Then Emily
and the schoolmistress had toiled at the school children, whose thin
little pipes and provincialisms were a painful infliction, till Mrs.
Henderson, backed by Clarence, worked up a few promising men's
voices to support them. We thought everything but the New and Old
Versions smacked of dissent, except the hymns at the end of the
Prayer-book, though we did not go as far as Chapman, who told Emily
he understood as how all the tunes was tried over in Doctor's
Commons afore they were sent out, and it was not 'liable' to change
them. One of Clarence's amusements in his lonely life had been the
acquisition of a knowledge of music, and he had a really good voice;
while his adherence to our choir encouraged other young men of the
farmer and artisan class to join us. Choir, however, did not mean
surplices and cassocks, but a collection of our best voices, male
and female, in the gallery.
Martyn began to be a great help when at home, never having wavered
in his purpose of becoming a clergyman. On going to Oxford, he
became imbued with the influences that made Alma Mater the focus of
the religious life and progress of that generation which is now the
elder one. There might in some be unreality, in others
extravagance, in others mere imitation; but there was a truly great
work on the minds of the young men of that era--a work which has
stood the test of time, made saints and martyrs, and sown the seed
whereof we have witnessed a goodly growth, in spite of cruel shocks
and disappointments, fightings within and fears without, slanders
and follies to provoke them, such as we can now afford to laugh
over.
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