The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-09-06 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OP THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD

Sia,—Your , excellent remarks upon the proposed new
church will be well appreciated by all sound Churchmen,
and will doubtless be of good service to the praiseworthy
object of erecting in this town a church, in the services of
which "nothing is to be omitted which may tend to the
decency, devotion, and solemnity of the Anglican wor-
ship, and in which a good choral service may be com-
bined with a hearty congregational response."
Your suggestions as to the mode in which the services
ought to be carried out I heartily agree with, excepting
your opinion that the prayers should be "read," and not
intoned ;" this opinion, with a little consideration of
the relative merits of the practices, I think you might be
induced to abandon. . .

Reading the prayers is quite inconsistent with a good
choral service ; in fact, when prayers are read, the service
can only be semi-choral ; and what argument in favour of
the people's responding heartily in unison with the har-
mony of a choir would not be destroyed, if you deny
to the congregation the practice of intoning. If they re-
spond heartily in unison, and so as not to spoil the
harmony of the choir, they must intone; and unless they
adopt one tone, they cannot with one voice glorify God.
And why should the clergyman be denied the privilege of
assisting in worshipping the Lord " in the beauty of
holiness" by only being allowed to read instead of saying,
i.e., intoning the prayers ? If, as I said before, the use of
one tone is necessary for the people, how are the people
to get it ? Surely, by the use of the same tone by the
priest, who would then lead the ONE VOICE of their sup-
plications before the Throne of Grace. . _

You can only have " a hearty congregational response"
where the practice of intoning is adopted by priest and
people, where the one leads the other, whether the ser-
vice be choral or not. By the use of one tone by the
priest, and response in the same tone by the people, no one
is afraid of hearing his own voice, it being in unison with
that of his neighbour ; and the indistinct muttering of the
responses in every variety of tone which we now hear in the
churches of our popular preachers would be got rid of.,
You rightly say that "innovations of all kinds should
be strictly eschewed ;" reading the prayers is an in-
novation, and one to whose charge may be laid the
persent state of congregational worship in our churches.
Where shall we find in the majority of them any approach
to what you call the "magnificent simplicity of the ritual
of the Church of England r The prayers are read to the
people "distinct" enough, truly, in the cold, colloquial
style prevalent, and they content themselves mostly with

they call " Cathedral service

look in vain for the

choir, the people go to listen
lead the devotions of the peopl
which, they taking

Lit join in v
At St

raying

out spoiling the harmoi
Campbell, in a note to
the late improvements,
intoned, and will not b
" plain, but sweet melod3
shorn of half its beauty by the priest's taking
r there is a special part for him in
The rejection rejection of intonation by n
gregation will effect

lls us t

the con

the tone

that me

combination of a
ing. The united voices of the l _
harmony of the quire, led in solemn into'
pastor, is a true choral service, and forms '
sweet melody of our own church.", "Rom
predate it—Dissent cannot understand it."
Intonation of the service will, I trust, be the rule at the
new church, or they will certainly omit that which tends
most materially to the "decency, devotion, and solemn
of the Anglican worship

no part in

ith tea
blend

ion by their

plain but

Yours, r

' A SUBSCRIBER TO THE BIIII,DING OF THE CHTJECH
Liverpool, September 3d, 1853.

WHITEFIELD-LANE QUART