In the brush

by Hamilton W. Pierson

CHAPTER XV.

"ORTONVILLE"; OR, THE UNIVERSAL POWER OF SACRED SONG.

I have a distinct recollection of the circumstances of my first acquaintance with "Ortonville," a piece of sacred music by the late Professor Thomas Hastings. It was more than forty years ago. The church choir in my native place, a small country village in western New York, had gone down to that sad pass, that for several Sabbaths the alternative was either to have no singing at all, or a maiden lady, a veteran member of the choir, must "pitch the tune." This, even in the estimation of the most staid and least nervous of the congregation, was quite too bad; and the matter was taken up and talked over in earnest at the village store, where all matters public and private pertaining to the neighborhood and town were discussed, and public sentiment on all questions was regulated, like the price of stocks at a board of brokers. The result of this discussion was, that a subscription-paper was started, and a singing-master employed for one evening each week during the winter, who, according to immemorial custom, was paid three dollars an evening for his services, and the school was free to all who were disposed to attend.

A country singing-school—who, that has ever attended one, is not carried back to some of the most delightful scenes of his earlier years by the mere mention of the name? What visions of early playmates and schoolmates, of bright moonlight rides, with the merry chimes of bells and shouts of joyous hearts, as group after group from different families was gathered for the school, and crowded into the capacious sleigh—mothers' warm, home-made mittens, stockings, and flannels, and all the buffalo-robes in the neighborhood, bidding defiance to an atmosphere at zero! And then the frank, unstudied greetings and companionship at the village church; the lighting of candles that each one had brought from home (no lamps or sextons in those days); the first essays, of each pupil alone, at the ascending and descending scale, with this one's failure and that one's success; the coquettings and rivalries of the "intermission," and the successful and unsuccessful offers of the youthful beaux to "go home with the girls" at the close of the school—these and a thousand other pleasant memories come thronging upon the mind at the remembrance of a country singing-school!

We had spent several evenings upon the rudiments, singing from the blackboard; the teacher had decided that the old books would not do (what singing-school teacher since that day, in view of his commissions on the new book, has failed to reach the same conclusion?); and we had obtained the "Manhattan Collection," which was just then a candidate for public favor. Several of the old members of the choir were standing in a group, during an "intermission," expressing their opinions on the merits of the new book, when Deacon Arnold said to the teacher:

"Here is a new tune I should like to have you look at—'Ortonville.' I have hummed it over, and it seems a very good one."

The teacher glanced over it, said they would try it, and very soon the school were singing—

"Majestic sweetness sits enthroned,"

as those words have been sung a thousand times to the sweet and simple notes of—

ORTONVILLE. C.M. Thomas Hastings, Mus. Doc.
Ma-jes-tic sweet-ness sits enthroned
Up-on the Sav-iour's brow:
His head with radiant glory crowned,
His lips with grace o'erflow,
His lips with grace o'erflow.

Such was my first acquaintance with this piece of sacred music. Little did I then think that it was an acquaintance I was to meet in such different and distant parts of the world, in so many and such varied circumstances, and that was to afford me such peculiar pleasure.

I need hardly say that "Ortonville" became at once a favorite with our school. The new scholars were most apt to strike upon it, if they happened to be in a mood for singing, as they were busy at their winter's tasks—foddering the cattle and other stock at the barn, watering the horses, carrying in the wood for the evening and morning fires in the ample old-fashioned fireplaces, or doing any little chores about the house.

The teacher was pretty sure to select it if the minister or influential members of the congregation came in to see how the school was getting along; as, somehow, they always seemed to be in better time and tune, and do more for the credit of the school, and the satisfaction of those who had raised the subscription, when they sang this, than in singing any other tune. Very soon it was sung everywhere, and those who could sing at all had learned it by rote, at least, as a necessity. The choir were not only better satisfied with themselves, but the minister seemed to preach with more animation, when "Ortonville" was sung upon the Sabbath, and prayer-meetings that were dull and uninteresting would take a new start when "Ortonville" was started. For not only all the new singers could sing, but all the old men and women who had been members of the choir when the country was first settled, and the hardy Puritan pioneers, in the absence of a minister, had what were called "deacon-meetings," the school-master, or whoever was regarded as the best reader in the settlement, reading a sermon.

