"All hail the power of Jesus' name;
Let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem
And crown Him Lord of all."
"Coronation!" Auntie Barber's special favorite, and the tune to which Uncle John Bennett always growled his heaviest bass. Old Deacon Slocumb, the former leader, adjusted his spectacles, found the place and meekly waited. He was about to sing the songs of Zion in a strange land, or at least under strange circumstances; but he loved the service, and struggled for a meek and quiet spirit.
And the song burst forth. Coronation indeed! Old Coronation was hoary-haired when the tune was born. How it rolled and swelled in triumph through the astonished church!
"All hail!" said the tenor in clear, full tones. "All hail!" repeated the bass in voice of thunder. "All hail!" shrieked the soprano in full volume, followed hard after by the alto, who would not be outdone; and then the entire strength of the choir took up the words and shouted and roared, "All hail the power!" Then, wonderful to relate, went back to the "All hail" and did it over. About this time Auntie Barber had reached, through much quavering, the last word of the second line, then lifted her bewildered eyes to the choir and listened.
"I must have lost the place," she meekly said. Even yet, it had not occurred to her that the choir could possibly be singing anything but Coronation to those words!
As for Deacon Slocumb, he took off his spectacles, carefully wiped and re-adjusted them, and was looking for his place again by the time the choir reached the word "power." They finished the line in unison, then went off into a whirl of ecstasy over the angels. "Let a-a-a angels—" sang one part, "prostrate fall, FALL, FALL," thundered another part; until Joe Slocumb, the Deacon's graceless son, looked about him and grinned, and wondered where they were falling to!
Before this time Uncle Charlie's growl had been vanquished, and Deacon Slocumb's book was closed; and dear Auntie Barber, although she kept her book open and her meek eyes fixed on the page, knew that Coronation had gone far beyond her reach.
The triumphant choir swept through to the close, and seated themselves in smiling satisfaction.
"I'm sure we led the congregation," whispered Mr. Pemberton into the ear of the first soprano. "They can't complain of our part of the contract."
And that entire company let itself explode into a succession of giggles, over the peculiar aptness of the text at that moment announced: "He leadeth me by a way that I have not known."