CATGUT AND HORSEHAIR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 708, 6 July 1929, Page 10

CATGUT AND HORSEHAIR

QUIET CORNER

(Written for THE SUE by the Rev. Charles Chandler, Assistant City Missioner.) internal arrangements of a cat —or if not a cat, then a sheep—and a few strands of hair from, a horse’s tail. Is it not surprising how two such ordinary, and almost unmentionable things as gut and hair, should be productive of music that can charm the world ? In the hands of a Krcisler or a Heifetz there is no end to the wonderful harmony that can be evinced from the joint conspiracy of these twain. The wind through the pines; the rustle in the grass; the impatient eddying of a mountain stream: the thunder in a cloudy shy, and the breaking of a silver dawn—all these can be suggested with a fiddle and a bow. However unmusical a cat may be in its state upon the tiles, it yet bequeaths to the world , after its death, something which more than atones for the disturbing tendancies of its life. Likewise a part of that which the horse uses for whisking away the flies, can be instrumental in giving interpretation to the masterpieces of the world's greatest composers. Life abounds with instances of similar usefulness; of a supreme order being made of the commonest substances. •‘From the dust thou art, and to the dust thou shalt return.” God. as the Great Musician of the universe, produces harmony out of discord, and order out of chaos. History is illuminated with the records of tinkers and cobblers who have become prophets and teachers. There is nothing more discordant and irritating than the sound of a violin in the hands of the untutored, and yet in the hands of a master it can be made to produce the most enrapturing music. In the hands of God, the most unpromising material can be made to redound to His glory. Out of disharmony and failure, He can produce rhythm and success. He sends Promethean fire into the lifeless souls of men, and siciftly moving on the chords of human love, can touch them into song. XEXT WEEK: THE GREAT INVESTMENT.