Anonymous

“ Now the secret of the men who built this lordly abbey is lost; never again will such a triumph of, alas! a dead art arise to charm and to delight, to instruct and inspire the children of men. But we may still preserve and reverently use this rare and noble legacy of a vanished age as a shrine and a peerless teaching-home—a prayer-home, in which are taught the great evangelical truths by which Christian men live and breathe and have their being, the saving knowledge of the work of the Precious Blood, the glad Redemption-story, the story loved of men ”

“ Was it something in his glance that brought irresistibly back to her remembrance that look in Mr. Pelham's dark eyes, of which more than once that afternoon she had been thinking? She coloured brightly, and her beautiful eyes grew soft.
"Ah! I see you know what I mean," Mr. Warde said gently.
"Oh! I don't," said Marjorie confusedly. But the man, looking at her, thought he might take hope. He went on:
"It is expressed in all beautiful music, as well as in the best literature and art. It appeals to everyone, because it is natural to all, and answers to something in the heart of every one of us. ”

“ What we now call music ... what answers to our definition of music, has come into being only within comparatively few years; almost within the memory of men living." "I should say that in the scholastic music there was no art, and in the popular music no science; whence it is that the former has ceased to please, and the latter has for the most part perished utterly."
It was a new art which charmed and delighted men as they listened to the magic of the sounds evoked by the majesty of the compositions of Palestrina, or by the sweetness of the music of Marenzio. ”

“ But perhaps the conspicuous examples of this architecture, the most loved of human arts and crafts, are, after all, the mediæval cathedrals. The first object of interest for the modern traveller in search of health or rest is a cathedral. All sorts and conditions of men find delight in its contemplation. The delight, of course, is varied, but the strange and witching beauty appeals to them all. This appeal to the higher and devotional side of our nature speaks to every soul, to the unlearned as to the learned, to the mill-hand as to the scholar. ”

“ I have said that to the custodian of such a cathedral the surroundings are, if not sad, at least pathetic, for these magnificent and loved creations of human genius belong to a somewhat remote past, and, as far as these exquisite buildings are concerned, save for purposes of necessary repair—repair simply to arrest the ravages of time—for nearly four hundred years the clink of trowel and pickaxe has been hushed.
It is scarcely an exaggerated statement which speaks of architecture, in its noblest sense, as a lost art. ”

“ Again, a great mediæval cathedral like our own glorious Gloucester, inimitable in its fadeless beauty and matchless strength, surely deals a very heavy blow to human pride, and it teaches humility to the most competent and ablest of our number, for it is a conception belonging to a past age. A great gathering, however, like the present, numbering some six or seven thousand persons, is for varied reasons an inspiring one and bids us be trustful—even hopeful. ”

“ As masters of the new-born craft none can be conceived greater.
The century now closing boasts, however, a long line of true followers and worthy disciples of those great ones, men whose names are household words in every European city.
But my brief record, necessarily dry and bald, of a momentous change in the teaching of the world would be incomplete without one word on the glorious instrument—the voice, so to speak—of these masters of a new art, the organ. ”

“ The Dean was popular in the county. When Mr. Pelham came into the Deanery garden somewhat late, he found Mrs. Bethune's chair under the chestnut trees, a centre of laughter and conversation. Marjorie was standing by her mother, with a wistful look on her face, he thought at first sight, wondering at its expression. Love, when presented first to a girl brought up as Marjorie had been, comes as a great shock. That it should be Mr. Warde of all men who should cause her this disquiet filled Marjorie with a sense of the unsatisfactoriness of the world. ”

“ Not until the last years of our Queen Elizabeth were the names of Palestrina and Marenzio, those great early composers, conspicuous, and the Queen so loved of Englishmen had long fallen asleep before Carissimi, the earliest master of the sacred cantata in its many forms, gave his mighty impulse to the new-born art; while the works of his world-famed pupil Scarlatti, and of our own English Purcell, belong to the art-records of the days of William and Mary and Queen Anne. See how the whole of the marvellous story of music—as we understand music—belongs to quite recent days! ”

“ As it got deeper, steps had been conveyed from the house for the descent of the hole. The utility of division of labour had been impressed upon the children. Orme was to fill the baskets; Ross, being surer of his equilibrium, was to carry them up and empty them. If the work was not done, and done properly, the babies would have to play elsewhere; no longer would their presence be tolerated by their elders.
Marjorie was enjoying a new book, whose alluring cover was fit index to its contents. Now and then, between the pages, dark eyes looked at her in a strange and wonderful fashion. ”

“ Like the music of the Middle Ages, in the days when these vast and peerless buildings arose, it is true the organ was not unknown; but, like mediæval music, it was a small, poor thing compared with the stupendous instrument we know and love. There was no great organ before the last years of the fifteenth century, when the Tudors reigned. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed its development, and acknowledged its surpassing grandeur, and recognised its fitness as one of the chief handmaids of the new great art. ”

“ While other men are impulsively throwing themselves into useless controversy on this or that vexed question, Roger Pettingdale is silently weighing the pros and cons of the matter in his own mind; and when he speaks there is usually nothing more to be said. He chops no logic; he simply argues with the sledge-hammer of common-sense, backed up by the blunt, uncompromising sincerity of an honest and fair-dealing mind. ”

“ At the bottom lay Orme, his basket beside him, its contents upon him. In a second Marjorie had descended underground, and Mr. Warde was left gazing into space.
When she emerged, Orme was in her arms, muddy tears bedewing his cherubic cheeks. "Fall'd," he announced, in a self-pitying tone, to the visitor.
Marjorie reseated herself, her little brother's head upon her breast. As she comforted him, the man observing her grew more in love than ever. Marjorie, soft and gentle, unconsciously rehearsing Madonna attitudes, gave him a thrill of delight. ”