It was not long before it was found out that we were not alone in our admiration of the new favorite. In the adjoining towns, wherever the singing-schools were using the "Manhattan Collection," they had fallen upon this tune and were singing it just as we were.

Before our singing-school closed I left home to pursue my academic, collegiate, and theological studies, and for a few years following, in connection with my residence at different places, and my travels in different Northern States, I again and again had opportunities of observing that in cities as well as in the country, in centers of intelligence and refinement as well as at my rural home, there was something in "Ortonville" calculated to interest nearly every class of mind, and make it, as soon as it was known in any place, a popular favorite.

With these elements, and our national habit of never sparing our favorites, but pressing them into service for the time, ad nauseam, those who heard it once in any place were sure to hear it, to say the least, until they "had heard enough of it," and then it was consigned to comparative neglect.

For a long time I had heard it but rarely; the feeling of dislike at its frequent repetition had worn off, and it again possessed not only its original interest, but was thick clustering with pleasant memories of home, and many of the happiest scenes of my life. I was at length in the interior of a distant Southern State, an invalid, alone, and doubtful of the future. Sabbath came, and with kind, new-found friends, I rode through the pines over a sandy road to a plain, unpainted church, standing in the midst of a piny wood, and bearing the name "Mount Zion." In the rear of this building, comfortably seated and sheltered, a large congregation of slaves was assembled, who were listening to the instructions of an earnest and faithful minister of the gospel. He had just finished reading a hymn as I reached the place, and an old negro slave rose to lead the singing. The lines were given out one by one, and as every voice in that large company seemed to join in the song, never did "Ortonville" sound more sweetly than as it then broke unexpectedly upon my ear. With their rich, melodious voices, and the enthusiasm peculiar to the African, they seemed to pour out all their souls, and, as they sang through the hymn, and those familiar sounds resounded through the grove, the effect upon my feelings can be more easily imagined than described.

During my stay in this neighborhood, a slave died upon one of the plantations, and I was told that I would have an opportunity of witnessing one of their favorite funerals. In those portions of the South where the plantations were largest, and the slaves the most numerous, they were very fond of burying their dead at night, and as near midnight as possible. In case of a funeral, they assembled in large numbers from adjoining plantations, provided with pine-knots, and pieces of fat pine called light-wood, which when ignited made a blaze compared with which our city torchlight processions are most sorry affairs. When all was in readiness, they lighted these torches, formed into a procession, and marched slowly to the distant grave, singing the most solemn music. Sometimes they sang hymns they had committed to memory, but oftener those more tender and plaintive, composed by themselves, that have since been introduced to the people of the North, and of Europe, as plantation melodies. I have never yet seen any statement of the manner in which these melodies, that have moved and melted the hearts of millions on both sides of the Atlantic, were composed. I have been familiar with the secret of their birth and power since my first acquaintance with, and religious labors among, the slaves in 1843. It is preëminently true of these plantation melodies that they were "born, not made." I have been present at the birth of a great many of them—many that I think more tender and pathetic than those that have been given to the world by the various jubilee-singers.

An old-time midnight slave funeral.

In their religious gatherings the best singer among them was always the leader of the meeting. They usually commenced their services by singing some hymn that they had committed to memory; but the leader always gave out this hymn, one line at a time, in a sing-song tone, much like a chant, and then the audience sang the line he had given out, and so went through the hymn. As the meeting progressed, and their feelings became deeper and deeper, and the excitement rose higher and higher, they at length reached a state of tender or rapturous feeling to which no hymn with which they were familiar gave expression. At this point the leader sang from his heart, or, as musicians say, improvised, both the words and music of a single line. The audience then sang that line with him, as they had sung all the preceding hymns. He then improvised another line, and another, and they sang each one after him, until he had improvised one of those plantation melodies, which, as they gave expression to the glowing hearts of those who first sang them, so, when they have been repeated, they have touched the universal heart. When thus "born," no such words or music were ever forgotten by the leader. It was sung over and over again at succeeding meetings, until some other melody was in like manner improvised, to meet another and perhaps a higher state of religious enthusiasm. In my visits to hundreds of different plantations and congregations, I have heard a great variety of these plantation melodies. Many of them, that were inexpressibly tender and beautiful, were never heard beyond the immediate neighborhood in which they were first sung, and will never be reproduced, unless it be among the songs of the redeemed in heaven.

