M (continued 3)

The second song was written on the same subject by Alicia Rutherford, of Fernilie, afterward known as Mrs. Patrick Cockburn, and is generally regarded as the more effective in singing, if not in composition.

The words are beautiful, and instinct with sorrow when spoken or sung. But it is the music of the pipes that gives them supreme interpretation, and makes them the expression of grief so profound that “The Flowers of the Forest” has become the national dirge. Nor is sorrow their only note.

The pipes can sound—and have sounded on many a stricken field and in many an hour of despair—the triumph of hope and of victory over death. They have stirred the blood and cleared the head, and given strength to the arm of many a soldier who has never dreamed of the eagle plume blended with the heather and never heard through the mists of memory the clash of the broadsword on the targe—

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MUSIC OF NATURE

The Innuits, or Eskimos, of Smith Sound, Greenland, the most northerly people in the world, believe that the aurora borealis has a singing noise; and the inhabitants of the Orkneys, of Finmarken, and those in the region of Hudson Bay believe, with many competent observers, that a peculiar sound like the rustling of silk always accompanies it. The Lapps liken this sound to the cracking in the joints of moving reindeer. (Text.)

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MUSIC, POPULAR, VALUE OF

All history reveals the fact that music, wedded to stirring and patriotic words, has in every age had a powerful influence on the course of public events. Nor is this true alone of civilized peoples. Among almost all savage races, the warriors excite themselves to martial ardor by songs which thrill their souls. The war-dances alike of our North American Indians, of the African negroes, and of the semicivilized races which dwell in Asia, are accompanied by songs which, tho wild and incoherent to European ears, have an inspiring influence upon themselves. Carlyle wisely said, “The meaning of song goes deep”; and a more recent writer has declared that “it goes as deep as the heart of man, the throbbings of which it controls more readily and widely than do the speeches of statesmen, the sermons of preachers, or the writings of journalists.” It was clearly because the influence of legend and of patriotic appeal, joined with familiar tunes so strongly roused the emotions of the people, that the ancient bards of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales were held in such high honor in the old royal courts and princely castles of these lands, and were regarded with such veneration by the people everywhere. About two centuries ago Lord Wharton wrote a political ballad, which was set to music, the title of which was “Lillibulero.” It was very poor poetry, but somehow the rude verses struck a chord in the popular heart, and were sung everywhere. It was written in opposition to King James the Second; and so wide was its influence that Lord Wharton boasted, it is said, that it “sang James II out of three kingdoms.” The effect of the “Marseillaise” in arousing and exciting the revolutionary spirit of France is one of the prominent facts in the history of that country. To it, in no small degree, is attributed the success of the French arms against the allies who assailed the young republic. So potent, indeed, was the “Marseillaise” felt to be in kindling political passion, that both the Napoleons forbade it being sung or played in France during their reigns.—Youth’s Companion.

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MUSIC REFLECTS THE SOUL

Welsh, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Finnish, and Armenian music is apt to be pitched in plaintive, mournful, minor keys. A Welsh preacher explained to an English congregation why Welsh tunes were thus habitually pathetic. It is because for centuries liberties were lost under Saxon domination. So, in Russia, visitors were imprest by the tender and melancholy tho beautiful strains of the national melodies. People when opprest sing sadly; but liberty and joy emancipate even the music of a nation. (Text.)

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MUTATION

One of the blest effects of the flight of time is that old animosities are forgotten and the nobler things of reconciliation and peace are seen. An instance of this lately occurred in the South:

A group of gentlemen, soldiers of the present and the past, were gathered upon an historic Southern battle-field, Missionary Ridge. They stopt to read the inscription upon a tablet, simple and unpretentious, which marked the position of a Confederate battery. This tablet bore the name of “Luke E. Wright, Second Lieutenant.” Luke E. Wright, Secretary of War of the United States of America, surrounded by his officers and friends, paused a moment to read again this chapter from his youth. A distinguished general of the regular army laid his hand affectionately upon the shoulder of General Wright and remarked: “General, how queerly things turn out! Who could have foreseen that the boy in gray, who served his guns upon this spot, would one day be my chief, at the head of the Army of the United States?”

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The instability of all mundane things is suggested by the following account, which may also remind us of the utterance of Jesus: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.”

