The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-02-03
PROFESSOR PARKER,


Professor Parker's recent criticism on
church music has awakened comment
IN many of the newspapers of the
country. The following from the New
York Tribune on the subject:
Professor Horatio w. Parker of Yale
read paper on Hymns and Tunes
the other day before the Episcopal club
of Massachusetts that has attracted
wide attention. He took the ground
that the Episcopal Hymnal is "a pain
full exhibition of vulgarity tempered
by incompetency And the Anglican
chant, he added, lis musical trilobite.
scarcely to be distinguished from veg
etable." He gave 1t as his opinion that
many of the best hymn tunes come
from Germany and most of the worst
are American. 1.-THE New England viii
lage choir quartet and Moody and
Sankey's hymns-those are engines of
war that have done more harm to re-
ligion than the whole Anglican church,
which the Puritans detested.' He de-
precated the disuse of the old fashion
ed minor tunes and the widespread
vogue of what he called the mawkish-
ness and platitudes of the modern
hymnal.
1T will seem rather curious to most
people familiar with the Episcopal
Hymnal that it should be so severely
criticised; for compared with some
other hymn books, it is digniied and
conservative. It's compilers would be
the first to admit its imperfections, but
in a book designed for popular use
many hymns and tunes must be adj
mitted that possess little If any intrin-
sic value. DR.. Hutchins declared, for
instance, that the diocese of Virginia
threatened to secede from the church
unless certain hymn, never heard
elsewhere, was retained in the Hymn
nal. There is much truth in this view
of the matter. The compilers of church
hymn books are not free to compile a
book such as they personally might
consider unobjectionable. They must
consult the taste and desires of the con-
gregations in whose behalf they are
working. They may regard the words
of some particular hymn as bad in the
ology and mawlIish in sentiment, and
the tune associated with it as utterly
jejune. But if practically everybody
wants it they will not dare to drop 1t.
1t is purely a MATTER of taste, as to
which the old. adage tells us there can
be no dispute. And therefore if Pro-
fessor Parlers criticism is we'll found
ed it simply amounts to saying that ac-
cordng to his standard the musical
taste of the Episcopal church is defec-
tive.
But what is the true standard Of re-
ligious music? Religious people have not
yet agreed on an answer to that ques-
ton and there is little likelihood that
they will do so. During the last few
years a number Of jealous Roman
Catholic priests in this country have
been inveighing against what they call
operate music in the Catholic church,
and calling for return to the old
Gregorian plain song. But Catholic
congregations still cling to the florid
masses, and would resent the introduce
ton of the Gregorian chant as strongly
as did the late Bishop Wherefore, of
England, who declared that he never
heard one without wanting to lie down
on his stomach and howl. The Moody
and Sankey melodies that so excite the
scorn of Prof. Parker please multtudes
of Christian people who would find no
comfort in such muscally perfect
tunes as he would prescribe. And the
Anglican chants, which he refers to as
triobites, apparently touch the chords
of religious emotion in those who hab-
itualy listen to them.
evertheless it is 4 fact that the de-
fects of hymnology are coming more
and more to be recognized 1t Is too
much to expect that the masses OF re-
ligious people will at once recognize
the puerility and insanity Of the words
and music of some hymns, halioWed,
possibly, by old associations. But the