Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1871-11-29
Trashy Books and SHY Music in Sun
day Schools.


From the New York sun of Saturday.
There is hardly any other subject
respecting which so much folly and
bad taste are shown as in the prepafa-
ton Of Sunday-schOol books. When
we remember that the impressible
minds of millions of children are
more or less toned and warped by the
crude masie and pernicious books
which are imposed upon them in
Sunday-schOOls, this subject becomes
one of exceeding importance. Ina
CINE the fiabby souls and vulgar
imaginatiOns which children must
have who are brought up on such
Sunday slOp as this:
'Oh boys! be strong IN Jesus.
To toilfor him Is gain;
And Jesus wrought with Joseph
With ehisel. saw and plane
"Oh maidensi live for Jesus,
Who was q maiden's son.
Be patient pure, and gentle.
And perfect grace begun"
This hymn was recently sung to q
tune eoTrespOndingiy detestable by a
choir of a thousand Sunday-sehOOl
children, at the Brooklyn Rink, on an
occasion when ''Only music Ofa high
er character and of greater excellence
and usefulness than is usually taught
in Sabbath-schools" was to be given.
On the same occasion hymn con-
tanning these stanzas was sung, as an
other character specimen:
ave tread in hemight Of the Lord Of Hosts
And we fear not man nor uevil;
For our Captain himself guards well our
coasts
To defend his church from evil.
"And the choir OF angels with song awaits
Our march 70 the golden Zion;
For our Captain has broken the hrazen cat
And burst the bars Of iron"
These samples 30 net exhaust the
triumphs of the inventive genius of
the Sunday-schOol muse, as witness
the following comfort tor eripples:
''The poor cripples has a chance for glory,
AS good a cnance as you or ];
Christ viii listen 70 his story,
He will hear the cripple's cry
''He always pities poverty,
And scorns not those VINO have to beg.
His grace for every woes sufficient
One can go to heaven with wooden leg"
This is indeed eonsoling, but we are
afraid it is not orthodox, Paul SAYS
flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of heaven. How then can
a wooden substitute for flesh and blood
inherit it? We suspect that before
the author of the above hymn can
make his "ealling and election sure,n
he will have to show that one can 90
to heaven with a wooden head.
Too many of our Sunday y-sehOOl
books are as insane, sapless, and silly
as the above specimens Of Sunday
school hymns. Those who write them
know nothing about boys and girls,
nor human nature, nor human life
They assume that there are only two
classes Of children extant-the exc
erably sanetimOnious and the unquali-
fiedly wicked. Their good girls are
always too sweet to be wholesome,
and their good boys are usually so
mean, sneaking, hypOeritieal, and de-
testable that one of them could not
survive half an hour in a play ground
filed with real boys. He would be
and ought to be inexorably put to
death. The wicked boy Of Sunday
school literature is as great a eariea-
ture as the good boy. He goes on for
years committing all manner Of afro
eiOus crimes, and then, in the last
page, he is suddenly converted, and
goes straight to heaven for doing some
thing which no decent boy would be
guilty of doing. 1t is time Sunday
school libraries were purged Of such
viilainOus stuff.