“When, in 1890, Germany bartered away Zanzibar in exchange for Heligoland, great was the rejoicing,” says Shipping Illustrated (New York). “Much concern is now being manifested in Germany owing to the relentless attack of the sea, which has already reduced the island’s area nearly twenty-five per cent since it came under the German flag. At this rate the little island will, in another half-century, have melted entirely away. The North Sea has been from time immemorial an avaricious land-grabber. The Dogger Bank once reared its head above the surface, a fact proved by the bones of animals occasionally brought up in the fishermen’s nets. The eastern coast of England has suffered severely from its insatiable appetite. Dunwick, an important seaport during the Middle Ages, is now a part of the sea-bottom, and fishes and other marine denizens occupy the one-time habitation of men. Visitors to Felixstowe, once a Roman colony and now a modern seaside resort, opposite Harwich, have pointed out to them a rock a mile out to sea, on which the old church formerly stood. The Kaiser may yet live to see his cherished possession torn from his grasp.” (Text.)

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MUTUAL SUFFERING

There is no individual in society; it is one body corporate. If one member sin all suffer with him. The fearful forms of torture loom up yet out of the shadows, the paddle, the rack, the chair, the cangue collar, the strangle-ring, the shin-rod, and various forms of mutilation remind one of what we see in the Tower of London. Truly, we are brethren in cruelty if we go far enough into the dark past. But God, who is rich in mercy, when He transforms an Oriental, seems first of all to take out of his heart the poison of cruelty, and to leave the spirit of self-sacrifice and tenderness instead.—James S. Gale, “Korea in Transition.”

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MUTUALISM

Did you enjoy your breakfast this morning? You were all alone, and got it yourself, did you say? Did you make the Irish linen in your napkin, or were your table furnishings the creations of an idle hour? Did you raise your own coffee? Did the melon grow in your garden, or was the beef fattened in your pasture? The very ends of the earth contributed to your simple meal, and for it you were dependent upon people you had never seen. Your breakfast-table was really a clearing-house for the ends of the earth, so that when you redecorate your dining-room, and are placing upon the walls the familiar legends, “Let good digestion wait on appetite,” and that famous quatrain of Robert Burns:

you might most appropriately add to these that thrilling confession of Paul’s, “I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise.” (Text.)—Nehemiah Boynton.

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As the astronomers tell us that it is probable that there are in the universe innumerable solar systems besides ours, to each of which myriads of utterly unknown and unseen stars belong, so it is certain that every man, however obscure, however far removed from the general recognition, is one of a group of men impressible for good, and impressible for evil, and that it is in the eternal nature of things that he can not really improve himself without in some degree improving other men.—Charles Dickens.

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See Boy and King.

Mutuality—See Social Interdependence; Social Strength.

Mutuality, True—See Faithfulness.

MYSELF

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MYSTERY IN NATURE

What determines which queen shall leave the hive with the swarm? What determines which five thousand out of fifteen thousand worker bees, all apparently similarly stimulated and excited, shall swarm out, and which ten thousand shall stay in? These are questions too hard for us to answer. We may take refuge in Maeterlinck’s poetical conception of the “spirit of the hive.” Let us say that the “spirit of the hive” decides these things; as well as what workers shall forage and what ones clean house; what bees shall ventilate and what make wax and build comb. Which is simply to say that we don’t know what decides all these things. (Text.)—Vernon L. Kellogg, “Insect Stories.”

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MYSTERY IN RELIGION

Here are wood, brass, my hand—any material things. Here are light, electricity, a magnet—things that we all have something to do with. Now let us ask the scientific people to look at them, weigh them, test them, analyze them, describe them—what will they report? Well, part of their report will be this: There is one thing without which all these other things are impossible, without which there could be no wood, no metal, no light, no electric current; and that thing is called ether. This ether is like nothing you have at hand. It is not solid, nor liquid, nor a gas. It does not weigh anything, nor does it move. It is not alive, nor is it capable of division. Yet it is everywhere. It is in the wood, in the brass, in the air. It fills what we call empty space. It is the road by which light travels. It is the medium of electricity. It is the home of magnetism. Well, when the scientist tells us this we can but gasp. It is nothing that we know, yet without it all we know would break down. It can not be seen, nor handled, nor heard, yet without it we could neither see, nor handle, nor hear. It is utterly beyond belief, so strange a bunch of contradictories it is; and yet if we assume it to be real, then and then only can all the things of life which we do know be properly explained.

