I pronounce much of what is called "church music," in our day, a
mockery and a farce. Though I have neither a cultured voice nor a
cultured ear, no man shall do my singing. When the storms, and the
trees, and the dragons are called on to praise the Lord, I feel that
I must sing, for I know more about music than do the dragons. Nothing
can take the place of artistic music. The dollar that I pay to hear
Parepa or Nilsson sing is far from being wasted. But, when the hymn
is read, and the angels of God stoop from their thrones to bear up
on their wings the praise of the great congregation, let us not drive
them away with our indifference. I have preached in churches where
fabulous sums of money were paid to performers, and the harmony was
exquisite as any harmony that ever went up from an Academy of Music;
and yet, for all the purposes of devotion, I would prefer the hearty,
out-breaking song of a backwoods Methodist camp-meeting. When these
fancy starveling songs get up to the gate of heaven, how do you
suppose they look, standing beside the great doxologies of the
glorified? Let an operatic performance, floating upward, get many
hours the start, and it shall be caught and passed by the shout of the
Sailors' Bethel, or the hosanna of the Sabbath-school children.
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