Steal away, steal away home,
I ain't got long to stay here._

Then the leader alone or the congregation in unison:

_My Lord he calls me,
He calls me by the thunder,
The trumpet sounds within-a my soul._

Then all together:

_I ain't got long to stay here._

The leader and the congregation again take up the opening refrain;
then the leader sings three more leading lines alone, and so on almost
_ad infinitum_. It will be seen that even here most of the work falls
upon the leader, for the congregation sings the same lines over and
over, while his memory and ingenuity are taxed to keep the songs
going.

Generally the parts taken up by the congregation are sung in a
three-part harmony, the women singing the soprano and a transposed
tenor, the men with high voices singing the melody, and those with
low voices a thundering bass. In a few of these songs, however, the
leading part is sung in unison by the whole congregation, down to
the last line, which is harmonized. The effect of this is intensely
thrilling. Such a hymn is "Go down, Moses." It stirs the heart like a
trumpet call.

"Singing Johnson" was an ideal leader, and his services were in great
demand. He spent his time going about the country from one church
to another. He received his support in much the same way as the
preachers--part of a collection, food and lodging. All of his leisure
time he devoted to originating new words and melodies and new lines
for old songs. He always sang with his eyes--or, to be more exact, his
eye--closed, indicating the _tempo_ by swinging his head to and fro.
He was a great judge of the proper hymn to sing at a particular
moment; and I noticed several times, when the preacher reached a
certain climax, or expressed a certain sentiment, that Johnson broke
in with a line or two of some appropriate hymn. The speaker understood
and would pause until the singing ceased.

As I listened to the singing of these songs, the wonder of their
production grew upon me more and more. How did the men who originated
them manage to do it? The sentiments are easily accounted for; they
are mostly taken from the Bible; but the melodies, where did they come
from? Some of them so weirdly sweet, and others so wonderfully strong.
Take, for instance, "Go down, Moses." I doubt that there is a stronger
theme in the whole musical literature of the world. And so many of
these songs contain more than mere melody; there is sounded in them
that