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BOOKS BY JAMES M. LUDLOW, D.D., Litt.D.

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.

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.

"Doctor," said Vox, suddenly poising the spoon as if it were a baton, and dripping the melted cheese on to the manuscript of the night's sermon before the preacher had decided whether to put it into his "barrel" or his waste-basket--"doctor, do you know that I feel like a hypocrite, singing in a Christian church?"

"You a hypocrite, Vox? You couldn't act a false part any more than you could sing a false note without having the shivers go all through you."

"Well," replied the singer, "that is just what is the matter with me. The shivers do go through me. I am shocked at the moral discord I am making. I am striking false notes all the time. My life doesn't follow the score of my conscience. I don't mean that I have committed murder or picked pockets, but it seems to me that I am breaking the commandment by bearing false witness about myself, making people think I am a saint, or want to be one, when the fact is that I put no more heart into my singing than the organ-pipe does."

So saying Vox strode across the floor, holding a plate of rarebit as if it were a sheet of music, and jerked the toasted cheese off it as he seemed to jerk the notes off the paper when he sang.

The doctor slipped from the lounge just in time to escape a savory splash which was aiming itself straight for the space between his vest and shirt-bosom. The dog growled at the apparent attack upon his master, but was diverted from further warlike demonstrations by the bit of toast that fell under his nose.

"Your dog is as good as a special policeman for you, doctor."

"Yes, he defends me in more ways than one. Do you know why I call him Caleb? Caleb is Hebrew for 'God's dog.' One day, when he was a pup, I forgot myself and dropped into a regular pessimist over some materialistic trash I was reading. The pup seemed to notice my sour face, and put his paws upon my knees, lolled out his tongue, and searched me through and through with those bright eyes of his. It was as much as to say, 'Master, you're a fool. Look at me. Didn't it take a God to make such a marvelous creature as I am?' So I have called him Caleb ever since. He tackles many a doubt for me, as he would any other robber."

"I wish I had your faith, doctor," said Vox, putting his arm around Caleb's neck, and dropping another piece of toast into the waiting jaws.

"Faith? You have got it, Phil; only you don't know it."

"Nonsense, doctor! I suppose I believe the Creed; at least I don't disbelieve it. But I don't feel these things. That's what makes me say that I am a hypocrite to sing in a Christian church. To-night I saw a woman crying during my solo. I felt like stopping. I never feel like crying, except when the notes cry themselves; then I confess to a moistening that goes all through me. Now what right have I to make another feel what I don't feel myself? I tell you, doctor, I am nothing but a bellowing hypocrite. I'm going into opera, where it is all make-believe. You know that I've had offers that would tempt a singing devil; and I believe I would be one if it were not for you."

The doctor eyed his guest quizzically for a moment, then deliberately stretched himself again on the lounge.

"Phil, that cheese has gone to your head. I didn't think it was so strong. Yet I can understand your mistake, for I used to talk that way to myself when I was as green and unsophisticated as you are. I would scratch out the best sentences from my sermons, because I didn't feel all they meant, and would accuse myself of duplicity and cant because my experience was not up to my doctrine. But what if it wasn't? My brain isn't as big as the Bible. My conscience isn't as true and vivid as Moses' was when he wrote down the Ten Commandments. My heart isn't as tender as Christ's. If a preacher says only what he is able to feel at the moment, there will be poor fodder for the parish. So it is all through life. People talk in society on a higher level than they habitually think. They ought to. That is what society is for--to tune up to key the sagging strings of common, humdrum life. All politeness will cease when everybody acts on your theory. We must not say 'Good-morning' to a neighbor because at the moment we do not really care whether his day is going to be pleasant or not. You must not take off your hat to a lady on the street, unless at the instant you are possessed of a profound respect for the sex. Who was that composer that said that he never knew what a piece he had written until he heard Joseffy play it? They asked Parepa to sing 'Coming through the Rye.' She said, 'Pshaw! I've sung it threadbare. I grind it out now as the hand-organ does.' But she sang it, and brought down the house. Why shouldn't she? Feel! Do you suppose that old violin feels anything of the joy that thrills through its fibers? Shall I smash it for a hypocritical contrivance of wood and catgut? Did I kick Dr. Cutt out of the study the other day because he didn't realize the good he had done me in reducing the swelling of my sprained ankle? Yet you want me to let you kick yourself out of the church because you are not one of the 'angels of Jesus,' or haven't had all the joy of life crushed out of you by affliction, so that you are 'weary of earth,' as you sing!"

