BY WOLFGANG H. STEFANI

n the organ loft of Whitfield's Tabernacle in London, which was destroyed by enemy action in March 1945, was this inscription: "Make a large place in your life for music and it will bring you a priceless reward. . . . In the hour of rest, music will lift up your spirit and give refreshment to every faculty of your being. In the hour of work, you will rejoice in the strength and energy which music has given you. In the hour of prayer, music will quicken the aspirations of your soul. In the hour of fellowship, music will blend your spirit with others in unity and understanding."¹

Without doubt music is a major component of contemporary life. Available to all the planet's communities, no matter how remote, listened to both avidly and absentmindedly, passionately argued about, a conspirator in love, an inducer of both sleep and tears, universal, and indispensable from the outset of human history, music's importance in our lives today is enormous. In fact, probably no other human cultural activity is so all-pervasive, reaching into, shaping, and often controlling our lives.²

By virtue of its ubiquity, contemporary popular music is familiar to us all. If we shop, use a bank, listen to the radio or view television, visit with friends or family, in short, if we are alive, we hear it, and we hear it often. Deeply ingrained, it is the audible wallpaper of our lives. It has been estimated that the average Westerner's brain spends around 25 percent of its lifetime registering, monitoring, and decoding popular music.³ Between the seventh and twelfth grades the average teenager in Australia listens to 10,500 hours of popular music, which is just slightly less than the entire number of hours spent in the classroom from kindergarten through high school.⁴

The anonymous organ loft inscriber would surely be gratified by the large place given to music in today's world.

Or would he? Is this really what he meant? We are all listening to it, we have all made a large place for it in our lives, but where is the "priceless reward" he promised? Dazed and crazed by music, we are entertained but not refreshed, busy but not energized, stimulated but not spiritually quickened, congregated but not blended in unity and understanding.

Lacking nothing in the quantity of music we listen to, why have we not received the recompense? Perhaps, overtaken with the abundance of the art, we can no longer distinguish its true focus. One of Christendom's greatest church musicians, Johann Sebastian Bach, may have been right when he wrote in a student's notebook: "The aim and final reason of all music is the glory of God." "Where this is not observed there will be no real music, but only a devilish hubbub."⁵

Could it be that what Martin Luther called "the greatest treasure in the world . . . a beautiful and glorious gift of God"⁶ will fail us unless its focus is on God and His glory? Perhaps this is one way we can attain music's "priceless reward."

Fred Pratt Green, one of the twentieth century's most prolific hymn writers, penned these lines about the central focus of music in our worship:

When in our music God is glorified,
And adoration leaves no room for pride,
It is as though the whole creation cried: Alleluia!⁷

But how can this be? How can melodies and movements, concerti and choruses, symphonies, songs, and psalms render God glory—or, for that matter, fail to do so? Arduous questions such as these have teased and tantalized believers for millennia.

Part of the answer may lie in Christ's words: "By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit" (John 15:8, RSV). Truly, inasmuch as our hymns and gospel songs bear witness to God's magnificent gifts, and by their seeds bear fruit in our lives in the form of selfless ministry, God is glorified.

All Our Griefs to Bear
Ireland saw in Joseph M. Scriven the prospect of a great citizen with high ideals and great aspirations. On completion of his education at Trinity College, Dublin, he was engaged to be married. But a freak drowning accident on the eve of the wedding snatched his anticipated bride from him. Seeking a new life, he sailed to Canada.

While working as a teacher, Scriven became acquainted with another young woman, witnessed to her of his deeply held Christian beliefs, and again a wedding date was fixed. For the second time his fiancée died, this time from pneumonia after being baptized in an icy lake.

From this time on Scriven devoted his life to service for others, giving freely of his limited possessions, helping the helpless and accepting nothing in return.

It was only by accident that a friend found the words of a poem Scriven wrote, born out of his own tragic experiences and written to comfort his mother in Ireland, who was enduring her own private sorrow. Although not intended for public use, the poem, "Pray Without Ceasing," was set to music and has moved myriad hearts for almost 140 years, performing its personal ministry around the world under the title "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." It's No. 499 in The Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal.

This Is Her Story
Though Fanny Crosby was blinded from the age of six weeks by a medical blunder and left fatherless a short time later, many of her contemporaries maintained that to be in her presence was sunshine. At one time a well-intentioned minister remarked to her: "I think it is a great pity that the Master, when He showered so many gifts upon you, did not give you sight."

