" What hope was there for a country whose
soldiers went to battle singing "Tipperary" against a foe who came on
singing "Ein' feste Burg"? Put that way, I was bound to confess that the
case looked black against us. It seemed "all Lombard Street to a China
orange," as the tag of other days would put it. It is true that, for a
music-hall song, "Tipperary" was unusually fresh and original. Contrast it
with the maudlin "Keep the home fires burning," which holds the field
to-day, and it touches great art. I never hear it even now on the street
organ without a certain pleasure--a pleasure mingled with pain, for its
happy lilt comes weighted with the tremendous emotions of those
unforgettable days. It is like a butterfly caught in a tornado, a catch of
song in the throat of death.
But it was only a music-hall song after all, and to put it in competition
with Luther's mighty hymn would be like putting a pop-gun against a 12-inch
howitzer. The thunder of Luther's hymn has come down through four
centuries, and it will go on echoing through the centuries till the end of
time.
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