The doctor warmed with his theme, until, standing up, he put his big hands on Vox's shoulders, and fairly shouted at him:

"Sing, Phil! Sing the brightest, happiest things that God ever inspired men to write. But don't go croaking like an owl because you don't feel like a nightingale."

"Well," said Vox, drawing a long breath, and letting it out in a whistle, "that cheese or something else has inspired you, doctor. I never heard you so eloquent in the pulpit. Why don't you preach at us that way? Take us, as it were, one by one, and go through us, instead of preaching at humanity in the lump. I confess that you have persuaded me about my Sunday work. I am not going to leave it off. But now for the other six days in the week. I can convince you that they are full of husks that do nobody any good. Here's my diary. Isn't it contemptible for a man with even a singer's conscience? Monday, sung at Checkley's musicale for fifty dollars and a score of feminine compliments; Tuesday, in oratorio for one hundred dollars and some newspaper puffs, which were all wrong from a critical standpoint; Wednesday, moped all day because I couldn't sing--raw throat; Thursday, made believe teach a lot of tone-deaf fellows who can never sing any more than crows, and took their money for the imposition; Friday, ditto; Saturday, rehearsal. Now who am I helping by peddling my chin-wares?"

Vox stopped for lack of breath, as well as from the fact that his week had run out.

"Go on," said the doctor, nonchalantly. "You can certainly slander yourself worse than that. What! no more? Why, Vox, I know there are worse things about you than what you have told me."

Vox colored.

"You needn't blush so over it, Phil," and the doctor burst out laughing at him. "I am not going to twit you on any disagreeable facts. I didn't say I knew what those worse things were; but I do know that you are not such a sweet saint as to have only the faults mentioned. If they were all, I would have a glass case made for you at once, put your bones up in leather, and place a basin of holy water at your door for passers-by to dip their fingers in. But soberly, Phil, I think I can size you up, or down."

"All right; try it. You may find me so big a fool that it will take some time to get my full measurement."

With that he stretched himself to his full height, and posed with his fingers in his vest-holes. The attitude interested Caleb, who stretched himself out to almost corresponding dimensions horizontally along the floor, recovering his legs slowly to the accompaniment of a long and dismal whine.

"He does that," said the doctor, "only when there is going to be a death in the neighborhood, or when I begin to read my sermons aloud in the study. He knows I am going to lecture you. Charge, Caleb!

"Dearly beloved Vox! you have two first-class deficiencies. First, a purposeless life. You happen to be doing good with that wonderful voice of yours; but that is nothing to your credit. You can't help cheering people when you wag your jaws any more than Caleb can help being a comfort to me when he wags his tail. You didn't study music for the sake of helping anybody, but only because music gave you a pleasurable means of getting a livelihood. So you have no soul-satisfaction in your profession, for all you are succeeding so grandly in it. You are like that piece of music which you said was a failure, because, though there were some fine harmonies in it, it had no theme, no prevailing idea, no musical purpose."

"Stop your pessimism," rejoined the doctor. "That poetic head of yours reminds me that Schiller in the 'Bell' gives utterance to the same idea I am trying to beat into you."

"The Bell? That's me, too; all brass and clapper!" grumbled Vox, twisting Caleb's ears until the brute whined.

The doctor, not heeding either the singer's soliloquy or the brute's, quoted in oratorical style:

"'So let us duly ponder all The works our feeble strength achieves; For mean, in truth, the man we call Who ne'er what he completes conceives.

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