The Singing Convention, Steger

The Singing Convention, by M. S. Steger, of Delray, Texas.

Melville Scott Steger (1855-1945) served as the chairman of the East Texas Sacred Harp Convention for several years, and continuously from 1910-1942. In several issues in 1902, the pages of the Texas Christian Advocate hosted a lively debate on the pros & cons of singing conventions. Because of the local and singing convention connection of M. S. Steger, I decided to copy and present his thoughts on the matter.

Texas Christian Advocate (Dallas, Texas), Thursday, September 18, 1902, page 2

Soul Songs and Sonnets, Authors, Inquiries

On Wednesday I published “#” McNiel, about a local singing school teacher, composer, and publisher. He taught singing schools in our community in the early 1900s. He and Bernard N. Richards[i] created the McNiel-Richards Music Company, and published at least two shape note songbooks – Soul Songs and Sonnets: A superior collection of Songs and Hymns for the Church, Revival, Sunday-school, Prayer Service and Convention in 1909 and Sunbeam Songs: A superior collection of New and Old songs for the Church, Sunday-school, Revival, Young People’s Societies, Prohibition, and Convention Work in 1910.

My grandfather’s brother, B. L. Vaughn, had a song (maybe more than one) published in one of the McNiel-Richards books. It is not in Soul Songs and Sonnets. It must be in Sunbeam Songs, unless there is a third compilation of which I am unaware.

Soul Songs and Sonnets lists McNiel and Richards as the publishers/editors. Four other men are listed as “Associate Authors” – A. L. Reed, Doug Goldsberry, Joe R. Day, and J. E. Sullivan. I know who Goldsberry and Day are, and would love to identify Reed and Sullivan. I am posting their pictures below in hopes that someone somewhere somehow might be able to identify them.

Two reasonable guesses without proof are John Edgar Sullivan (1873-1956) and Albert Lee Reed (1872-1944).[ii]

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[i] Incidentally, Richards is related (great uncle) to my oldest brother-in-law, Harold B. Blanton.
[ii] In 1910, Sullivan lived in Nacogdoches County, and Reed lived nearby in Rusk, Cherokee County, Texas.

“#” McNiel

From The Best Gospel Songs and Their Composers, 1904

Julian Hilary “Sharp” McNiel was born in Rusk County, Texas, November 13, 1873, the son of George Thomas McNiel and Susan Frances Wallace. He married Nettie Lee Irby (1875-1958) in 1896 and they were the parents six children.

He studied music at an early age under his brother, Larkin McNiel, followed by J. B. Martin and Miss Margarite Wood.[i] In 1898 he attended the Southern Normal Musical Institute (S.N.M.I.) at Mansfield, Texas, which was conducted by A. J. Showalter and Edwin Moore. He received a diploma from S.N.M.I. in 1901 at Childress. He taught singing schools and conducted normals in Texas and Oklahoma (and perhaps other places). He directed music for gospel meetings, and composed music. In his songbooks, he often signed his name with the musical sharp symbol – “# McNiel.”[ii] With Bernard N. Richards, he formed the McNiel-Richards Music Company by 1908. They published at least two songbooks – Soul Songs and Sonnets: A superior collection of Songs and Hymns for the Church, Revival, Sunday-school, Prayer Service and Convention and Sunbeam Songs: A superior collection of New and Old Songs for the Church, Sunday-school, Revival, Young People’s Societies, Prohibition, and Convention Work. In addition, McNiel copyrighted one book before the partnership was formed: McNiel’s Loyal Melodies: a Choice Collection of New Songs for the Church, Revival, Convention and all Christian Endeavor Work (by Sharp McNiel, with special contributors, copyrighted in April of 1908). Both the Trio Music Company of Waco and A. J. Showalter published his songs before he formed the McNiel-Richards Company, and other publishers printed some of his songs after his death.

In a 1905 mail survey conducted by A. J. Showalter, among the “ten gospel songs of other composers [i.e., other than Showalter] receiving the greatest number of votes thus far are: ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus,’ by C. C. Converse, 420; ‘Blessed Home,’ by J. E. Bigby, 336; ‘Glory Over Yonder,’ by Sharp McNeil (sic), 252; ‘God Be With You Till We Meet Again,’ by W. G. Tomer, 231…”[iii]

From The Best Gospel Songs and Their Composers, 1904

Sharp McNiel was apparently affiliated with the Church of Christ. His brother Richard Hubbard McNiel was a fairly well known Church of Christ evangelist in the early 1900s.

