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Strangers. In 1852, after a year's absence and study in Europe, he returned to New York, and founded the Normal Musical Institute. In 1860, he removed to Chicago where he spent the remainder of his life writing and publishing music. He died Aug. 6, 1895, in Maine.

In the truly popular sense Dr. Root was the bestknown American composer; not excepting Stephen C. Foster. Root's "Hazel Dell," "There's Music in the Air," and "Rosalie the Prairie Flower" were universal tunes-(words by Fanny Crosby,)-as also his music to Henry Washburn's "Vacant Chair." The songs in his cantata, "The Haymakers," were sung in the shops and factories everywhere, and his war-time music, in such melodies as "Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom" and "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching" took the country by storm.

"SCATTER SEEDS OF KINDNESS."

This amiable and tuneful poem, suggested by Rom. 12:10, is from the pen of Mary Louise Riley (Mrs. Albert Smith) of New York City. She was born in Brighton, Monroe Co., N. Y. May 27, 1843.

Let us gather up the sunbeams

Lying all along our path;
Let us keep the wheat and roses
Casting out the thorns and chaff.

CHORUS.

Then scatter seeds of kindness

For our reaping by and by.

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Silas Jones Vail, the tune-writer, for this hymn, was born Oct. 1818, and died May 20, 1883. For years he worked at the hatter's trade, with Beebe on Broadway, N.Y. and afterwards in an establishment of his own. His taste and talent led him into musical connections, and from time to time, after relinquishing his trade, he was with Horace Waters, Philip Phillips, W. B. Bradbury, and F. J. Smith, the piano dealer. He was a choir leader and a good composer.

"BY COOL SILOAM'S SHADY RILL."

This hymn of Bp. Heber inculcates the same lesson as that in the stanzas of Michael Bruce before noted, with added emphasis for the young on the briefness of time and opportunity even for them. How fair the lily grows,

-is answered by

The lily must decay,

-but, owing to the sweetness of the favorite melody, it was never a saddening hymn for children.

THE TUNE.

Though George Kingsley's "Heber" has in some books done service for the Bishop's lines, "Siloam,"

easy-flowing and finely harmonized, is knit to the words as no other tune can be. It was composed by Isaac Baker Woodbury on shipboard during a storm at sea. A stronger illustration of tranquil thought in terrible tumult was never drawn.

"O Galilee, Sweet Galilee," whose history has been given at the end of chapter six, was not only often sung in Sunday-schools, but chimed (in the cities) on steeple-bells-nor is it by any means forgotten today on the Sabbath and in social singing assemblies. Like "Precious Jewels," it has been, in many places, taken up by street boys with a relish, and often displaced the play-house ditties in the lips of little newsboys and bootblacks during a leisure hour or a happy mood.

"I AM SO GLAD."

This lively little melody is still a welcome choice to many a lady teacher of fluttering five-year-olds, when both vocal indulgence and good gospel are needed for the prattlers in her class. It has been as widely sung in Scotland as in America. Mr. Philip P. Bliss, hearing one day the words of the familiar chorus

O, how I love Jesus,

-suddenly thought to himself,

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"I have sung long enough of my poor love to Christ, and now I will sing of His love for me. Under the inspiration of this thought, he wrote

Pateat tellus, Typhisque novos
Detegat orbes, nec sit terris
Ultima Thule.

A time will come in future ages far
When Ocean will his circling bounds unbar,
And, opening vaster to the Pilot's hand,

New worlds shall rise, where mightier kingdoms are,
Nor Thule longer be the utmost land.

This poetic forecast, of which Washington Irving wrote "the predictions of the ancient oracles were rarely so unequivocal," is part of the "chorus" at the end of the second act of Seneca's "Medea," written near the date of St. Paul's first Epistle to the Thessalonians.

Seneca, the celebrated Roman (Stoic) philosopher, was born at or very near the time of our Saviour's birth. There are legends of his acquaintance with Paul, at Rome, but though he wrote able and quotable treatises On Consolation, On Providence, On Calmness of Soul, and On the Blessed Life, there is no direct evidence that the savor of Christian faith ever qualified his works or his personal principles. He was a man of grand ideas and inspirations,but he was a time server and a flatterer of the Emperor Nero, who, nevertheless, caused his death when he had no further use for him.

His compulsory suicide occurred A. D. 65, the year in which St. Paul is supposed to have suffered martyrdom.

"THE BREAKING WAVES DASHED HIGH."

Sitting at the tea-table one evening, near a century ago, Mrs. Hemans read an old account of the "Landing of the Pilgrims," and was inspired to write this poem, which became a favorite in America-like herself, and all her other works.

The ballad is inaccurate in details, but presents the spirit of the scene with true poet insight. Mr. James T. Fields, the noted Boston publisher, visited the lady in her old age, and received an autograph copy of the poem, which is seen in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass.

The breaking waves dashed high, on a stern and rock-bound coast,

And the woods against a stormy sky, their giant branches

tossed,

And the heavy night hung dark, the hills and waters o'er, When a band of exiles moored their bark on the wild New Eng land shore.

Not as the conqueror comes, they, the true-hearted, came; Not with the roll of stirring drums, and the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the flying come, in silence and in fear,—

They shook the depths of the desert's gloom with their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang, and the stars heard, and the sea! And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang to the anthem of the free!

The ocean eagle soared from his nest by the white waves' foam, And the rocking pines of the forest roared,-this was their wel

come home!

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