Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 February 1884 — A Minister’s Experience with Choirs. [ARTICLE]

A Minister’s Experience with Choirs.

Is art a “service” ? Does the exercise of it in divine worship partake of the spirit of the inspired counsel, “Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” ? This thrusting forward of a personality of display does not look like it. Once our alto asked me, as I was entering the pulpit, whether I had any objections to changing the closing hymn, for she was expecting some friends that evening, and they could not come till late, and she wanted to sing a solo. And once, at a weekday funeral, our tenor crowded me even to my embarrassment with a request that he might be permitted tcf precede the arrival of the train of mourners with a vocal piece in the gallery, for he had just heard that two members of the music committee of another congregation would be present, and he wished them to hear him, as he desired to secure the place of conductor there. “Art’s a service, mark!” But does it take the place of the rest of the service also? This entire discussion turns at once upon the answer to the question whether the choir, the organ, the tunebook, and the blower are for the sake of helping God’s people worship Him, or whether the public assemblies of Christians are for the sake of an artistic regalement of listeners, the personal exhibition of musicians, or the adverment of professional soloists who are competing for a salary. In our travels, some of us have seen the old organ in a remote village of Germany on the case of which are carved in the ruggedness of Teutonic characters three mottoes: if they could be rendered from their terse poetry into English they would do valiant service in our times for all the singers and plavers together. Across the top of the key-board is this: “Thou playest here not for thyself, thou playest for the congregation; so the playing should elevate the heart, should be simple, earnest, and pure.” Across above the right-hand row of stops is this: “The organ-tone must ever be adapted to the subject of the song; it is for thee, therefore, to read the hymn entirely through so as to catch its true spirit. ” Across above the left-hand stops is this: “In order that thy playing shall not bring the singing into confusion, it is becoming that thou listen sometimes, and as thou hearest thou wilt be likelier to play as God’s people sing.”— The Rev. Dr'. Charles S. Robinson in the Century.