The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-05-04
The Question of Taste.
BY REV. R. L. DABNEY, D. D.

10 Soi ihiSSo, really WoiSnS ulolo WILL Jul
aesthetic Christians, than all the proof
texts, and commandments, and church.
histories, and sound experiences, that
could be quoted in summers day: This
is; that, by the new inventions in wor-
ship they show themselves people of taste.
There is one REPUTATION of the views l
advocate, which, with them, is all-suffi-
cient and omnipotent: 1t is: ooh that
is old fogyisml He don't understand
taste
1t is with compassion that person
who is really well-ir.ormed sees the utter
destruction the facts infict on this conf
dent boast. Our fashionable" tasteful
Christians get the modern improve
ments' on Gods plan of worship from
the older civilization of Europe? Of
course; and especially from Germany;
which is at once the native land of Pro
testantism, and of Music. Well; the
Lutheranism of Germany, which is, in
fact, but partially reformed from Popery |,
which has no objections to liturgy, and
the organ, and crucifxes, and candles,
and stained glass, and surplices, would
yet utter this alarming objection to our
American inventions in Presbyterian wor
ship; that they were in such atrociously
vulgar taste. The really cultivated peo-
pie there love and appreciate music,
classic music, operate music" if you
please; for they really have the musical
cultivation to appreciate tan acquisi-
ton which, in ninety-nine out of hun
dred of the congregations in Virginia af-
ficted with our fashionable musical
enormities, is hollow pretense. But if
you ask these well informed Protestants
abroad, why they do not have that kind
of music in Church; they answer: 1.-The
church is no place for it." People are
presumed to go to church to worship
God; not for theatrical enjoyment Gen
teel people go to tie opera-house for that
If there were no conscience in the matter,
they would be sorry to be guilty of such
sho, king taste as to countenance such
| III cGC., cue.
Consequently, in respectable Luther
an church in Germ any, one sees an organ
(and crucifx, and an altar, and can
dies, and pictures), but this organ is
used, at divine worship, only as modest
adjunct to congregational singing Every
body has psalm book, and everybody
sings, reverently, as an act of worship
(and neither as an act of display, nor as a
sensual enjoyment). No loud stop is
played; no instrumental overture; no
interlude. Every tune introduced into
worship is plain hymn tune, palmer
than old Near in its rythm; palmer than
Old Hundred. There is SO studied an
avoidance of musical parade, that usu-
ally, the whole congregation goes into
the air, leaving bass tenor, and contralto
to soft tone on the organ, and possibly
few voices near the organist. But pos
sibly every person in that congregation
has high musical training. Those young
men, so mo9estly and steadily contenting
themselves with an old fogy air like
Near, tomorrow, as they sip their beer,
will carry all the parts of brilliant
students song, with perfection of time
and harmony, which, in our regions,
would be professional treat. Those
ladies, SO demurely singing that same air,
have voices abundantly trained to bear
their parts in an Oratorio of Sebastian
! Bach.
DR.. Addison Alexander, whose wit was
as polished as his learning, once stated
this principle of taste thus, in substance
in talk at quiet tea-table. "There
are some things, with whose proper be-
ing smallness is consistent; but there are
others which, in order to fulfil their pro
per nature, must be large. The former
may be little, and yet be respectable !;
the latter cannot be small and yet be re-
spectacle. For instance, pocket-pistol
is, by nature and design little thing ;
but if an innocent traveller in wilder
ness were beset by rufian, he might
find his pocket-pisto an engine altogether
respectable and reasonable. But a can
non is a fre-arm, whose very nature it