Whether is Better, the Old or the New? First Paper [pp. 430-432]

WHETHER IS BETTER, THE OLD OR THE ANE W?
speculations, are b)rought to us now
clothed in such modest vestments that
hle who runnethl, albeit a simple child,
may read and comprehend.
Luxury unfolds us like a garment in
our social life, just as it has the world
thlroLugh all ages. But religion, piety,
godliness, while they purpoit to be the
same as when the shepherds chanted
their jubilant songs over the plains of
Bethlehem, and the wise men, guided by
the Orient star, presented their offerings
of gold, firankincense, and myrrh to the
infant Christ: in their outward symbols
and manifestations, how intrinsically different, as contrasted with the vorship of
eighty or a hundred years gone lby!
There are veterans still engaged in a
work once deemed an inspiration firom the
heavenly and divine, who hold in utter
aversion ritualistic lore, and the ceremonies of "book and candle;" men who
have always been united in condemning
high bonnets, the violin, rumi, tobacco,
churchl-bells and steeples." I have sometimes tried to fancy the effect on such
old-fashioned ears, as their owner glided
with the crowd to the shelter of some
vestibule leading to the nave of one of
the vast popular temples belonging to
the Methodistic army of churches, when
the stops of a massive organ wvere, mayhlap, in full diapason, pouring forth strain
after strain fi-om some favorite libretto,
as an introductory voluntary to the future
initiatory piayer. However glorious the
hlarmony), lhovever full of sweetest melody the tremulous chords may be, however replete with artistic skill, would not
the patriarch cry out with inner voice at
least, What doest thlou here, Elijah?
While we lhave not seldom asserted in
the pages of this magazine that it is a
mere croaking cynicism that is alvays
piating about the old days being better
than the new, and still insist that no
grumbler has a right to reprobate present
times, and seasons-no right, in fact, to
the kingdomn of heaven itself, we yet can
not lay blame on those innocent, faithful
souls, who mourn over the presence of a
cantatrice in holy sanctuary as she wvar
bles forth trills and tremulos and runtlets
at exolrbitant, often flabulous cost, to the
worshipers sitting outside this musical
ring-the pit, as it were-who often experience a dumb amaze at anthemns of
praise so wondrous, and so mystical. And
yet after all our b)lame, we doubt whether
indeed this operatic travesty, even lwhen
accompanied by a full orchestra of "harp
and cymbal and sacblut," be not an advance on those fitful, fugue snatches of
hymns to which some wnho see the present
day have listened.
Those were the days when a chorister
deaconed out the first lines-which means,
I suppose, lining the verses to be sting, in
lieu of books, and adapting the words to
the occasion, as was done, we are told,
by an excellent and ancient historian, in
primitive times, at a certain barn-raising
in New England:
"'If God to build the house deny,
The builder's work is vain;
Unless the Lord doth shingle it,
It will blow down again."
Few of a past generation are there now
living who can recall so unique a performance, or who remember the odd
scene depicted with such graphic zest by
Peter Parley, in his inimitable autobiographly, and whvlich wve venture to excerpt
because its repetition can never pall. In
his own humorous yet practical way,
the venerable man relates the story in
this wise:
"Before the age of comfortable meeting-houses in country towns, the introduction of stoves into them threatened
to overturn society. An adjoining metropolis, Boston, had adopted stoves in
the church, and the little townI of E.
set about the work of introducing the
creation in their ovwn village. So there
was a stove party, and the anti-stove party.
At the head of the first was Mrs. Deacon
R., and at the head of the latter M.rs.
Deacon P.
"The battle raged portentously, like
the renowned tempe'st in a tea-pot. Society wvas lashed into a foam. The minister between the contending factions,
scarcely dared say his soul wvas his own.
I876.]
43I