McNiel named one of his daughters Jennie Wilson McNiel. In all likelihood, he named her after the popular hymn writer Jennie Bain Wilson (author of “Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand”). The respect in which McNiel was held can be seen in a singing class called the Sharp McNiel class nearly forty years after his death (See Tyler Morning Telegraph, Thursday, Septemeber 17, 1949, page 7).

McNiel died at the young age of 37 after an attack of appendicitis. On Wednesday the 19th of April in 1911, he was taken to the sanitarium in Nacogdoches, Texas, where they performed an operation. He died the following Sunday. McNiel is buried at the Gould Cemetery in Rusk County, north of the Sulphur Springs community.

“My only desire, while laboring through this life is to be successful in teaching the young men and women of our land and country, the noble science and power in sacred song: Thus enabling them to praise the most holy and righteous Saviour, by singing the sweet songs of Zion.” – Sharp McNiel, in a footnote under song No. 18 in Soul Songs and Sonnets.

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[i] I did not identify J. B. Martin. 24 year-old Margarette Wood is listed in the 1900 Rusk County census. She was born in Missouri in December of 1875, and was boarding with Lola Tatum Miller in Henderson. Her sister May also lived with Mrs. Miller. “Teacher [of] Music” was Margarette’s occupation. She may be the teacher under whom Sharp McNiel studied. I believe this person is the same as Margaret E. Wood who returned to Missouri and taught piano at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/93607661/margaret-e-wood
[ii] At least in the one I have, Soul Songs and Sonnets.
[iii] The Arkansas Gazette, Sunday, May 7, 1905, Part II, page 10.

The Singers and the Songs

Ephesians 5:19 speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

In the text we have five remarkable[i] parts, namely:

1. The singers. “Speaking to themselves.” Christians, especially those who dwelt in the city of Ephesus. Christians understand how to rejoice in God; their hearts can so set the tune that God shall hear the music. Zanchius well observes that the apostle does here make the comparison between the mirth which is made “from the abundance of wine,” and that which is made “from the abundance of the Spirit.” The drunkard’s song, how toyish! But the saint’s singing, how triumphal! How confused the one! How sweet the other! How empty the one, even to the very companions of their cups and mirth! But how melodious the other, even to the Lord Himself! And he gravely takes notice that, “saints rejoice, but intemperate persons drivel in their chat.”

2. The song itself. And here the apostle runs division, diversifying songs into three species, which according to the descants of learned men, may be thus understood:

(1) And here Jerome gives us a dexterous interpretation.

(i) “Psalms,” says he, “may belong to moral things, what we ought to put in use and practice.”

(ii) “Hymns may belong to sacred things, what we ought to meditate on and to contemplate, as the power, wisdom, goodness, and majesty of God.”

(iii) “Odes, or spiritual songs, may belong to natural things, what we ought to debate, discuss; namely, the race, order, harmony, and continuance of the world, and God’s infinite wisdom manifested in it!”

(2) Some distinguish these according to the authors of them.

(i) Psalms. They are the composures of holy David.

(ii) Hymns. They are the songs of some other excellent men recorded in scripture, as Moses, Heman, Asaph, etc.

(iii) Spiritual songs. They are odes of some other holy and good men not mentioned in Scripture, as the song of Ambrose, Nepos, and others.

(3) Some aver that these several speeches mentioned in the text, answer the Hebrew distinction of psalms. Among them were:

(i) Mizmorim, which treated of various and different subjects.

(ii) Tehillim, which only mentioned the praises of the Most High.

(iii) Shirim, which were songs more artificially and musically composed, and, some divines observe, were sung with the help of a musical instrument.

But I may add: Are not all these several species mentioned to prefigure the plenty and the joy which is reserved for the saints within the veil, when they shall join in concert with the glorious angels in singing their perpetual hallelujahs to their glorious Creator?

3. The manner of singing. Our text says, “making melody” with inward joy and trepidation of soul: if the tongue make the pause, the heart must make the elevation. The apostle says to the Colossians: “We must sing with grace” (Col. 3:16) which is, as some expound it:

(1) With giving of thanks. And, indeed, thankfulness is the very Selah of this duty, that which puts an accent upon the music and sweetness of the voice; and then we sing melodiously when we warble out the praises of the Lord.

