Professor W. F. Sherwin has been appointed by Dr. E. Tourjee chorus director in that prosperous institution, the New England Conservatory of Music, in Boston, Massachusetts. The Professor will make Boston his home, and continue to lecture and conduct musical conventions, as heretofore.
The Cooper Union was crowded one evening last month to welcome Francis Murphy home from England and his own native Ireland. Judge Noah Davis presided and delivered the address of welcome. “In speaking of Mr. Murphy’s work in England and Scotland he quoted the statistics of the United Kingdom to prove that Mr. Murphy’s efforts had been effectual in reducing the excise revenues many thousands of pounds sterling. He said that during his two years’ stay in England and Scotland he had obtained half a million signers to the pledge. Mr. Murphy responded in a few brief words, declaring that the occasion was the happiest of his whole life. A number of short addresses were made by clergymen, and with the singing of songs and choruses, in which the whole assembly engaged, the ceremonies were prolonged until about half-past ten o’clock.”
The C. L. S. C. is rapidly becoming an established institution among New England people. This is to be accounted for in part by the fact that the religious press of Boston and other New England cities has favored the work with earnest, strong words. The Rev. Dr. B. K. Pierce, editor of Zion’s Herald, closes a leading editorial on the C. L. S. C., in his paper of a recent date, with these words: “There is another reason why we look with great satisfaction upon this widely-extended home-university. We have fallen upon an era of doubt. The literature of the hour is full of sneers at revealed religion and of arrogant and destructive criticism upon the Holy Scriptures. The daily, weekly and monthly press is strongly flavored with this. Our young people breathe it in the atmosphere of the school and of the streets. Here is one of the best, silent, powerful, positive correctives. This carefully-arranged plan of study and reading for successive years is entirely in the interest of the ‘truth as it is in Jesus.’ It is not narrow, nor dogmatic, nor polemical, nor confined to purely religious subjects, but the whole system is arranged and followed out upon the presumption of the inspiration of the Bible, the divine origin of Christianity, and its ultimate triumph upon the earth. It will powerfully strengthen the faith of young Christians, preserve them from the insidious attacks of infidelity, and enable them to have, and to give to any serious inquirer, an answer for the hope that is in them.”
The jury system has some glaring defects which should be laid bare and made the subject of agitation till they are corrected. Recently in a famous bribery case (so called) at Albany, N. Y., when jurors were being called and questioned, one of them said, “I don’t know who were the United States Senators two years ago from New York.” Yet this ignorant man was accepted as a juror. This is a common custom in the selection of jurors. It is exalting ignorance at the expense of intelligence and justice. Some remedy should be found for this growing and terrible evil.
A new field of artistic ability is being developed in the East. It is the decoration of the interior of private residences. Already in New York a number of young artists, who find it difficult to sell all the pictures they paint, are giving their attention to this work, which promises to be very remunerative and very extensive.