A pavement of blue from the cloud did go forth,
Extensively reaching from South to the North,
On which holy angels stood almost complete,
And glorified spirits in harmony sweet.
The next I heard Jesus say come you up here,
When all the blessed nations up gently did steer,
And quitting the globe with sweet pleasure did sing
A song that had never before tuned a string.
Then in the sweet transport my feet left the ground,
Without any motion of body or sound;
My joys were unspeakably full of delight,
So loud was the music it wakened me quite.
We were pleased in the perusal of these hymns to notice that the poet’s theology took in apparently all men in its broad sweep. We said here is a man who does not recognize the color line in his thought of God’s redeeming love. It takes poetry to expand the soul above prejudice and caste—when lo, we stumbled across the following:
Roll forward, dear Saviour, roll forward the day
When all shall submit and rejoice in thy sway,
When white men and Indians, united in praise,
One vast hallelujah triumphant shall raise.
We were mistaken. The colored brother has no recognition. White men and Indians are to have a monopoly in the vast hallelujah! How the wings of our poet drooped as he essayed this loftiest of flights. We are thankful, however, that he did let the Indian come in for a part in the hallelujah. The war-whoop would not at all be out of harmony in his kind of a hallelujah chorus! That this “sweet singer in Israel” D.D. should make some of his songs take on the form of Scripture exposition is what we might expect, as witness:
There was a man in ancient times,
The Scriptures doth inform us,
Whose pomp and grandeur and whose crimes
Were great and very numerous.
The man fared sumptuously each day
In purple and fine linen;
He ate and drank, but seemed to pray—
Spent all his time in sinning.
Poor Lazarus lying at his gate,
To help himself unable,
Did for the fragments humbly wait
That fell from his rich table,
But not one mite would he bestow,
Would the rich worldling give him;
The dogs took pity—licked his sores—
More ready to relieve him.
At length death came, the poor man died,
By angel hands attended;
Away to Abra’ms bosom hied,
Where his sorrows all are ended.
The rich man died—was buried, too—
But, O! his dreadful station;
With heaven and Lazarus in view,
He landed in damnation.
The above are samples of versification that we have selected from this Sweet Songster, that our readers may see for themselves the kind of Christian instruction some white people in certain portions of our country receive. These selections are certainly ludicrous, yet they have also a serious aspect—they point to duty. It would be useless to denounce such incompetent leadership as is here revealed. It would be folly to argue either with the leaders or the people whom they lead. We must plant schools and educate the children. Preach the Gospel in its simplicity, and let the people hear the truth. The light will destroy the darkness. It will reveal the deformity and ugliness of error. It will rebuke the assumptions of ignorance. It will lead the people in their soul-hunger to turn away from husks and to demand that in song and sermon their poets and preachers shall give them the bread of life or else keep silent. There is a wide field here to be cultivated. It lies open before us. We have entered it. Rich has been our harvesting so far as we have gone. Earnest and numerous are the invitations that come to us for more workers and enlarged efforts. These invitations are an appeal to the churches more liberally to supply us with means, that we may be able to respond and go in to possess the land.