(2) With gracefulness. With a becoming and graceful dexterity. And this “brings both profit and pleasure” to the hearers as Davenant observes. Psalms are not the comedies of Venus, or the jocular celebrations of a wanton Adonis; but they are the spiritual ebullitions of a composed soul to the incomprehensible Jehovah, with real grace. God’s Spirit must breathe in this service; here we must act our joy, our confidence, our delight. Singing is the triumph of a gracious soul, the child joying in the praises of his Father. In singing of psalms, the gracious heart takes wings, and mounts up to God, to join with the celestial choir. It is grace which fits the heart for, and sweetens the heart in, this duty. And where this qualification is wanting, this service is rather a hurry than a duty; it is rather a disturbance than any obedience.

4. The master of the choir, the preceptor. That is: the “heart.” We must look to the heart in singing, that it be purged by the Spirit and that it be replete with spiritual affection. He plays the hypocrite who brings not the heart to this duty. One observes, “There is no tune without the heart.” Singing takes its proper rise from the heart; the voice is only the further progress. And, indeed, God is the Creator of the whole man; and therefore He will be praised not only with our tongues, but with our hearts. The apostle tells us, he “will sing with the spirit.” (1 Cor. 14:15) And David informs us, his heart was ready to “sing and give praise.” (Ps. 57:7,8; 108:1) Augustine admonishes us, “It is not a musical string, but a working heart, [that] is harmonious.” The virgin Mary sings her Magnificat with her heart. (Lk. 1:46-47) And Bernard tells us in a tract of his, that “when we sing psalms, let us take heed that we have the same thing in our mind that we warble forth in our tongue, and that our song and our heart do not run several ways.” If we in singing only offer the calves of our lips, it will too much resemble a carnal and a Jewish service.

5. The end of the duty. “To the Lord” So says the text; namely, to Jesus Christ, who is here principally meant. Our singing must not serve our gain, or our luxury, or our fancy; but our Christ, our Lord, and dear Redeemer. In this duty it is his praises we must mainly and chiefly celebrate. And most deservedly we magnify the true God by psalms and singing, when the heathens celebrate their false and dunghill gods, Jupiter, Neptune, and Apollo, with songs and hymns. One well observes: “Singing of psalms is part of divine worship, and of our homage and service due to the great Jehovah.” Bodius takes notice that, “God is the true and only scope of all our singing.” And truly if the Spirit of God be in us. He will be steadily aimed at by us. Thus Deborah and Barak sang their triumphal song “to the Lord.” (Judg. 5:3)

John Wells, in How We May Make Melody in our Hearts to God in Singing of Psalms, 1689

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[i] Though these thoughts are remarkable, it appears here that the author means he is making remarks on five parts of the verse.

164th Anniversary of the East Texas Convention

The 164th Anniversary meeting of the East Texas Sacred Harp Convention will occur next weekend (d.v.), August 10-11, at the Henderson Civic Center in Henderson, Texas. Singing starts at 9:30 both days. For more information see HERE.

The Convention was organized in 1855 as the East Texas Musical Convention, but is now usually called the East Texas Sacred Harp Convention because of its exclusive use of The Sacred Harp.

Restoration 268a, at 2012 East Texas Convention

Rusk County Singing Convention

Please make time to join us for the Rusk County Singing Convention on the 4th weekend in April. The convention will be held Saturday, April 26 and Sunday, April 27, 2014 in Rusk County, Texas.

The Saturday session sings from The Christian Harmony (2010 Revision) at Old Redland Church. Old Redland church house is at the corner of FM 1798 and FM 2496, about 2 miles east of Laneville, Texas. The Sunday session sings from The Sacred Harp (2012 Cooper Revision) at the Old Pine Grove Church & Cemetery. Old Pine Grove is located on County Road 364, southeast of Henderson, Texas. Each day we will start at 10:00 a.m. and conclude around 3:00 p.m.

More information here:
http://singings.texasfasola.org/annual/rusk_county.html
http://www.rockerontheporch.us/easttexassingings/ruskcounty.html

From this explosion all the fragments join:
Joy tunes the fray until the song is one.
(adapted from Madeleine L'Engle)

Singing in Redland Community Center

It won't be very long until the Christian Harmony singing at Old Redland. Make your plans to attend. We will gather (d.v.) on Saturday April 26, 2014. It will be followed on Sunday with a Sacred Harp singing at Pine Grove.

