The record-union., 1891-04-29
A QUESTION OF METHOD.

Archdeacon Farrar has come to the de-
tense ofthe drums, trumpets and tambor-
ines of the Salvation Army. And it must
be confessed that he makes very ingeni-
GUS case. No one contends, says he, that
these rude instruments have any direct
association with Christianity; that they
are adjuncts essential to any plan of sal
yation.
They have no purpose in the world but the
very innocent one of attracting the people to
gatherings where they may hear something
which benefits their souls. ave do not be-
lieye in all this noise and blare and jigging,''
says the comatose sensibility of comfortable
pietlsm. No one does, except as David and
the PsalmistS believed in it, when they exhort
us Ito make a cheerful noise to the God of our
salvation;" to take the psalm, bring hither
the tabret, the merry harp, with the lute;''
or as the children of Israel believed in 1t, when
their tribes marched to the yearly festivals in
rivers Of melody.
He then proceeds to admit that the
songs of the 'army" are not as refined as
the hymns of Newman and Lyte, nor is
its music as refined as that of Mozart and
Beethoven, but" and here is the real
pith of his argument,
They are even better adapted to the needs of
the poor people to whom they appeal. The
experience of Wesley, and his desire that ''the
devil should not have all the best tunes"
ought to have taught lesson in this direction.
There may not be much poetry in
Free from the bondage
Free from the fear
Crowned with salvation
Heaven even here
Shouting Hailelujah as we march along,
o come and join our happy throng,"
bI1t those IVbO hoN l,a ta Col
vationists as they sing it may well decline to
act in the spirit of the Pharisees, who when
the children shouted hosannas before the path
of Jesus, indignantly asked: master, nearest
thou what these say?" and received the re-
buke: "Yea, did ye never read, out of the
mouth Of babes and sUcklings thou hast per-
fected praise?'"
The answer, if any is to be made to the
Archdeacon, is to be interposed right
here, and that is that the rude music of
the Salvationists, vocal and instrumental,
does not meet the need of the classes with
whom they labor. Perhaps it is well
adapted to the east of London; but in this
country ''the people of the street" are not
even attracted by it. Its rudeness, the
contortions accompanying it, the strange
oNoe1SNa1HNN1OA4s bIO otA0hSOI Vi
women marching in the mire attract, ex-
actly as would any odd passing show. If
the agency-employed and dubbed music
serves by its discordant strains to draw a
crowd, the Salvationist attains the end de-
sired. But if the music is intended to
move-''to meet the need" as the Arch
deacon puts 1.-THE effort is a woful fail
ure in these parts.
The logic of the argument for the use of
music as means to quicken the sensibil-
tiles, would demand the employment of
the very best and most harmonious COM
bination Of instrument and voices. We
are not disposed to sneer at the Salvation
lists; they may, as said a Brooklyn di-
vine, ''sing their way around the world
in spite of the church;" but on these
shores their efforts have not inspired con-
fidence in the judgment that chooses the
agencies, either to attract attention or to
strike conviction to the soul.