Connecticut western news., 1891-09-24

If a congregation is silent during the ex ercise or partially silent, it is the silence of death If, when the hymn is given out, you hear the faint hum of here and there father and mother in Israel, while the vast majority are silent, that minister of Christ who is presiding needs to have very strong constitution if he does not get the chills. He needs not only the grace of God, but nerves like whalebone. It is amazing how some people, who have voice enough to dis charge all their duties in the world, when they come into the house of God have no voice to discharge this duty l really believe that if the church of Christ could rise up and sing as it ought to sing, that where we have hundred souls brought into the kingdom of Christ there would be thousand
 ALI. PURE MUSIC IS WHOLESOME.
 But 1 must now speak of some of the obstacles in the way of the advance ment of this sacred music, and the first is that 1t has been impressed into the service of superstition an Tar from
 
 be positively religious. Refined art has opened places where music has been secularized. and lawfully so. The drawing room, the musical club, the orchestra, the concert, by the gratifica ton of pure taste, and the production of harmless amusement, and the i'm provement of talent, have become great forces in the advancement of our civilization Music has as much right to laugh in Surrey gardens as it has to pray in St. Pauls.
 In the kingdom of nature we have the glad fling of the wind as well as the long meter psalm of the thunder; but while all this is so, every observer has noticed that this art, which God in tended for the improvement of the ear, and the voice, and the head, and the heart, has often been impressed into the service of false religions. False re Igions have depended more upon the hymning of their congregations than upon the pulpit proclamation of theil dogmas. Tartini, the musical com poser, dreamed one night that satan matched from his hand an instrument and played upon it something very sweet-a dream that has often been fulfilled in our day, the voice and the instruments that ought to have been devoted to Christ, captured from the church and applied to purposes of su perstition.
 Another obstacle has been an inor dinate fear of criticism The vast ma jority of people singing in church never want anybody else to hear them sing Everybody is waiting for somebody else to do his duty If we all sang, then the inaccuracies that are evident when only a few sing would not be heard at all; they would be drowned out. God only asks you to do as well as you can, and then, if you get the wrong pitch, or keep wrong time, he will forgive any deficiency of the ear and imperfection of the voice. Angels will not laugh if you should lose your place in the musical scale, or come in at the close bar behind.
 There are three schools of singing,
 
 ian school and the French school o1 singing. Now. would like to add a fourth school, and that is the school of Christ. The voice of a contrite, broken heart, although it may not be able to stand human criticism, makes better music to Gods ear than the most artistic performance when the heart is wanting. know it is easier to preach on this than it is to practice, but sing for two reasons-frst, be cause like it, and next, because want to encourage those who do not know how. have but very little faculty in that direction, get an resolved to sing. God ilas commanded it, and dare not be silent He calls on the beasts, on the cattle. on the dragons to praise him, and we ought not to be behind the cattle and the dragons.
 TIMIDITY AND CAPTIOUsNEss. Another obstacle that has been in the way of the advancement of this holy art has been the fact that there has been so much angry discussion on the subject of music. There are those who would have this exercise conduct ed by musical instruments. In the same church there are those who do not like musical instruments, and so it Is organ and no organ, and there is Q fight. In another church it is d ques tion whether the music shall be con ducted by precentor or by drilled choir Some want drilled choir and some want precentor. and there is q fight. Then there are those who would like in the church to have the organ played in dull, lifeless, droning way. while there are others who would have it wreathed into fantastics, branching | out in jets and spangles of sound, roll ing and tossing in marvellous convolu | tions, as when. in pyrotechnic display after you think a piece is exhausted, it l breaks out in wheels, rockets, blue lights and serpentine demonstrations
 Some would have the organ played in almost inaudible sweetness. and others would have it full of staccato passages that make the audience jump with great eyes and hair on end. as though by a vision of the Witch of Endor And he who tries to please all will fail in everything Nevertheless you are to admit the fast that this con test which is going on, not in hundreds but in thousands of the churches ot the United States today, is a mighty hindrance to the advancement of tli, art. In this way scores of churches are entirely crippled as to all influence and the music is damage rather than praise.
 r. Another obstacle in the advancement, of this art has been the erroneous no l 4I, 4, ,I.J