The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-07-17
EDITORIAL 8riets.
BY REV. l. M. ATWOOD, DID.
Canton, N. Y


music than the public At the recent
session of the National Music Teachers
Association this subject proved to be the
most agitating of the many discussed.
On the one side it was argued that the
tastes as well as spiritual needs of tbe
congregation should be taken into the
account in adapting music to worsbip.
On the other it was contended that con-
gregatlons are not to be consulted hut
educated. The musical director is to de-
eide what Is in good taste and bring the
congregation up to it. DR.. Duryea, who
has had much experience in conducting
congregational singing, held that the
music is part of the worship and that the
congregation must participate. Mr.. Caryl
tlorio, of New York, while dissenting
from Dr. Duryea on many points, de-
nounced in strong terms the quartet"
choir, and proposed the abolition of
solos, duets, and all compositions calcu-
lated to convert the church into concert
room.
Such articles as that of Father Muir
ply IN the Nineteenth Century, in reply to
st. George Mivart, on the Church'g ac-
ton IN relation to Calico, are among the
things that tend to bring religion and its
| representatives, into disrepute. Mr.. Muir
! ply makes an elaborate argument tC show
that the Church never, by any competent
authority, declared against Galileo's
book. He comedies, as he is compelled
to do, that the conclave of cardinals con-
demned it; that the Pope authorized it to
be placed on the Index Purgatorium;
that In pursuance of this action Galileo
was prosecuted and driven to the pusil-
luminous recantation. But he makes the
purely technical plea, that the Pope,
speaking in that character which makes
his deliverances infallible, had not, him
self, pronounced Galileo's doctrine false.
BY similar ingenuity it is clear that
the Church could be exculpated from
responsibility for all the acts done by
her various representatives, except the
very few actually executed by a Pope,
under the narrow limitation in which he
is, according to Mr.. Murphy, infallible.
But such subtleties are quite thrown
away on the common sense of mankind.
The truth OF the matter is, that the
Church, speaking by the ecclesastics,
great and small, the Pope included, con-
demned Galileo in every variety of
phrase, and meant to condemn him, and
reiterated the condemnation, and verify
thought she was serving God by SO do
ing. Neither Paul the Fifth nor Urban
Eighth, nor the cardinals of the period,
would thank Father Murphy for attempt
ing to make out that their acts we're null
and their intentions were the reverse of
what they and all the world knew them
| to be.
The chief merit of Emerson, accord
ing to Matthew Arnold, is, that he is the
friend OF those who would live in the
spirit" This also, according to President
Gilman, of Johns Hopkins, should be
the chief merit of a college. Not physics
nor yet metaphysics are the chief con-
cern, says DR.. Gilman; but breadth, cult
ure, repose, and a spiritual as against
materialistic philosophy. The bread
and-butter notion of what college is for
he distinctly repudiates President See
lye has lately shown that education, as
such, does not save either a nation or
an individual. 1t is education with the
end in view of making manly, self-deny-
ing, God-fearing men that is required.
The loud applause which greeted
Hon. Leverett Saltonstalls rebuke OF the
"increase Of luxury and extravaganza"
at Harvard, in his remarks at the alumni
dinner, attests the strong feeling which
exists among the best friends of the col
lege that it is acquiring an undesirable
notOriety. President Eliot endeavors to
break the force of the reproof somewhat
by saying that not more than ten per
cent of the students are rich. But this
would give over a hundred rich young
men to set the style in apartments. fur
niture, dress, suppers and spreads What
is worse, these rich young men determine
the scale of expenses in all the in
SiNShtuAo anu thuS buluSl bllS poor
student or else drive him out of college
society altogether.
The responsibility can not be laid on
the college, except to the extent in which
she caters to extravaganza and bids for
the patronage of the rich Some young
men with more money than brains and
more desires than discretion will be found
in all colleges. They are corrupting ele-
ment which the authorities strive in vain
to bring under discipline. The misfor-
tune of Harvard is, that this element
Is predominant. Year by ear the num-
bers and sway of the rich increase. 1t
deserves consideration whether the great
care taken to keep the scandalous esca-
pades of some OF these young men out Of
the papers has anything to do with the
steady growth of their evil influence.
Nor can it be deemed a trihing mat
ter that young man at his most sus-
ceptible and ambitious period should
come into an atmosphere where the per-
sonal habits, belongings and exploits of
other young men who spend $4,000 a
year, are leading topics of conversation.
Luxury and extravaganza are insep-
arabic from the expenditure by any
young men Of large sums of money; but