Northfield’s Festival of Sacred Music
The Northfield Festival of Sacred Music when introduced into the program of the Northfield General Conference in the decade preceding World War II proved to be a thrilling moving event. Coming on the closing Sunday of the many summer programs, it brought immense crowds to the annual gathering at East Northfield which D. L. Moody made so popular by the list of distinguished speakers that he enlisted from British and American pulpits and educational institutions.
The fact that the Westminster Choir Summer School was holding its sessions at Mount Hermon, just a short distance across the river, with Dr. John Finley Williamson at its head, made possible Northfield’s festival of sacred music. Choirs from neighboring communities united with the group at the summer school, and for six weeks five hundred singers prepared for the memorable occasion.
Twice the writer was in attendance. Much alike each year, yet particular interest attached itself to 1937. This was the season of the D. L. Moody Centenary Celebration, and the fifty-eighth session of the Northfield General Conference. The Festival Choir was divided into a few different groups for various purposes. Yet when the hymns were sung these all participated, and the audience was invited to join them.
Within five minutes after the entrances were opened the great auditorium was filled. People also stood in a solid line near the walls. Newspapers reported that about two thousand additional people also stood outside in the hot sun during the rendering of the program, a part of which was broadcast.
The audience, inside and outside the building, had its first opportunity to sing when they united in Luther’s soul-stirring hymn:
“A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing.”
The singing company made the most of it. “The very walls shook,” said my friend in the next seat.
The next hymn selection was that which came from Toplady. This the audience knew well, and sang with affectionate enthusiasm:
“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.”
Happy was the surprise which came with the next hymn. Mrs. W. R. Moody, daughter-in-law of D. L. Moody, seated herself at the keyboard of a small instrument which, before it was opened up, looked like a big packing case. Really it was the small organ which accompanied Moody and Sankey during their nation-wide evangelistic campaigns; for the latter always wanted, if possible, to have his own instrument with him. Hence the little organ was made for this purpose. The instrument had been on display in the Moody exhibit at Moody’s boyhood home during the special days of the Moody Centennial. Visitors could there sit in the spacious chair used by Moody himself, sign their names; and, by permission, play on Sankey’s organ. Musicians loved to do so. The Westminster singers now rendered the beloved gospel song:
“There were ninety and nine that safely lay
In the shelter of the fold,
But one was out on the hills away,
Far off from the gates of gold—
Away on the mountains wild and bare
Away from the tender Shepherd’s care.”
Joy beamed on the countenance of Mrs. Moody as she led the singers on the historic little organ; and the song continued through the lines:
“But all through the mountains, thunder-riven,
And up from the rocky steep,
There arose a glad cry to the gate of heaven.”
The conductor at this point gave a signal to the enraptured audience, and everybody joined the special singers in the triumphant lines:
“‘Rejoice! I have found my sheep!’
And the angels echoed around the throne,
Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own.”
This musical climax was dramatic. The great company had evidently coveted the privilege of singing with Sankey’s organ, and particularly in joining in this song. Now it came, and they made the most of it. “Singing such as that I never expect to hear again this side of heaven,” said a woman whose soul had caught a vision of the lost sheep which had, at last, been found.
Just one more hymn remained to be sung before the Choral Benediction of Peter Lutkin was rendered by the great chorus. This was the familiar hymn of Isaac Watts, which we sang to the tune of Hamburg:
“When I survey the wondrous cross,
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.”
“Both hymn and tune are universal favorites,” affirmed Dr. Charles A. Boyd after he examined sixteen hymnals and found the hymn in each of them. In all but two it was set to Hamburg.
Three verses of the hymn were sung, as requested, very softly. Then the last verse was sung louder, until, in mighty volume, the long-remembered service closed with the lines of personal consecration:
“Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”
CHAPTER V
HYMNS OF COMFORT
When I received word of the death of my son, in a distant land, I turned to your book of hymn stories, and was comforted.—From the personal letter of a friend.
In the darkest hours of the war Mr. Winston Churchill (then prime minister) would steal away an hour or two to hear the songs he loves.—The British Weekly.
“When I cannot sleep at night I silently repeat hymns,” once said Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster to a caller. First in the list, she intimated, was the cherished hymn of John Newton, who “loved much because he was forgiven much”:
“How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
In a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.
“It makes the wounded spirit whole,
And calms the troubled breast;
’Tis manna to the hungry soul,
And to the weary, rest.”