Song Pilgrimage Around and Throughout the World. with a Biogr. by A. Clark

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BIOGRAPHY. BY REV. ALEXANDER CLARK, D.D. N Chautauqua County, New York, in a plain farm house, at the foot of a wooded hill, Philip Phillips began his song?in a minor key. For he was a minor of minors himself. The time was August 13, 1834. This first Lsong was perhaps, nothing new or strange in the Phillips household for this noisy youngster was the seventh in the squalling scale. The s1x other children as they came in their regular order of about one year and a half apart, no doubt had introduced themselves by the same key. Philip's lungs, however, tradition informs us, proved to be as elastic in this first exercise as those of his stoutest baby predecessor; and why not? He was the prophet of his own career. When about five years of age he used to be frequently called upon to sing by the neighbors who dropped in to visit the parents. Before complying with such requests, he would always settle himself in the family cradle, and then rock himself vigorously all the time he sang. This rocking accompaniment seemed to be necessary to his success, as well as to his own enjoyment of the exercise. FIRST PUBLIC SINGING. When he was yet a very small boy, Philip made his first public appearance in sacred song. It came about in this way: His father had taken him to the village church, one day, when it so happened that some difficulty arose about the singing. The minister, the Rev. Mr. Peckham, gave out the familiar hymn, When I can read my title clear, And the choir attempted to sing it to a tune somewhat new. All were not artists, of course, in that country choir, and, after some scrambling around among tones and half-tones, they made an utter failure on the first verse. Now, the minister had chanced to hear Philip sing this same attempted tune at home; and, either for a...