The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-05-08

lay use of song in public worship. Lu-
 ther, together with his friend Waither,
 issued a collection of poems for choral
 singing in 1924 After the reformation
 England made marvellous contributions to church music and hynnology. The rise of Puritanisma had it's infiu-
 ence on church music as on everything else. As much as there was that was
 good in Puritanism, still it exerted
 most baneful effect upon everything that was artistic or joyful about the
 church building or in it's services. The Puritans despoiled the most stately
 cathedrals of England; broke in cold
 blood the beautiful stained glass win dows, many sacred to the memory of the departed dead; tore down the altars. upon which for centuries the memorial ] of our dying Lord had been celebrated;
 Whltewashed the richly colored marbles; made everything look as hideous as
 they could, on the ground that the mind shouid not be distracted by these things
 rom what they called the spirituality
 or worship; and they drove out the ioy-
 ful element of song and instrumental ! l1lS WOlSllIp OI- IUG C0urcn.
 It is only in the last forty years that l Christian worship has been able largely
 10 throw off this Puritanic Influence. The time is not so far past, when in most religious bodies an organ was re-
 garded as an instrument of the devil, ] when nothing but the Psalms were sung.
 or When the few hymns in use, of Watts ana others, were of a most mournful turn, rejoicing that man was worm of stne dust. and the like; when even in
 the Episcopal churches the Gloria was
 not usually sung at all, and when a.
 cnurcn was supposed to be very ritual. astlc which allowed the Gloria to be
 sung at the close of each psalm.
 steadily song has regained it's proper
 place in public worship. No one can , have failed to have noticed the greatly i5lncreased use of music and song in inc worship of all the5religious bodies about
 us The chanting of the Lords Prayer
 even the chanting of the commando < ments themselves s--seldom done in our I cnurches-is not unheard Of Special musical services in all denominations are not infrequent, No one for a mo- l ment can claim that in these cases tbis increase in the musical element of wor- J shipsis due to the growth of ritualism, TOT there is not an accompanying growth in reverance for the sacraments which is the keynote of ritualism.
 ssE What, then, is the meaning of this increasing part which music and song ie taking in the worship of all religions bodies? It Is explained only by the pre- ,f yailing theological conceptions. In the l last twenty-five years more joyfu
 conception of religion, the thought ot ,l God as a loving, merciful, forgiyine- Fla. [ ther, rather than as simply and chief, stern judge. has steadily grown in al
 q religious bodies; when a full-f1edeeo E Calylnist, who believes in infant damna. t ton, in election, in actual and real firt 5 and fbrlmstone,s awaiting sinners in hell } IS a curiosity; when mans confidence Tn the redemption wrought by Chris has caused manifestations of gratitude III phllanthropic undertakings such as l, the world has never seen before; this Joyful side of our religion has and vii
 find expression for itself in the must, g and song of public worship.
 It was believed twenty years ago, and g mas been increasingly believed since l that the ouartette choir, while makine I It possible to render more artistic music : was not the form of choir most con. f duclve to leadership in the music of the 3 church from the standpoint of genera
 worship; and so about this time there I was a general reaction from the quar g tette choir in favor of some form o1 n chorus choir, and many boy choirs had : bsen introduced into Episcopal church. g es I am indebted to our present or. r ganist for some items in the history ot li boy cholrs in this country with Whicl s l was not familiar. | Trinity church in New York had boys r in it's choir from about the middle O : the eighteenth century, singing a par j of the time with men, and a, part O r the time with women also, in the real e gallery. and invested pr. Henry S e Cutler made the occasion of the visit O. d the prince of Wales, about 1861, the op . portunity for testing the boys, an, t placing the choir in the chancel: Befor,
 this date, however; there was a vested l boy choir t@the Church of the Advent g Boston. n am told that there were boys in tn '- choir of our own church forty-twt U years ago, although without vestments e In the records of one of our parishe n in one of the Carolinas, in the latte d half of the eighteenth century is tn . entry of expense for washing the vest
 ments of the singing boys" which i
 one of the first indications of a veste'
 choir in this country.
 Upon the introduction of our owl d vested boy choir twenty years ago. on s of the daily papers of the time contain " the following statement by Dr. liar
 wood: 1.-The best music is now writte
 for boy choirs In New York city bo
 choir was introduced in the Church 0 the Holy Communion by Dr. Muhlen berg in 1S46, but not vested until withi
 recent years There are now, I thinl
 three boy choirs in Hartford, and on
 each in Stamford, Ansonfa, Middletow
 and Bristol We have~now two in thi