Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1855-12-22
From Dickeus's Household Words, Oct. 10, IS.
SUNDAY MUSIC.

This earth we live on is decidedly a very curl
Gus place, and people do the most extraordinary
things on it. "Whatcver is, is right" Of course
the number of feet in that line Of the Essay on
Man" is certainly col rcct-but still | can't help
doubling whether it be quite right to hate our bro.
Tiers and sisters quite as much as we do. 1t can't
be exactly a proper thing to take that which does
not belong to us, and cut the throa.s Of the legiti-
mate proprietOrs, because, they object to our pro-
ceedings; to believe Tor say we Selieve) that some
hundred millions Of our fellow creatures are bound
headlong to perdition, because they believe rather
more or less than we.believe. 1t may be right but
it doesn't look like it, to aend two honest lab0rers
TO hard labor in a viilanous jail-to herd with
Blueskin, Jack Ram, Bill Sykes, Mat-o'-the Mint
for the microscopic crime of leaving haymaking
to see a review; it oughtn't to be right that a
Christian priest, consecrated to Gods service for
our souls health, should, by virtue of his commits
sion of j. p, have the RICH. to do IL shameful and
cruel wrong. Let me only take one little slender
twig from one of the fascines with which we are
perpctually terrifying our stronghold OF assumed
right or wIong-one splinter OF the huge log OF in.
consistency--Music on Sundays.
And, mind. l am tolerant, l am moderate; | am
content to blink the general Sunday question
Sunday and bitters, or Sunday and sweetstuH.-
Meet me on this subject lis Secular music on
Sundays right or wrong, and are we inconsistent
in our opinions and acts concerning it?
maintain that music is always good; and bet
ter on our best of days. Sunday. i shall not be
long in finding antagonists who will maintain
that Sunday music is wrong, dangerous, nay, dam
nable.
Now, why should Secular Sunday music be so
dreadfully wicked ? or, again, admitting momenta.
rily, that it might not be quite correct, why cam
we be q little consistent in the application of ON
structures, remembering that maxim SO time hon.
oreG lin the breach thereby, that what is sauce for
the goose is Tor should be) sauce for the gandei
likewise? Did you ever dwell, Oh! We denouncers
of Sunday music in a provincial garrison town
Did you ever listen without w~ringing of hands or
heaving OF breasts, or upturning of eyes, or quiv-
ering accents-but, on the contrary, with much
genial pleasure and cOutent-to the notes of the
regimental brass-band coming home with the regi
ment from church ? Was not that music of a no.
toriOusly worldly, not to say a frivolous che racter
including marches, polkas, potpourris, schottisch.
es, alses-a-deux-temps many of which, by the
seli-same musicians, you heard performed only last
night at the Shire Hall Ball, or the Dowager LADY
larkheePs Assembly? And yet ! never heard Of
an association in a country town for putting dowr
regimental waltzes on Sundays; and | decided,
never knew the poets corner of a country newspa,
per to be Grnamented by such n birthstone bard as
he who empties his penny phials of penny wratl
upon the wind instruments in Kensington Gar
dens. Tell me, are there not scores of watering,
piaces-piOus watering-places, the chosen villegia-
ture OF serious old ladies with heavy balances at
their bankers-of evangelical young ladies, whose
lives are passed land admirably tool in a circle of
tracts, good books, feecy hosiery. beef tea, rheu.
matism and bed-ridden old ladies-of awakened
bankers, possessing private proprietary %cbapels,
and neyer-oh never,-running away with the
understanding placer where pet parsons are
as plentiful as pet lapdogs, and every quack, aud
every ignoramus, and every crack-brained enthu-
siast can thump his tub and think it is a pulpit
can blow his pnny tin trumpet and think il is the
last trump? Yet in these same watering-places |
meyer heard Of denuncistions cf The cavalry band,