The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1867-12-29

Tho Present state OF kcngi0us FooIn -
In America-Its Causes and Prebsble
Failure.
No subject for social, political and n,ral
dissection has more egregiously puzzled the
surgeons Of foreign criticism than the generic
American, who, with mental and moral
anatomy not materially different from that Of
mankind in general, has engrafted thereu,on
a certain anomalous physiology, the principle
Of which it would take some dozen volumes Of
"American Notes" to illustrate. In the religious
pounded another problem, concerning which
foreign divinity doctors have talked g'eat
deal, shaken their heads warningly great
many times and prophesied many tines
more, all to no purpose, so far as either tall or
prophecy related to its analysis The fac is,
in religious, as in political and economical
thought, we are in theory free people; and
it is just this freedom, working out for it:elf
new forms Of manifestation, that might have
been--had it been possible for those accas-
toned to timeworn grooves Of thought to
comprehend thought freely creating for itself
new grooves-to them the key of the riddle
OF the religious thought and the manifestation
OF the religious instinct in Europe but FIVE
phases have really been developed-viz., the
dogmatic, which gave rise to early and rigid
anatomies Of creed the Gothic, which eI-
pended Its vague aspiration, grand yet morbid,
on cathedrals like those of Strasburg and CO.
logne the artistic, which spent the force Of
its reveries upon Madonnas and Judgments
the phase of critical rationalism, which, having
been outgrown in Germany, has been trans
planted into English soil by Bishop Colenso
and the authors of the Essays and Reviews
about which bruit was made some five or six
years since and the phase Of transcendental
rationalism (also Germany. which English theo-
logans, failing to comprehend, have omitted to
reproduce.
To neither Of these phases has the American
feeling shown any emphatic leaning. We build
Gothic cathedrals without having ourselves a
vestige of Gothic feeling; we buy old paint
ings, but have no sympathy with their weird
and diseased allegories Of heavenly things; we
peruse the works of German rationalism, but
they leave little impression; we wrestle,
at least mos. Of us, to square our opinions upon
the dicta of orthodoxy, and succeed but pitt
fully in so squaring them. In short, we
think and speculate in a way peculiarly Ameri-
can-cannot help so thinking and so specu-
lating-and II the divinity doctors Of Europe
agree with us, it is WE'LL and If not, little it
matters.
1t must be promised that we have now seve-
raj religious ceRtres Formerly Bostonisms of
all Sorts free, yet frigid, had only to be
invented 10 infes. the whole land like an cpl
dcmic. Within the past ten years, however,
New York has outgrown its Bostonism of
thought and its reverence for the philosophical
fancies of the Hub" Cambridge no longer
governs either in policy, poetry OF religion;
and Americans at large are no longer ia
the orthodox habit of submitting their ideas
to the Boston straight jacket-though the
breaking loose from this influence, always
aggressive noisy and overbearing, has been
too recent to have settled into repose after
reaction; and at least ten years will be required
to demonstrate to what American religious
thought may amount, independent Of Boston.
One thing is quite obvious: there has been
nobler growth of the beautiful in our mani
festations of religious feeling since Boston re-
ceived the "cold cut" and quite certain it is
that religion has taken musical direction. In
public worship New York now absolutely
wreaks its religion on music. No amount of
Puritanic defamation has been sufficient to
stay the prog ess of This instinct, and no plead
ings on the part of elderly clergywen for sim
plicity Of form have been of any avail. To-
day an organist without an elaborate pro-
grammc Of solos, duets and quartets, would sit
as uneasily on his cushioned stool OF Sunday
morning as would tho leader Of concert
under similar circumstances on any evening Of
the week. 1t will be also impossible 10 ex-
punge the excess OF music from religious wor-
ship for the present Presbyterians, doctri-
naily orthodox, have fallen into ii; Methodists
exhort in musical notes and semibreves; Epis-
copalians candidate everything, even prayers
and responses; and Catholics always grand
aud copious in this respect. are becoming more
and more so. in consonance with the general
spirit OF religious worship in the metropolis.
The Baptiss. only, as great body, have held
aloof and kept to The letter Of their original
simplicity; and these will no doubt gradually
soften and mingle with the general pulp. II
is useless to fight against human nature, either
special or general; and that tho religious in.
stinct of the American human nature takes
naturally to music, practical observation de-
monstrates
The philosophy of all is found in this. Music
is especially the organ Of certain vague
boundless aspiration and enthusiasm, which
must be wreaked upon something and which
constitute really the essence Of the religious
instinct. Scientific culture and digging
have, in some degree, unsettled the founda
lions Of dogmatic theology; and that same
cnthu siasm which forruerlv employed itself In