rievously disappointed her by actually
becoming a Baptist and being dipped. This was too much for the
evangelist, although she should have remembered her father passed
through that same experience and often preached for the Baptists in
Edinburgh.

Leander's reception upon his first call after his fall was far from
cordial. He was made aware that the family record had suffered by his
backsliding when at the very portals of the New Jerusalem revealed by
Swedenborg and presented to him by one of the foremost disciples--his
aunt. He began deprecatingly:

"Why are you so hard on me, aunt? Look at Andy, he is not a member of
any church and you don't scold him. Surely the Baptist Church is
better than none."

The quick reply came:

"Andy! Oh! Andy, he's naked, but you are clothed in rags."

He never quite regained his standing with dear Aunt Aitken. I might
yet be reformed, being unattached; but Leander had chosen a sect and
that sect not of the New Jerusalem.

It was in connection with the Swedenborgian Society that a taste for
music was first aroused in me. As an appendix to the hymn-book of the
society there were short selections from the oratorios. I fastened
instinctively upon these, and although denied much of a voice, yet
credited with "expression," I was a constant attendant upon choir
practice. The leader, Mr. Koethen, I have reason to believe, often
pardoned the discords I produced in the choir because of my enthusiasm
in the cause. When, at a later date, I became acquainted with the
oratorios in full, it was a pleasure to find that several of those
considered in musical circles as the gems of Handel's musical
compositions were the ones that I as an ignorant boy had chosen as
favorites. So the beginning of my musical education dates from the
small choir of the Swedenborgian Society of Pittsburgh.

I must not, however, forget that a very good foundation was laid for
my love of sweet sounds in the unsurpassed minstrelsy of my native
land as sung by my father. There was scarcely an old Scottish song
with which I was not made familiar, both words and tune. Folk-songs
are the best possible foundation for sure progress to the heights of
Beethoven and Wagner. My father being one of the sweetest and most
pathetic singers I ever heard, I probably inherited his love of music
and of song, though not given his voice. Confucius' exclamation often
sounds in my ears: "Music, sacred tongue of God! I hear thee calling
and I