London Christian Harmony Singing, 27 Oct 2013 -- A nice album of 62 tracks from the London Christian Harmony Singing held in October 2013, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Arthur Swindells.

I wish...

I wish churches would stop calling "listenings" singings! This morning I perked up as the radio announced a singing at [name left off to protect the guilty] Baptist Church. I wanted to get the details. But my hopes were dashed as the announcer told us that the So&So Family Singers would perform at the Guilty Baptist Church. That ain't no singing! It's a listening.

A singing is a gathering of persons for the purpose of singing -- a singing convention or a community singing (some call it a "sing" and some a "sangin'"). Whether a "singing" or a "sing" or a "sangin'", listening is not singing. Perhaps so few actually sing anymore that folks have forgotten what a singing is. Please don't announce a singing if you're having a performance. Don't tell us you're having a singing if you're just having a listening.

Listen unto the singer

For your "pleasure", a few miscellaneous music quotes from the New American Entertainment Version of the Bible (NAEV)

Psalm 96:1  O listen to others sing a new song to the LORD: listen while others sing to the LORD and entertain you all the time.
Psalms 100:2  Serve the LORD with passivity: be in his presence listening to others.
Psalms 126:2  Then was our mouth filled with silence, and our ears with listening: then they said among the nations, The LORD must have done great things for them.
Matthew 26:30  And after they had listened to a hymn, they went out to the mount of Olives.
Ephesians 5:19  Listen to others while they sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, as they sing and make melody in your ears and to the Lord.

Singing in Tull

On the third Sunday in May, Tull will host its 127th "Old Folks' Singing" from the Christian Harmony. 

Singing in Tull, AR 
Tull turns out for 126th singing

The Life that Sings

Psalm 104:33 I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.
Psalm 146:2 While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.

I've heard the expression "the life that sings", but don't know the source. I'm thinking maybe a poem or book title. But I want to use it today as a metaphor for joyful and hilarious service to the Lord, as opposed to mere dutiful and mechanical service.

As with the hymn writer S. R. Penick, I hope I can truly say "My soul's delight has been to sing..." It wasn't always that way. I was raised in a home and family where singing was as essential as the the warp and woof of woven fabric. If there was a singing in the area, we would most likely be there participating. As a small child this was merely an unquestioned normal part of life. As I grew into a teenager I realized there were other things to do and that most other people were doing those other things. My life became not "a life that sings," but one that wanted to be somewhere else doing something else. Physically I was present; begrudgingly I was there. Finally a time came when the choice was mine, and I no longer attended and participated in singings. Then, with neither plans nor expectation, in a few short years my whole life changed. Like a boomerang I came back. I can't pinpoint a particular experience or trigger, but imperceptibly it all came back to me. I settled into "a life that sings" by choice, in exhilaration, and with love. I want these lines inscribed upon my tomb: "Here lies the dust of R.L.V., his spirit sings at home."

Every Christian is not a singer. Not only are there literal "lives that sing," but also spiritual lives that sing. That person may be tone deaf to earthly sounds of music, yet lives a life to joyfully and hilariously serve God. Not because he or she has to, but because they want to. Not just for duty, but for love.The "life that sings" is one that serves from a love springing deep within the heart. What duty is, the heart wants. We can and ought to be obedient children, faithful spouses, dutiful church members and sincere Christians. But does your life sing?

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.


Without love we are nothing. With love, the life sings.

Now shall my inward joys arise,
And burst into a song;
Almighty love inspires my heart,
And pleasure tunes my tongue.
(Isaac Watts)

Old Shiloh

Attended the Old Shiloh Cemetery picnic today. I think it is one of the few East Texas homecomings we still call a picnic.

The Old Shiloh Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries in Rusk County, and a very large country cemetery. The first recorded burial is 1853. The picnic is only a shadow of its former days. Once there were two churches at Shiloh and two singings -- one "little book" and one Sacred Harp. By the time I came along, the old church (org. circa 1843) and the Sacred Harp Singing had died out, and there was only the little-book singing in the Southern Baptist Church (org. 1902). It was a big deal in the days of my youth. It was probably the largest picnic gathering/singing in the area. In addition to singers and those who had family in the cemetery, it was big draw for politicians and singing groups. The church house was always full and overflowing. Today perhaps a third the building was filled. The singing crowd was bigger than the last time I attended. The overall crowd was much smaller.

