The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1895-07-19

bAAtsb SAtAo 40 SSAlI w bS TIC NIdltAAAN9N
city OF Its size and rank in New Eng
land; and it Is needless to ada that it
is, In its way, a great musical center.
Where there is so much that Is admira-
BILE In the way of vocal and instrument
tai music, 1t may be deemed indivldious
to mention names especially prominent
in this connection; yet it may not be
amiss to speak of leaders of such eXcep-
tional excellence and repute as Major
Learned and Mr.. +. w. Lester, conduc-
tors, respectively, of the choirs of the
Park and Broadway Congregational
churches, and both instrumentalists of
deserved renown beyond the limits of
their own place of residence; of Mrs,
Sleight, an accomplished and admira-
bic vocalist, the leading soprano singer
of the city, and who is now engaged in
professional studies in Europe, and of
Miss Mary E. Rogers, the soprano sing
er In one of the local choirs, and the
fortunate possessor Of a voice of singu-
lar and sympathetic sweetness and pur-
ity. There are opportunities here,
sometimes, of listening to music of the
very highest order, and to performers
far beyond the average professional ca
pacity.
A far more delicate subject of which
to treat in such paper as this is the
relative and comparative ability of our
ministers of the various churches and
sects. Indeed, I deem 1t a measure of
sagacious policy to leave this topic to
any future writer who feels called upon
to dilate thereon. Yet I should do the
town and myself injustice should fail
to express my convictions in a single
regard in this connection.
1.-THE Rose of New England is fortu-
nate in being the place of residence of
a divine of whom do not hesitate to
express my honest belief that he is the
greatest of living New England preach
ers. AS Lowell years ago said concern
ing his lifelong friend, the immortal
author of 1.-THE Scarlet Letter" 1.-THE
world may see another Shakespeare,
but never another Hawthorne" so with
equal truth may 1t be affirmed that we
| may live to see other Beechers, but
| must wait in vain for adequate success
sors to Phillips Brooks and Leonard
| Woolsey Bacon of Connecticut.
While the latter lacks in some meas
| ure Bishop Brooks control of vivid and
picturesque imagery, he is in two re-
| spects the superior of even the illustri-
Gus Boston divine; he has an exception
| al and marvellous command Of the ele-
| ffent of pathos, never prominent in the
| oratory of Phillips Brooks, and gift
Of inestimable value; and he Is what
| Brooks never was-a pulpit orator Of
| finished grace and cultured eloquence
| When to this we add that there Is in
any one discourse of DR.. Bacon's a
wealth of original thought for which
we may look in vain In a hundred or
binary pulpit efforts, the reader may
| well ask in establishment, "Why, Sun
day after Sunday, is such a preacher
4 silent?"
| To this question there are possible
several answers. DR.. Bacon is an origi
nal thinker, a character always more
or less unacceptable in the average or.
thodox New England community. If
as a very great writer says, sit is al
most impossible for the good orthodox
to grasp the hand Of the good Unitari
an" it Is surely quite hopeless to lool
for charity on the part Of the good or
thodox" toward a brother of the same
faith whose views on, for example, 81
vital a question as the authorship O.
the Epistle to the Hebrews differ from
his own.
Powerful truth" says the same wri
ter, being the rich grape Juice ex
pressed from the vineyard of the ages
has an Intoxicating quality when i'm
L hihaH NV ~ i,,ta
and often, as 1t were, impels the quaffei
to quarrel in his cups"
Then it requires intellect to appreci
ate intellect. I heard recently from TIN
lips of DIR. Bacon sermon of marvel
Gus brilliancy and pathos; yet there Il
1.-The strongest evidence that it passed
directly over the heads of half the au
dience to whom it was addressed; in
| deed, several complained that "the,
could not understand such preaching
Moreover, Bibliolatry is, in this re
gion, a plant of vigorous though nox
ious growth; and here, as elsewhere
those who know the least have I'll
strongest prejudices and the loudes
voices. Then our preacher happens t
be a musician of rare attachments an
unusual technical knowledge; and mas
much as lin whisper be it spoken) tn
average church choir is not compose
of men and women, boys and girls G
pre-eminent intellectual requirement
and tastes, where it may we'll be asked
| in all New England could such oppos
. | ing extremities of a church edifice b
brought together in loving harmon
and concord? Meantime the fact re
mains that here Is a pulpit orato
whose eloquence, now too seldo,
heard, would speedily fill the bigges
auditorium in Boston or New York.
Ours is one of the Oldest of Ne,
| England towns, it's authentic ANIMAL
. dating far back to the good old colonis
, days. Eminent writer's sin prose an
) | verse have again and again rehearse
it's honorable story and dwelt with dt
f light on its venerable, time-honored Il
f gends. Donald G. Mitchell, elk Ma,
, VEL" whose "Reveries of a Bachelor
, and Dream Life" charmed America
readers of forty years ago, first saw tb
. light within its limits; and his "histor
: cal address," delivered on some pup,
occasion not many years since, is of O,
ceeding interest and value.
Here, too, lived and wrote the wortf