But to return to this midnight funeral. The appearance of such a procession, winding through the fields and woods, as revealed by their flaming torches, marching slowly to the sound of their wild music, was weird and imposing in the highest degree. This procession was to pass immediately by our door, but, in order to get a fuller view, a small company of us went out a short distance to meet them. We saw them and heard their music in the distance, as they came down a gentle descent, crossed over a small stream, and then marched on some time in silence. As they came near where we stood, we heard their leader announce in the sing-song, chanting style I have already described, the words—

"When I can read my title clear;"

and that long procession, with their flaming fat-pine torches, marched by us with slow and solemn tread, singing that beautiful hymn to the tune of "Ortonville." We followed to the place of burial, listened to their songs and addresses at the grave, and witnessed all the ceremonies to the close. From first to last the scene was impressive beyond description.

A few days after this, as I was taking a lonely horseback-ride to an adjoining parish, I heard the negroes singing in a field that I could not see, lying behind a wood that skirted the road. I stopped my horse for a moment to listen to their music. I could hear no words, but at once distinguished "Ortonville." Soon after I inquired of my host how long these people had been singing this tune, and where they had learned it; and was told that the minister I had seen upon the Sabbath, while on a visit to his relatives in the State of Georgia the fall before, had heard it sung at the meeting of the Synod, and was so much pleased with it that he procured a copy, and in that manner it had been introduced to this place and the places adjacent. At one of those places I was told that they were so much pleased with it that they had sung it over and over one Sabbath-day during the entire intermission.

Time passed on, and in my invalid wanderings I was within the tropics, sailing in the track of Columbus, along the north shore of Hayti. Entering those waters, so often tinged with human blood, that divide this island from the famed Tortugas, as if in harmony with the dark memories that crowded upon the mind, black clouds began to darken the heavens, the thunders rolled, the lightnings gleamed with terrific fury, and amid the most sublime tumult of the elements we were carried along until our little craft dropped anchor in the bay of Port de Paix. The storm and darkness were such that I could not go ashore, and I was that night rocked to sleep on waters where many a pirate-ship, with bloody deck, had ridden securely at anchor, and prepared to set forth again on new missions of pillage and death. This harbor was the chief rendez-vous, the refuge from danger, and retreat from toil, of the buccaneers that for years infested these seas, and whose piratical plunderings for so long a time made their names a terror to all within their reach. However, not being particularly superstitious, I slept soundly for the night.

In the morning I left our little vessel and received—what is ever so grateful to a wanderer on a foreign shore, and especially to one who has any sympathy with the command, "Go teach all nations"—a welcome to the residence of a countryman, to a missionary's humble home. Ay, noble men and women are they, who, forgetful of themselves, and alone for the honor of the Master that they serve, leaving the comforts and amenities of a Christian civilization, toil on through life amid manifold discouragements, endeavoring to instruct and elevate the degraded, and, above all else, anxious to

"Allure to brighter worlds and lead the way."

And yet, like those whose own minds are so degraded and debauched that they can not conceive of purity and virtue in any character, there are those who are so utterly ignorant and unconscious of the lofty sentiments that animate these self-sacrificing missionaries, that they are ever finding, in base, unworthy, and ignoble objects, the grand motive of their life-work. Such may well ponder the life of unparalleled Christian heroism of the great Apostle to the Gentiles, of which the undoubted and sufficient motive was a constraining LOVE!

Evening darkened around the dwelling of the missionary, and a little group of natives assembled for religious worship. I sat in that little room and listened to the words of instruction, praise, and prayer, with indescribably strange emotions, for all was in a language that I did not understand. As the services proceeded, a hymn was read by the missionary with peculiar interest and emotion, and the dark group sang in the familiar strains of "Ortonville":

"Beni soit bien qui chaque jour
Nous comble de ses biens,
Et dont s'inconvenable amour
A romptu nos liens."

What a change—what a change! The haunts of bloody pirates giving place to the home of the missionary of the cross; the wild, agonized shrieks of their murdered victims succeeded by the sweet and peaceful notes of "Ortonville!" And so this tune has often been sung where sounds of direst woe and wretchedness had long been heard, and so it doubtless will be, and onward to the millennium.

