Brave Men and Women: Their Struggles, Failures, And TriumphsFuller, Osgood E. (Osgood Eaton)
History
Brave Men and Women: Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs
Fuller, Osgood E. (Osgood Eaton)
Biography
This is a great field. It is opening up broader every day. I do not know
any field where a man can go more enthusiastically to work. It affects
not only the physical, but the moral condition. We have brought about a
higher moral tone at Harvard through physical training. There is less
smoking and drinking by far than before the gymnasium was so universally
used. Every thing that develops the whole man affects morals. Our Maker
did not put us here merely to be trained for somewhere else. No one can
walk through the streets of Boston without feeling that there is need
enough of work to do right here, in bringing about a better condition of
affairs; something which shall be nearer an ideal heaven on earth.--_The
Christian Union_.
* * * * *
XXXI.
SAINT CECILIA
THE PATRONESS OF MUSIC-MYTHS CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC-ITS RELATION
TO WORK AND BLESSEDNESS
Her legend relates that about the year 230, which would be in the time
of the Emperor Alexander. Severus, Cecilia, a Roman lady, born of a
noble and rich family, who in early youth had been converted to
Christianity, and had made a vow of perpetual virginity, was constrained
by her parents to marry a certain Valerian, a pagan, whom she succeeded
in converting to Christianity without infringing the vow she had made.
She also converted her brother-in-law, Tiburtius, and a friend called
Maximius, all of whom were martyred in consequence of their faith.
It is further related, among other circumstances purely legendary, that
Cecilia often united instrumental music to that of her voice, in singing
the praises of the Lord. On this all her fame has been founded, and she
has become the special patroness of music and musicians all the world
over. Half the musical societies of Europe have been named after her,
and her supposed musical acquirements have led the votaries of a sister
art to find subjects for their work in episodes of her life. The grand
painting by Domenichino, at Bologna, in which the saint is represented
as rapt in an ecstasy of devotion, with a small "organ," as it is
called--an instrument resembling a large kind of Pandean pipes--in her
hand, is well known, as is also Dryden's beautiful ode. The illustration
which accompanies this chapter, after a painting by one of the brothers
Caracci, of the seventeenth century, represents Cecilia at the organ.
Borne heavenward on the tide of music, she sees a vision of the holy
family, the child Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, with an angel near at hand in
quiet gladness.
God's harmony is written
All through, in shining bars,
The soul His love has smitten
As heaven is writ with stars.
MYTHS CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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