By what magnetism has our mention of voices conjured up the form of Dr. Lowell Mason? And yet, there he is, as majestic as Old Hundred—as popular—and apparently as indestructible by Time. I would like to see a pupil of his who does not love him. I defy any one to look at this noble, patriarchal chorister (as he leads the congregational singing on the Sabbath, in Dr. Alexander’s church) with an unmoistened eye. How fitting his position—and oh! how befitting God’s temple, the praise of “all the people.” Should some conquering hero, whose blood had been shed, free as water, for us and ours, revisit our shores, oh, who, as his triumphal chariot wheels rolled by, would pass over to his neighbor for expression the tumultuous gratitude with which his own heart was swelling?
That the mantle of the father should have fallen on the son, is not surprising; and they who have listened delightedly at Mr. William Mason’s “Musical Matinée’s” must bear witness how this inherited gift has been enriched by assiduous culture. Nature in giving him the ear and genius for a pianist, has also finished off his hands with such nicety, that, as they dart over the keys, they look to the observer like little snow-white scampering mice.
Ah—here is Dr. Skinner! no misnomer that: but what a logician—what an orator! Not an unmeaning sentence—not a superfluous word—not an unpolished period escapes him. In these day of superficial, botched, evangelical apprentice-work, it is a treat to welcome a master workman. Thank Providence, all the talent is not on the side of Beelzebub!
Vinegar cruets and vestry meetings! here come a group of Bostonians! Mark their puckered, spick-and-span self-complaisance! Mark that scornful gathering up of their skirts as they sidle away from that gorgeous Magdalen who, God pity and help her, may repent in her robes of unwomanly shame, but they in their “mint and anise,” whitewashed garments—never!
I close with a little quotation, not that it has any thing to do with my subject, but that it is merely a poetical finish to my article. Some people have a weakness for poetry; I have; it is from the pen of the cant-hating Hood.
“A pride there is of rank—a pride of birth,
A pride of learning, and a pride of purse,
A London pride—in short, there be on earth
A host of prides, some better, and some worse;
But of all prides, since Lucifer’s attaint,
The proudest swells a self-elected saint.
To picture that cold pride, so harsh and hard,
Fancy a peacock, in a poultry-yard;
Behold him in conceited circles sail,
Strutting and dancing, and planted stiff
In all his pomp and pageantry, as if
He felt “the eyes of Europe” on his tail!”
THE CONFESSION BOX.
I confess to being nervous. I don’t admire the individual who places a foot upon the rounds of the chair on which I am sitting; or beats a prolonged tattoo with his fingers on the table; or stands with his hands on a creaking door, moving it backward and forward, while he performs an interminable leave-taking; or spins napkin-rings, while he waits for the dessert; or tips his chair back on its hind legs, in the warmth of debate; or tells jokes as old as Noah’s ark; or levels volleys of puns at me when I am not in the laughing mood.