The independent., 1907-02-07

incomes by inspection of the furs they
Wear-ls put by the melody of the SER
vice into mood more favorable to the
reception of what the preacher sets
forth as truth
1t is always safe to say that the
music this Lent will be better than
that of any preceding season of sack
cloth and penitence Not in Episcupal
churches only but throughout practi-
cally the whole fold of the various
American denominations, nothing has
been more marked than the steady i'm
proVement OF the voices of choirs and
quartets as well as of the songs which
they sing. The English school OF church
music which is generally followed in
this country, has of late years been
subject to continental influences much
to its betterment
We have, in fact, gone a long way
in this country from the crude church
music of our fathers, with it's quaint
repetitions, such as the famous
And take thy pill
And take thy pill
And take thy pilgrim home"
Oh, for a man
Oh, for q man
Those were days when if music was
admitted to the churches at all-and
many of the more puritanical ecclesi-
astical bodies believed down to a COM
paratively recent period that harmony
was of the devil, as indeed it must
have been deyilish for the most part
it consisted very largely of lining
out" and grooming repetition by the
audience of the words pronounced
without expression or phrasing There
was present no considerable body of
professional musicians to correct such
usagcs. On both sides of the Atlantic,
in fact, the music of Anglo Saxon
churches was rude and barbarous, with
introduction, sometimes, of most re-
markable effects of words as well as
of numbers, as when q patriotic organ
ist in an English church sprung upon
rector and congregation, one Sunday
morning, hymn of his own, begin
ming:
king William has come home, come
home,
King William home has come:
Therefore let us together sing
The hymn that's called 'Te Dunn +"
1t was an unruly, obstinate brood of
singers who assisted the divine service
in those good old days They were a
thorn in the flesh of the clergy, as is
proved by almost countless anecdotes
of famous preachers. Sometimes they
used even to go on a strike, as in the
story of New England dominic who
unexpectedly found his singers after
two or three weeks absence in the
church again, and looked significantly
at them over the pulpit while he an
nounced as the title of the first hymn:
"And are ye wretches still alive
And do yet yet rebel?"
In many of the early churches the
singing was for generations unaccom-
panied by instrumental music The
episode connected with the rejection by
the Brattle street church of Boston of
the first American church organ. now
at Portsmouth ~ H.. is very familiar.
When it was first proposed 20 Introduce
the wee. sinful fiddle into New Eng
land npelinghouscs tho innovation was
widely resented. because the instrument
was resonant somehow OF taverns and
dance music. The musical rcformers.
however. were persistent. believing that
with the help ~ fiddle strings some
degree nf harmony might bo introduced
into the dtseord os unaecompanicd con-
greFationnl singing. Accordingly, az
one church conference lt VAS decided
that heneeforth the violin might be
introduced into the church provided
the performers would play II wrong