"Do you know," she replied, "if at birth I had been able to make one petition to my Creator, it would have been that I should be born blind."

"Why?" asked the surprised cleric.

"Because when I get to heaven, the first sight that shall ever gladden my eyes will be that of my Savior." Crosby's personal ministry and faith found apparently spontaneous exclamation in 9,000 Christian poems, one of the best-loved of which is "Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine!", hymn No. 462 in The Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal. Crosby's statement of faith is also revealed in the words of another of her 18 hymns that appear in The Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal, "I know I shall see in His beauty the King in whose law I delight" ("Redeemed!" No. 338). Truly, God is glorified when we sing this tribute to the relationship Crosby had with her Savior.⁸

God Is Our Song
Fred Pratt Green described the home he grew up in as a "place where religion was scrupulously observed, but never made burdensome." He wrote his first hymn at the age of 25 and served nearly 40 years as a pastor to several Methodist congregations in England.

When he retired in 1969, he imagined spending his retirement years quietly painting pastels. After he had purchased the supplies for this hobby, he was asked to serve on a committee to produce a supplement to the Methodist hymnal. The committee found itself in the position of having a number of hymn tunes for which there were no appropriate texts, and subjects for which no suitable hymns had been written. The resulting book, Hymns and Songs, published in 1969, contains eight of the nearly 300 hymns that Pratt Green wrote during his life.

In 1977 a hymn he wrote was used to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. In 1978 he wrote a hymn to honor the centenary of the bells in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. "Coming to hymn writing after experience as a poet," he wrote, "I have learned to distinguish between these two activities. One writes poetry to please oneself, one writes hymns as a servant of Christ and His church." The Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal has 15 hymns written by Pratt Green, including "When in Our Music God Is Glorified" (No. 32).

And so, we have come full circle from the unknown scribbler in the organ loft. The great thoughts and noble themes captured in the words and music of Christianity's great hymns provide inspiration and insight, not just on Sabbath mornings, but throughout the week. Ministered to by the music of a bereaved and grieving school master, a congenial blind grandmother, a prolific pastor-poet, and others, our spirits are uplifted and refreshed, and our souls' aspirations quickened by these inspired words and tunes. Unified and energized, like them we now seek to "bear fruit" "all the day long" to the "friend we have in Jesus."

When in our music God is glorified, …
Let every instrument be used for praise;
Let all rejoice who have a voice to raise;
And may God give us faith to sing always: Alleluiah!⁹

Always? Yes, always. Singing to God's glory on a glassy sea will be our "priceless reward."

_________________________
¹ The Friendship Book of Francis Gay, Saturday, Aug. 15 (London: D. C. Thompson, 1987).
² Alan P. Merriam, The Anthropology of Music (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1964), p. 218.
³ Philip D. Tagg, "Analyzing Popular Music: Theory, Method and Practice," Popular Music 2 (1982): 37; cited in Deanna Campbell Robinson, "Youth and Popular Music: A Theoretical Rationale for International Study," Gazette: International Journal for Mass Communication 37 (1986): 33.
⁴ S. Davis, "Pop Lyrics: A Mirror and Molder of Society," et cetera (Summer, 1985): pp. 167-169; cited in Elizabeth F. Brown and William R. Hendee, "Adolescents and Their Music: Insights Into the Health of Adolescents," The Journal of the American Medical Association 262 (September 22-29, 1989): 1659.
⁵ Cited in Alec Harman and Wilfrid Mellers, Man and His Music: The Story of the Musical Experience in the West (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1962), p. 528.
⁶ Martin Luther, E, XXXII, 309; translated by Walter E. Buszin, "Luther on Music," Musical Quarterly 32 (January 1946): pp. 83, 85.
⁷ "When in Our Music God Is Glorified," hymn No. 32, The Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal (Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1985).
⁸ Material for these biographies was gleaned from Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White, Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1988), pp. 459, 483, 484, 631, 632; Kenneth W. Osbeck, Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1990), pp. 19, 340; Kenneth W. Osbeck, 101 Hymn Stories (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1982), pp. 42-44, 275-277; Lindsay I. Terry, Devotionals From Famous Hymn Stories (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1974), pp. 22, 23.
⁹ "When in Our Music God Is Glorified," hymn No. 32, The Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal.
_________________________
Wolfgang H. Stefani serves the South Australian Conference.