Tradition has it that the picnic as we know began in 1867 when my great-grandfather's sister, Susan E. Vaughn Pierce (wife of Wylie Matthew Pierce), and others met for a picnic and cemetery cleaning day.

The cemetery is located just east of Hwy. 315, about 6 miles northeast of Mt. Enterprise, Texas.

How can we keep from singing?

"We love music – can’t seem to get enough of it. It’s with us everywhere we go – in the car, on hold on the phone, in the restaurant, underlying every TV script, in our CD players, and on our radios. We love listening to music. At least, we have given up trying to escape it. What we don’t do much is sing. In fact, singing with any degree of enjoyment, satisfaction, or overt delight is becoming more and more the practice of a select few. Oh, we may belt out a few bars in the shower, or sing along with a favorite oldie; and we participate (more or less) in the obligatory singing that comes with worship on Sundays. But singing as an activity we enjoy, one that exercises our faith, draws us nearer to God, and puts the world on notice regarding our most basic life convictions – well, it simply isn’t much done." -- Whatever Happened to Singing? Music: Not a Spectator Sport by T. M. Moore December 6, 2003

Amen, oh me, and oh my. It does seem that in many churches singing has become a "spectator sport". Why is this? Well, I suppose to some extent we could say it is part of the times in which we live. But should it be? At least for the Christian? Singing is a command to the church and Christian. Singing is an expression of the heart.

Ephesians 5:19 -- Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

Colossians 3:16 -- Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING?

My life flows on in endless song;
Above earth’s lamentation
I hear the sweet though far off hymn
That hails a new creation:
Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear the music ringing;
It finds an echo in my soul—
How can I keep from singing?

What though my joys and comforts die?
The Lord my Savior liveth;
What though the darkness gather round?
Songs in the night He giveth:
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that refuge clinging;
Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth,
How can I keep from singing?

I lift mine eyes; the cloud grows thin;
I see the blue above it;
And day by day this pathway smoothes
Since first I learned to love it:
The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,
A fountain ever springing:
All things are mine since I am His—
How can I keep from singing?

--Robert Wadsworth Lowry (1826-1899), Meter: 8.7.8.7.

Quotes re music, singing

"In a day and age where so many troubles and trials are on every hand, we need to sing a song -- a song with foundation, strength and guidance -- a song of peace and joy about the sovereign God and his love for us." -- Harvey Dockery in the Preface to the 2002 Alabama Christian Harmony

"Heaven is the seat and home of song. It is not strange therefore that the pious on earth, bending their footsteps thither, anticipating their future employment, should give expression to their religious emotions in hymns of praise. Hence, in all ages of the church, the singing of the songs of Zion has constituted an essential part of worship." -- The Psalmody: a Collection of Hymns for Public and Social Worship, published in 1853

"Singing is not a simple heart singing, or mental singing; but a musical melodious modulation, or tuning of the voice. Singing is a duty performed always with the voice, and cannot be done without the tongue." -- Benjamin Keach, The Breach Repaired in God's Worship, or Singing of Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs Proved to be an Holy Ordinance of Jesus Christ, 1691.

"Musick hath Charms to soothe a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak."
-- William Congreve, in The Mourning Bride, 1697 [Also from that source, "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned"]

Burns

They chant their artless notes in simple guise,
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;
Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name;
Or noble Elgin beets the heaven-ward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:
Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame;
The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they, with our Creator's praise.

From v. 13 The Cotter's Saturday Night, by Robert Burns

From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs
That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
'An honest man's the noblest work of God';
And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road,
The cottage leaves the palace far behind;
What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of Hell, in wickedness refin'd!

From v. 19 The Cotter's Saturday Night, by Robert Burns

Oak Flat homecoming

The annual homecoming and singing for the Holleman Cemetery and Oak Flat Community will be held Sunday June 8, at the Smyrna Missionary Baptist Church (d.v.), FM 2496 between Laneville and Mt. Enterprise, TX. Starts 10:00 a.m.

Also there is a Sacred Harp singing at the City Hall building in Mandeville, LA, Saturday June 7.

Instrumental music in worship

Click here to read an interesting piece on "Instrumental Music in New Testament Worship".

Read and then come back here to write your thoughts in our comments section.

BTW, much of the material online advocating a cappella singing is either Baptist or Church of Christ. I've seen some Reformed stuff also. Last night I ran across an article from a Mennonite point of view -- A Cappella Singing, by Leland M. Haines -- so am linking it for those who might be interested. [Note: this is not the position of all Mennonites.]