“ He fought sin and He conquered it. Why, then, has the angels' song not been fulfilled? Why does sin still cast its shadow on earth and heaven alike? Why does God's loving purpose in sending His Son seem still to suffer so wide defeat? Because in his recovery as in his fall, man's will must play its part. I can only be saved from sin when I will to be saved; I only become a partaker of the benefits which Christ brought from heaven to earth when, yielding to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I turn with full accord to Jesus Christ as my Saviour. ”

“ As to Mary, the second child, she was nineteen years of age, and newly returned from school, when Edward Leigh, the son of old Squire Leigh, of the Hall, came home from his travels round the world. These two, who had only distantly known each other as children, met for the first time after many years—she a sweet-looking, fresh-coloured girl, in the first blush of womanhood; and he a manly, well-set young fellow with a pleasant, sincere face and straightforward blue eyes. ”

“ Reading aloud is more commonly regarded as an accomplishment than an art. In truth, it is both. It is an art in that it cannot be left to its own guidance, but requires both an acquaintance with rules and familiarity with their practice to bring it to perfection. It is an accomplishment in that it is a means of completing our equipment for happy social life. Good reading yields not only profit but pleasure to others. It is one means of throwing brightness into home-life to gather the children together and read really well to them. ”

“ As God made us and as He intends us to be, we are not a little higher only than the animals, we are rather only "a little lower than the angels." He has crowned us with glory and honour and set us over the work of His hands. He has put all things under our feet. The material universe was made for man, to be his home, to develop his powers, to be a test and discipline of his moral character. I refuse to be reduced to the same rank, or to be placed in the same order, as the beasts that perish. Remembering the angels' first song, I assert my supremacy. ”

“ All through the eighteenth century, when the Georges reigned, architecture slept its well-nigh dreamless sleep. But the new art of music grew with each succeeding year, while the men whose names will never die lived and wrote. ”

“ The reader of another's works seeks actively to express the spirit of his author, yet unintentionally he is expressing his own spirit also. The author enters into him and he throws himself into the author; his reading, therefore, is the union, the marriage, the interpenetration and expression of two spirits—the author's and his own. However interesting, therefore, and delightful it may be to hear an author read his own works, yet is there always lacking the dash and force and suggestiveness produced when a great author is interpreted by a great reader. ”

“ We are not honouring Him, we are putting Him rather to an open shame, if we keep out of our thoughts at this time the supreme purpose of His coming, if we are not personally dealing with Him even now as to the burden and guilt of our sin.
But we can set the angels a-singing in the sky, and the melody of their music can be felt in our own hearts, if we turn in lowly penitence to Him who came to save His people from their sins, and to quicken them to a new life of righteousness and peace and joy. ”

“ How the white sills of the old-fashioned windows gleam in the sunlight! The whole place seems to breathe of scouring and buckets, and scrubbing brushes and vigorous arms. Every morning the yard is washed down by the house-boy (it used to be Elijah in my day, but he is now a bearded man, and labours outside, and a young Ezra is the present knight of the bucket) ”

“ In the art of reading, others may be our models; none but ourselves can be our makers. Listening to others may show us how the thing can best be done, but without doing the thing ourselves the thing can never be truly learned by us. ”

“ Marjorie gazed blankly into his face. "I? Of course, it is me," she said slowly. "I don't know—I didn't think—how can I leave—everybody?" her voice faltered.
She rose suddenly, putting aside the hand that would have stayed her. There is nothing so cruel as a young thing who has no notion of her power and of the devotion she has stirred. ”

“ Dwell we a brief while first on our surroundings. Of all works devised by human ingenuity and carried on by human skill, the triumphs of architecture are among the most enduring, afford the most genuine and purest delight to the greater number of men and women, are confessedly the most attractive, perhaps the most instructive, as they are among the most enduring of human creations. ”

“ She has all her senses, only that she's a trifle peculiar. She's a splendid business woman, everyone says."
"It is a curious friendship. I should never have supposed it of Miss Sylvia."
"No. One funny thing is that Miss Spencer's full of sentiment—wait till you hear her sing 'She wore a Wreath of Roses'—whereas Sylvia's quite without sentiment, and laughs at everything sentimental."
"I feel sorry for the poor old thing," said Sir Anthony, with a half-ashamed laugh, "because she was crossed in love. I shouldn't like to be crossed in love myself, Pamela." ”

“ We might shed sunshine into the darkness of many a life if, instead of spending our leisure hours in ennui on ourselves, we devoted them to reading aloud to others.
Reading aloud is good for ourselves both physically and morally. It is good morally, for if we never read anything unfit for reading aloud we shall not be likely to read anything morally deteriorating. And physically, reading aloud is a benignant exercise. It widens the chest, opens the lungs, strengthens the throat, and does good to all the breathing organs. It is a mistake to suppose that using the voice weakens it. ”

“ Such a gathering as the present, I repeat, is an inspiring one, for it tells me that if one great art dies, He who loves us and has redeemed us at so great a price, gives His children something in its place. ”

“ Only when a man comes to himself in lowly penitence, and then goes to his Father with a lofty faith, does he enter into the full purpose of his manhood; and only then, also, is there not only joy among the angels in heaven over the sinner that thus repenteth, but there is music and dancing on the earth as well, and the old life ends in which sin reigned, and the new begins in which Christ reigns; and His reign means "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men." ”

“ Speakers and preachers have bad throats not because they use their throat too much, but because they use it badly. They force and torment it, instead of training it to natural action and giving it free, full play. And who shall blame them? At school they were taught to spell and mind their stops; but how to breathe and manage the voice when reading, they probably were not taught a single rule. In many instances teachers themselves are wholly ignorant of the art and therefore incapable of teaching it. ”