Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 April 1860 — OLD HCNIIHLD. [ARTICLE]

OLD HCNIIHLD.

.[For the Rensselaer Gazette.

“The morning stars sang together,” and thus was laid the corner stone of the cathedral of song. For six thousand years the corallines of melody have builded their reefs and fashioned their gigantic proportions into a structure of symmetry and beauty. One has said -‘architecture is frozen music”—the cathedral of song is living, pulsa- ‘ ting melody—its lovely arcades glorious with , the anthems and triumphal songs of the centuries, now swelling like the ocean's diapason’s peal, then with suppressed echos' sweeping down the verge of silence. Treading its dim aisles, where the light advances timidly to the great solemn shadows, we enter tho penetralia—the -‘holy of I holies”—the sanctuary of song. Not hence have issued those witching wildering songs which the passionate Italian gathers as stars ; from the heavens —dashes them in all their native brilliancy full upon the entranced senses of all who hear; not here have germinated tlwse opera entanglements and brilliant bravuras which bewilder and fascinate rather than address the- understanding and purify the heart—but an element of .social sanctity, of patriotism, and, in all ages, religious inspiration borne on the wings of; melody have gone forth as glad evangels to ; to the world. When twilight gleams heralded the morn-j ing «f the reformation, one large element of power directed against the Papacy were the German hymnals, which as light dawned into the monasteries began to be written by Luther and his cotemporaries. Truth enveloped in melody stobd transfigured before the people, who felt rather than understood the sanctity of the gospel that was coming, coming to them, albeit, by slow and painful marches. Pre-eminent among the German lyrics that are ascribed to Luther ia'Old Hundred—venerable even in name. A pilgrim from the shrine of Mecca would be an object of reverence even to our Christian eyes. We would do homage not to the object of his devotion but the faith, the affection, that prompted him to attempt, and the fortitude to endure so toilsome a pilgrimage. But in our hearts and homes dwells an ancient palmer who, centuries ago beheld the Mecca of Protestantism and knelt at the shrine of its prophet Martin Luther. Embalmed in the hearts of a people from where the crust and rust of Papacy was scaling off, the pilgrim took up his staff and crossed the channel to Britairi, where the- leaven of Christianity was at work and the emissaries of the Holy See were brewing turmoil. Old Hundred who had stood beside Luther and strengthened him on that memorable evening of his appearance before the Diet of Worms, who had beguiled the tedium of many hours during his detention in the castle Des waldcs Thuringen— who had soothed the sufferingsof the persecuted vandois—could well incorporate himself with the interest of a people struggling to free themselves from the papal yoke. On the battle field—in the sanctuary — by the fireside, and from the days of Oliver the Protector to the landing of\the pilgrim fathers, was the presence of Old Hundred gratefully acknowledged. When those stormy times were over that ushered in our nations liberty—when equal i ights had been established, and society—passing through its elemental changes—had become settled, the ancint hymnal crystal-

I ized with it and Its impress is indellibly i fixed. : The venerable man sings it to his grand I children clustered about him, as the hymn his mother taught him—but pauses’ as the i wind softly opens the door, for he catches a gleam of her white garments floating by and ! sees her smile—sweet as of yore—us ehe beckons him to “The beyond.” ’Neath lofty domes, its notes mingling with the organ’s solemn peal,“or in the lowly Church where true hearts worship—in the sacred home circle—its tones ever strong, i majestic, electrical, will awaken chords which j shall vibrate with high and holier emotions I long after the dying echoes of mortals shall I cease to mingle with the anthems of the /•ages. Nell Narlie. Garrettsville, O'., April 2. iB6O.