t. church. Afterwards he went to New York as
director of music in Dr. Deems's Church of the 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 best-known 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 (_ter_)
For our reaping by and by.

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