Includes illustrated biographical essays relating to William F. Sudds, a musician and composer, his mentor, Carl Bruche; James Sayer for whose Civil War poem, "Beautiful Flowers," Sudds composed music; William Lyman Blakeslee, whose "The Angels are Waiting," with music by Carl Bruche also appears in the Y.M.C.A. Praise Book; Dudley Buck, whose "Festival Hymn," was played by at the first concert of the Choral Union of Gouverneur; Sidney Clopton Lanier, whose "The Centennial Meditation of Columbia" had music by Dudley Buck; and Francis Miles Finch, whose "The Blue and the Gray," was set to music by Sudds and also published in the Y.M.C.A. Praise Book.