THE EVANGELIST AND THE ORGAN.

Clutha Leader, Volume III, Issue 135, 9 February 1877, Page 5

THE EVANGELIST AND THE ORGAN.

TO THB EDITOR. Sir,— Permit me to call attention to a statement in the last issue of the Evangelist. The statement is this i " The friends of our Zion will be glad to learn that the Synod, by an overwhelming majority, declared the use of instrumental music as an aid in the service of praise of service permissive." To many friends of Zion —to the majority, I think, — this statement of the Evangelist cannot but be surprising, and to not a few, perhaps startling. Were it not from respect for the Evangelist and those connected with it, I should feel warranted in characterising the statement as idiotic. Is the use of an organ or a pipe, a fiddle or a flute, as an element in praising God in the congregation, of such sacred importance, that the " friends of Ziou" are gladdened by the new privilege ? I fain hope that there is no such wide-spread imbecility nor religious ignoi*ance as the Eyangelist supposes. I readily admit that the sound of the pipe and the sound of the lips, when corded together in one utterance, timed together in the same tune, and emphasised togetherjto the same sentiments, are alike elements in the same deed of adoration. Is not tho voice of tho pipes and the voice of the lips the congregation's deed of praise ? If the pipe should be there at all, it is there for a i sacred purpose, to be employed in a sacred service, and, from the very nature of its employment, a constituent part of the service. Such is the only common sense view to be taken, and so must our feelings regard it. But, Sir, lam one of the many — aud friends of Zion, too, I hope — who are sorry at tho step that has beeu taken. The greatest modern struggle signalised itself by culminating in that most advanced position of freedom : that the Divine Being is to bo worshipped in no other way than He hath Himself prescribed. Sir, we are not glad at this beginning to re-put on the cast-off beggarly elements of the middle ages, by which religion was so strangled as to be at the verge of dissolution. And where to-day resumed, even in the year of grace 1876, a large congregation sang, aided by the peals of a great organ, " Joseph was an old man, And an old man was he, And he married sweet Mary, And a virgin was she ;" with more of the like following. Will this poor Evangelist put down its foot uowhere, but float like an imponderous thing on the great stream of time-serving ? whilst oft its pages have in them aa much of the evangelistic as would evangelize a E,ed Indian. — I am, &c, An Advanced Protestant.