If in the natural world we follow out carefully all that is before us, if we explore our narrow strip of experience thoroughly, we come to a region getting more and more remote. Send a traveler from Hampstead—he comes back to tell us of India or the Arctic Ocean. Send a scientist out into this world of matter and force, of wood and stone and electricity, and he comes back to tell us of the incredible wonders of the unseen world, of the fathomless mysteries of the ether.

If this is so with material things, how much more is it likely to be so with moral and spiritual things? If it be true of earthly things, how much more of heavenly things? If the findings of science are puzzling, contradictory, mysterious, will the findings of theology—the science of God—be simple and mere common sense? If when we have to do with wood and stones we stand amazed before the doctrine of ether, is it surprizing that when we have to do with Christ and His cross, God and His redemption, we come also to the wonderful teaching, not only of the divinity of Jesus, but of His preexistence from eternity with God? So, then, because the doctrine is marvelous, unheard of, difficult to grasp, do not, therefore, pass it by as incredible.—Newton H. Marshall.

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MYSTERY NO BAR TO BELIEF

Toads are said to have been found in rocks. Such cases are rare, but it would be as unreasonable to doubt them as to believe in some of the miraculous explanations that have been made of the matter. The phenomenon is marvelous, it is true, but it is supported by evidence that we are not able to contest; and skepticism, which is incompatible with science, will have to disappear if rigorous observation shall confirm it. The toad was observed, in one case, in the stone itself, and before recovering from its long lethargy, it had not made any motion. One of these toads was presented to an academy, with the stone which had served it as a coffin or habitation, and it was ascertained that the cavity seemed to correspond exactly with the dimensions and form of the animal. It is remarkable that these toad-stones are very hard and not at all porous, and show no signs of fissure. The mind, completely baffled in the presence of the fact, is equally embarrassed to explain how the toad could live in its singular prison, and how it became shut up there. M. Charles Richet had occasion to study this question some months ago, and came to the conclusion that the fact was real, observing that even if, in the actual condition of science, certain phenomena were still inexplicable, we were not warranted in denying their existence, for new discoveries might at any time furnish an explanation of them. (Text.)—Popular Science Monthly.

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Mystery of Regeneration—See Discernment, Lack of Spiritual.

MYSTERY TO BE MADE CLEAR

Dr. Abbott tells how, after sailing on the muddy waters of Lake Huron, he came on deck one morning, and, looking over the prow, started back in instinctive terror, for, looking down into the clear waters of Lake Superior, it seemed as if the keel were just going to strike on the sharp pointed rocks below; but he was looking through fifty or sixty feet of clear water at the great rock-bed of the lake. Now we endeavor in vain to fathom God’s judgments. As by a great deep they are hidden from us. But by and by the sea will grow as clear as crystal, and through the mystery we shall see and shall understand. We shall know not only the life that was in the ocean, but shall trace the footprints of Him that walked thereon.

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MYSTERY, VALUE OF

Recently a man called on Edwin Markham, author of “The Man with the Hoe,” we are told by Success, and introduced himself as the writer of a book on which, he said, he had spent twenty-five years of study and research. Mr. Markham, who is unusually kind in listening to and counseling with amateur authors, immediately felt that one who has spent a quarter of a century on his work is rare, and he invited him to his study without delay.

“What is the nature of your work?” asked Mr. Markham.

“I have written the greatest book of the ages,” began the new author; “I have solved the mystery of the world. I know all about it. I am prepared to prove my statements. I know just why the world was made, who really made it, and I have laid bare the mysteries of creation. I—”

“My good man,” said Mr. Markham, interrupting him, “if you have come to me for advice, let me tell you to take your manuscript at once and burn it. If you have solved the mystery of this world, you are its greatest enemy. Why,” continued the poet, “if you have solved the mystery of the world you have robbed men of their greatest joy. You have left us nothing to work for, you have destroyed our ambition, you have reduced us to mere animals. It is the mysteries of the world that have made it great, and I, for one, don’t want to have them solved.”

Mr Markham’s visitor sat dumfounded for a moment. The vision of his twenty-five years of labor flitted before him as he said:

“I guess you’re right—I guess you’re right.” (Text.)

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