VI.

THE MINISTRY OF SONG

We may turn aside for a short time before we consider the last eventful weeks of Frances Ridley Havergal’s sojourn upon earth, to deal with a subject that has been but lightly touched upon, namely, her ministry of song.

She had inherited from her gifted father a great talent for music.  She was a remarkably skilful performer upon the pianoforte.  So retentive was her memory that she could play without notes a large portion of the works of Handel, Beethoven and Mendelssohn.

[Illustration:  F.R.  Havergal]

Her musical compositions were of a very high order.  When she was thirty years of age she went, while at Cologne, to show some of her compositions to Ferdinand Hiller.  After looking through them and learning that she had had no instruction in harmony, he expressed his surprise and delivered his verdict, the worst part first.

He said her melodies bore the stamp of talent, not of genius.  “But as to your harmonies,” he said to her, “I must say I am astonished.  It is something singular to find such a grasp of the subject, such power of harmonisation except where there has been long and thorough study and instruction; here I can give almost unlimited praise.”  She told him her question was, had she talent enough to make it worth while to devote herself to music as a serious thing, as a life-work?  He answered, “Sincerely and unhesitatingly I can say that you have.”

How spontaneous was her musical and poetical genius will be seen from the account of the genesis of her well-known missionary hymn and tune, “Tell it out among the heathen.”  She was unable to go to church at Winterdyne one snowy morning in 1873.  She asked for her Prayer-book while still in bed, as she always liked to follow the services for the day.  On Mr. Shaw, her brother-in-law, returning from church, he heard the piano sounding.  “Why, Frances,” he said, “I thought you were upstairs.”  “Yes, but I had my Prayer-book, and in the Psalm for to-day I read, ‘Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King.’  I thought what a splendid first line; and then the words and music came rushing on to me.  There, it’s all written out.”  She had written it out, the words and music and harmonies complete.  And her sister remarks:  “Only those who heard her could imagine the brisk ringing tone with which she sang this tune.”

In her “Consecration Hymn” occurs the couplet—­

“Take my voice and let me sing Always only for my King.”

And to her these were no mere words of a song.  She tried to consecrate all her singing to God’s service.  It was a real ministry.  She strove always to sing the very words of the Bible, as she observed that persons could not with decency object to them, though they might have done so to her own words.