"
But many of the words of the old hymns were smooth, lively, and
encouraging; and the young singers and perhaps the singing-masters craved
new and less sober tunes. Old dance tunes were at first adapted; "Sweet
Anne Page," "Babbling Echo," "Little Pickle" were set to sacred words. The
music of "Few Happy Matches" was sung to the hymn "Lo, on a narrow neck
of land;" and that of "When I was brisk and young" was disguised with
the sacred words of "Let sinners take their course." The jolly old tune,
"Begone dull care," which began,--
"My wife shall dance, and I will sing,
And merrily pass the day."
was strangely appropriated to the solemn words,--
"If this be death, I soon shall be
From every pain and sorrow free,"
and did not seem ill-fitted either.
"Sacred arrangements," "spiritual songs," "sacred airs," soon followed, and
of course demanded singers of capacity and education to sing them. From
this was but a step to a paid quartette, and the struggle over this last
means of improvement and pleasure in church music is of too recent a date
to be more than referred to.
I attended a church service not many years ago in Worcester, where an old
clergyman, the venerable "Father" Allen, of Shrewsbury, then too aged
and feeble to preach, was seated in the front pew of the church. When a
quartette of singers began to render a rather operatic arrangement of a
sacred song he rose, erect and stately, to his full gaunt height, turned
slowly around and glanced reproachfully over the frivolous, backsliding
congregation, wrapped around his spare, lean figure his full cloak
of quilted black silk, took his shovel hat and his cane, and stalked
indignantly and sadly the whole length of the broad central aisle, out
of the church, thus making a last but futile protest against modern
innovations in church music.
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