Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes Co., O. [Ohio]) 1870-1895, 1874-02-26
Henry Ward Beecher on
Methodist Singing.
[By request of an old Methodist |

"By the way | was at the Methods
Church, here, yesterday morning.
very pleasant room it is, and am tolt
that very worthy society occupy it
But have most weighty charge tt
bring against the good people of musi-
cal apostasy. had expected treat o
good hearty singing. There wert
Charles Wesley's hymns, and there
were the good old Methodist tunes that
ancient piety loved and modern con-
ceit laughs at! Imagine my chagrin
when after reading the hymn, up rose a
choir from shelf at the other end OF
the church, and began to sing monot-
onous tune of the modern music-book
style. The patient congregation stood
up meekly to be sung to, as men stand
under rain when there is no other shell
ter. Scarcely lip moved. No one
seemed to hear the hymn, or care for
the music. How longed for the good
old Methodist thunder! One good burst
of old fashioned music would have
blown this modern singing out of the
windows, like wadding from a gun.
Men may call this an improvement, and
genteel. Gentility has nearly killed
our churches, and it will kill Methodist
Churches, if they give way to its false
and pernicious ambition. We know
very well what good, oldfashioned
Methodist music was. 1t has faults
enough, doubtless against taste, but had
an inward purpose and religious earn
estness which enabled it to carry all its
faults, and triumph in spite of them. 1t
was worship. Yesterdays music was
tolerably good singing, but very poor
worship. We are sorry that just as our
Churches are beginning to initiate the
former example of Methodist Churches,
and to Introduce melodies that the peo-
pie love, our Methodist brethern should
pick up our cast-off Journalism in church
music. 1t will be worse with them than
with us. 1t will make a greater length
of decline. We could hardly believe
our eyes and ears yesterday. We could
hardly persuade ourselves that we stood
before Methodist church. We shonld
have supposed it to be good old Pres
byterian or Congregational church; in
which the choir and pulpit did every
thing, and the people did nothing. Our
brethern in this church must not take
these remarks unkindly. They are pre-
sented in all kindness and Affection
The choir sang better than many choirs
in the city churches, but no one sang
with them. The people were mute
They used their ears and not their
mouths. But, alas! we missed the old
good, old-fashioned Metho-
dist fire. We have seen the time when
one of Charles Wesley's hymns, taking
the congregation by the hand, would
have led them up to the gate of heaven.
But yesterday it only led them up to
the choir, about en- feet above pews
This will never do. Methodists will
make magnificent neutrality-suspicious.
If they are not ashamed of their own
ways, but very poor ones if they are.
Brethern you are in the wrong way. 1t
will never do for you to silence the peo-
gle. Your fire will 60 out if you take
It up under the ashes of false refine
nent. Let an outsider, but well-wish-
,r, say these plain words without Of |
tense. The Methodist Church has laid |
he Christian world under great debt
BY its aervice in the cause of Christ;
md we have right to it, and an inter-
st in it, as common Christians, too
great to suffer us to see signs of degen-
,racy in it without sorrow and alarm. We
nope God means to do great things by
t yet for our land. But it will not be
,y giving up heart and soul, zeal and
popular enthusiasm, in worship for the
'ake of sham propnety and tasteful for
nalism, that the Methodist Church
will become yet further efficient. We
iope to see such revival of religion
.mong them as will come like freshet
ipon their Churches, and sweep out
he channels of song, and carry away
he dead wood and trash which have
llready damned up the current of song,
md made the congregation stagnant.
}, there may be rain of righteousness
lpon them, which shall swell their
learts to overflowing, and cleanse their
from all Journalism, and es-
,ecially from the Journalism of pedan-
il music t''