CHAPTER VI

THE INDIVIDUAL SONG

PERHAPS nowhere in literature is God's need of and joy in the individual song more clearly and beautifully expressed than by Robert Browning in his poem The Boy and the Angel. He describes a mere working lad who heard of the great Pope of Rome singing his song to God in his grand way. Naturally he deemed his own humble song unworthy to be compared with it, and expressing the intense longing of his heart that he might be able to sing thus, he was allowed to take the great Pope's place:

Morning, evening, noon and night,
Praise God!" sang Theocrite.

Then to his poor trade he turned,
Whereby the daily meal was earned.

Hard he labored, long and well;
O'er his work the boy's curls fell

But ever, at each period,

He stopped and sang, "Praise God!"

Then back again his curls he threw,
And cheerful turned to work anew.

Said Blaise, the listening monk, "Well done;
I doubt not thou art heard, my son:

"As well as if thy voice today

Were praising God, the Pope's great way.

"This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome Praises God from Peter's dome."

Said Theocrite, "Would God that I

Might praise him that great way, and die!"

Night passed, day shone,
And Theocrite was gone.

With God a day endures alway,
A thousand years are but a day.

God said in heaven, "Nor day nor night
Now brings the voice of my delight."

Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth,
Spread his wings and sank to earth;

Entered, in flesh, the empty cell,
Lived there, and played the craftsman well;

And morning, evening, noon and night,
Praised God in place of Theocrite.

And from a boy, to youth he grew:
The man put off the stripling's hue:

The man matured and fell away
Into the season of decay:

And ever o'er the trade he bent,
And ever lived on earth content.

(He did God's will; to him, all one
If on the earth or in the sun.)

God said, "A praise is in mine ear;
There is no doubt in it, no fear:

"So sing old worlds, and so

New worlds that from my footstool go.

"Clearer loves sound other ways:

I miss my little human praise."

Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell The flesh disguise, remained the cell.

"Twas Easter Day: he flew to Rome,
And paused above Saint Peter's dome.

In the tiring-room close by
The great outer gallery,

With his holy vestments dight,

Stood the new Pope, Theocrite:

And all his past career

Came back upon him clear,

Since when, a boy, he plied his trade,
Till on his life the sickness weighed;

And in his cell, when death drew near,
An angel in a dream brought cheer:

And rising from the sickness drear,
He grew a priest, and now stood here.

To the East with praise he turned,
And on his sight the angel burned.

"I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell,
And set thee here; I did not well.

"Vainly I left my angel-sphere,

Vain was thy dream of many a year.

"Thy voice's praise seemed weak; it droppedCreation's chorus stopped!

"Go back and praise again

The early way, while I remain.

"With that weak voice of our disdain,

Take up creation's pausing strain.

"Back to the cell of poor employ:
Resume the craftsman and the boy!"

Theocrite grew old at home;

A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome.

One vanished as the other died:
They sought God side by side.

Many voices are silent because their owners say they are ashamed to sing, so poorly do they do it. There are two answers to these silent ones: if you can improve your song do so by all means and if you cannot, sing anyhow. Comparing their voice to the oboe, violin or cornet the cymbals might well refuse to play, yet in the grand orchestral effects there are times when it would be a sad omission if the cymbals were not heard. The triangle gives forth but a "tingle, tingle, tingle," without change of pitch or color in sound, yet its place at times can be filled by no other instrument. If the double basses with the constant iteration of tonic, dominant and subdominant, were to refuse to play because they were not allowed to carry the air, the grandest symphony would suffer, their loss would so "thin" the stream of music that even the unmusical would notice it.

It may be that you are one of the "lesser" instruments of the orchestra, but, in looking over the lists published of various orchestras, I find no note of "lesser" or "greater." All have their importance, their own place. So, like the boy in the poem, sing

your own little song in your own little way, for that was peculiarly pleasing to God.

Many people "worry themselves" unnecessarily by asserting their uselessness in the scheme of life. How foolish, how altogether unwise, and how lacking in knowledge of God and His purposes. He makes no mistakes. He slumbers not, nor sleeps. He sees and knows every child of His in the universe, and He has the peculiar place that child's voice is to take in the Universal Symphony planned for from the foundation of the world.

It may be, perhaps, that you are one of those instruments capable of producing the most wonderful overtones that only the very sensitive may hear, and that the Great Conductor needs you for these.

We may not always know, always see, where our place is in the orchestra, but we may rest assured one is there waiting for us if we are now songless. Violin or trumpet, cornet or double-bass, flute or drum, dulcimer or clanging cymbal, let us gladly, willingly, joyously, do our part, create our own music in accordance with the Divine plan, and thus rejoicing, go through Life Singing with God.