THE CAPTAIN OF THE JANIZARIES.
A Story of the Times of Scanderbey, and the Fall of Constantinople.
A KING OF TYRE.
Contrasted Scenes of Jewish and Phoenician Life, 400 B.C., woven into romance.
THAT ANGELIC WOMAN.
A Story from High Life To-day.
A MAN FOR 'A THAT; OR, "MY SAINT JOHN."
A Story of City Life among the Lowly.
THE AGE OF THE CRUSADES.
Life in the XI. and XII. Centuries. In preparation.
THE BARITONE'S PARISH; OR,
"ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN"
The pulpit and the choir gallery are closely related in our city churches. It is, however, a sad fact that the "sons of the prophets" and the "sons of Korah" usually know but little of one another; and this is to the loss of both. To the musicians the minister often seems a recluse, and the clergyman comes to look upon his choir as a band of itinerant minstrels.
It is therefore very refreshing to note that between the pastor of St. Philemon's, the Rev. Dr. Wesley Knox, and Mr. Philip Vox, there sprang up an intimacy almost from the day when the new baritone sang his first solo. It was Shelley's "Resurrection," which had been rendered as an offertory after one of the doctor's finest efforts at an Easter sermon.
Deacon Brisk, the chairman of the music committee, met the preacher at the chancel-rail within fifteen seconds after the benediction had been pronounced; before the sexton could deliver a message that a parishioner was in momentary expectation of death, and required the pastor's immediate attendance; before Lawyer Codey had adjusted his silk hat like a falcon on his wrist preparatory to his stately march down the middle aisle; and even before the soprano had adjusted her handsome face and bonnet over the front of the choir gallery to inspect the passers-out.
Deacon Brisk was like most music committee-men in that he knew little about the musical art; but he was a hustler in getting the worth of his money in whatever job he undertook. Rubbing his hands in self-congratulation upon the new baritone's engagement, he delivered himself of a panegyric which he had spent the time of the closing prayer in composing:
"I tell you, doctor, Vox was a catch. Why, he sang
"'In slumber lay the brooding world
Upon that glorious night,'
so sweetly that you could almost hear the stars twinkle through the music; and when he struck
"'Let heaven's vaulted arches ring,'
it seemed as if the sky were tumbling down through the church roof. That's great singing; eh, doctor? Cost only three hundred extra; worth a thousand on the church market!"
"Yes," said the doctor, "I was pleased with the man's voice. I am impressed with the idea that there is more than larynx and training in him. There must be bigness and sweetness of soul behind those tones. Men can't sing that way to order. Come, Brisk, introduce us when those young women get through talking to him. I know I shall like him. But I didn't know that you were so well up in musical judgment."
"Why, doctor," rejoined Brisk, "it doesn't require that a man shall be an electrical engineer in order to invest successfully in a trolley."
The dominie was a bachelor. That was a pity; for a wife and family of ten could have homed themselves in his heart without detracting from the love he had for everybody else. But having no wife to console him after the efforts of a hard Sunday, he was accustomed to ask one or another of the young men to come to the study and "curry him down," as he said, after evening service.
Soon Vox came to occupy permanently this place of clerical groom. The saintly folk who thought that the light burning until Sunday midnight in the sanctum was a sign of the protracted devotions of their pastor would, on one occasion at least, have been astounded to see the reality. On the lounge was stretched the tired preacher, his feet on a pile of "skimmed" newspapers, reserved for the more thorough perusal they would never get. In his lap lay the head of a big collie, whose eyes were fixed on the handsome face of his master. Do dogs have religious instinct? If so, this was a canine hour of worship, and the dog was a genuine mystic. In some famous pictures of the adoration of the Magi less reverence and love are depicted on the faces than gleamed from beneath the shaggy eyebrows of the brute.