Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1874-06-18
Praise God Bareloones.


In the Southern Methodist Con-
ference at Louisville, the following
resolution was offered:
Rssolved, That our Bishops be, and they
are hereby, requested, in their pastoral ad
dress, 10 call attention to and express their
disapprobation of operate performances in
our churches, which drown the sense of our
hymns and utterly destroy congregational
singing.
DR.. Green said / am q kind of
singing man myself--have sung
whole camp meetings throughput
we have to manage this thing the
best way we can. We won't ac-
complish much by legislating or by
the pastoral address. have found
that q church is made up of different
characters first, you find one man
that is happy when he gets some
thing to do with the money matters;
he sees that the preacher gets his
pay, and don't believe that any
body's got religion that don't pay
Next, you have man that goes for
prayer-meetings. He prays a good
prayer himself, and he gets happy
and the meeting is always better for
his being there. Another says class
meetin's, by all means. He's got an
extra experience, and he wants to
tell it. Another goes for the preach
er when he comes, takes him to his
house, treats him kindly, and gets
him to tell stories for him. Another
doesn't care much for the meetings,
or for anything else but the preach
ing; he always thinks the last SER
mon the best. Another doesn't have
anything to do with the prayer
meetings doesn't care much about
the sermon he doesn't sing, and
we don't know what to do with him;
but he keeps the candles snufed,
puts water on the pulpit, and keeps
out the dogs, and makes the boys
behave, and says when you come
out "Did you ever SEQ better than
that ?" And another comes up and
asks you for the hymns. He says
they amt much on singin', but he's
got few of 'em together and tryin'
to learn EN- how. Now, my plan is
to cultivate 'em all, each in his own
way, and work him where | can, so
as not to get one opposed to another.
I recollect an old darkey named
Abram. He used to raise the
"hmes" They got a choir in his
church, and one day be came over
to me and said he wished l would
go down there-that they had all
got into confusion. The niggers had
brought them books with long ends
in thar, and were tryin' to sing two
or three tunes to the same words, at
the same time. They were singing
bass, you know. The fact is, they
had supplanted hbram. l have had
a great deal of trouble about singing.
l have given out the hymn, and
Shocks over there started tune too
short for it, and then he tries it
again and gets it too long, and after
two or three times his son Job
holloas out, "Stop, dad, l think I've
got it," There amt many of them
who can start tune right-they
either get so low as to drown or SO
high they can't get over. Now
there is two ways to remedy this
first, by dispensing with the hymn
books altogether and give out the
hymn, line upon line, or give them
all hymn books and give out the
hymn-not the number OF the page
and the hymn too, because they'll
get confused but give cut one or
t'other. Tell them they've all got
to sing. Go to the leader and tell
him: Brother, start plain tune
that the old folks all know. Let the
voluntary be new tune if you
choose, because if you don't sing
new tunes sometimes they'll never
learn 'em. Let the preacher take
charge of it kindly and not captious-
ly. They won't read the pastoral
address-the pastors should manage
it themselves.