As I once returned from a small church on the banks of the Savannah River, where it had been sung, the friend whose hospitality I was enjoying remarked:

"My brother-in-law, a missionary, told me he first heard that tune, and since had often sung it, on Mount Zion, in Jerusalem, and it sounded most sweetly there."

And thus it has been sung in many a land and clime by that heroic missionary band which now encircles the globe with celestial light.

But this narrative would swell to a volume were I to relate in detail all the sweet, sacred, and delightful memories associated with "Ortonville." In all my long invalid wanderings, and in all the years in which I have been permitted to labor actively in the Master's service, both "in the Brush" and elsewhere, it has often been my happy lot to recognize and greet in the most varied and striking circumstances the favorite I first learned to love in that country singing-school. Its gentle, soothing notes have broken sweetly upon my ear in crowded city churches; in quiet meetings for prayer; in large, unpainted, barn-like edifices erected for Christian sanctuaries; in rude log churches crowded with devout worshipers; in basket-meetings, camp-meetings, and in all varieties of gatherings for the worship of Almighty God. Often, very often, it has inspired my devotions as I have mingled, for the first time, with households gathered for family worship. With adoring recognition of the Fatherhood of God, and with loving recognition of the brotherhood of man, it has been my happy, happy lot thus to worship with uncounted hundreds of families—among them the most cultivated and refined, and the most ignorant, neglected, and lowly of God's poor. In very long horseback-journeys, for days, weeks, and months together, as I have ridden over bleak, desolate "barrens," through dense, dark forests, along deep, narrow ravines and valleys, and up and over rough and rugged mountains, nearly every night has found me under a different roof, enjoying the rough or refined hospitality of a new-found family. As they have invited me to "take the books" (the Bible and hymn-book) and lead the devotions of the family, often in the most remote and lowly cabins, I have been surprised and delighted, as I was in the tropics, with the familiar notes of "Ortonville."

As I write these lines my memory is far more busy than my pen. I think of my wanderings in many different States, and of the cabins in which I have briefly rehearsed the old, old story, and by kind words of entreaty, and in reverent words of prayer, attempted to "allure to brighter worlds, and lead the way." I have knelt in prayer in many a home along the banks of the Rappahannock, the James, the Cape Fear, the Santee, the Savannah, the Tennessee, the Cumberland, the Ohio, the Mississippi, the Missouri, the San Joaquin, the Sacramento, and many other rivers. So I have knelt and prayed in homes along the shores of the stormy Atlantic and the peaceful Pacific. Very often the inmates, at first startled, and then delighted, by the strangeness of my visit, have told me that my voice was the first ever lifted in prayer beneath their roofs. Though in multitudes of such homes no member of the family had ever learned a single letter of the alphabet of their mother-tongue, and all were barefooted, and more destitute and ignorant than the most of my readers will be able to conceive, they have received me in their homes with a hospitality so hearty and cordial, and have thanked me, and bidden me come again, with such warm words and such abounding tears, that my own have welled and flowed responsive to theirs; and as I have spoken my farewell words, so often final, and ridden away with new impressions of the power of the Saviour's name and love to touch and melt the rudest minds, my happy heart has found full expression in the tender notes and sweet words of my favorite tune and hymn:

"Majestic sweetness sits enthroned
Upon the Saviour's brow;
His head with radiant glories crowned,
His lips with grace o'erflow.
"No mortal can with him compare,
Among the sons of men;
Fairer is he than all the fair
Who fill the heavenly train.
"He saw me plunged in deep distress,
And flew to my relief;
For me he bore the shameful cross,
And carried all my grief.
"Since from his bounty I receive
Such proofs of love divine,
Had I a thousand hearts to give,
Lord, they should all be thine."

Note.—Returning from one of my visits to Hayti, more than twenty-five years ago, I communicated to Professor Hastings, at his old home in Amity Street, New York, several of the facts related in this chapter. He then gave me the history of the tune as follows:

"I was anxious to write just as simple a tune as possible, to be sung by children. I sat at my instrument, and played, until this tune was completely formed in my mind.

"Not long after, a boy came from the printer with a note, saying he needed another tune to fill out a page or form. I sat down at my instrument, played it again, thought it would do, wrote it out, and sent it to the office, little dreaming that I should hear from it, as I have, from almost every part of the world."