when the next Sabbath, the same song is heard, one after another of 

 the people fall in, and the volume grows with each verse, until at length the song, 

 breaking forth as a many-rilled stream from the hills, grows deeper and flows on, broad 

 as a mighty river! Such tunes are never forgotten. They cUng to us through our 



