But let us come as near to it as we can. The tune "Pisgah" has been standing long enough on "Jordan's stormy banks." Let it pass over and get out of the wet weather. Good-bye, "Antioch," "Harwell" and "Boylston." Good-bye till we meet in glory.
But if the prescription of new tunes does not end congregational singing, I have another suggestion. Get an irreligious choir, and put them in a high balcony back of the congregation. I know choirs who are made up chiefly of religious people, or those, at least, respectful for sacred things. That will never do, if you want to kill the music. The theatrical troupe are not busy elsewhere on Sabbath, and you can get them at half price to sing the praises of the Lord. Meet them in the green room at the close of the "Black Crook" and secure them. They will come to church with opera-glasses, which will bring the minister so near to them they can, from their high perch, look clear down his throat and see his sermon before it is delivered. They will make excellent poetry on Deacon Goodsoul as he carries around the missionary box. They will write dear little notes to Gonzaldo, asking him how his cold is and how he likes gum-drops. Without interfering with the worship below, they can discuss the comparative fashionableness of the "basque" and the "polonaise," the one lady vowing she thinks the first style is "horrid," and the other saying she would rather die than be seen in the latter; all this while the chorister is gone out during sermon to refresh himself with a mint-julep, hastening back in time to sing the last hymn. How much like heaven it will be when, at the close of a solemn service, we are favored with snatches from Verdi's "Trovatore," Meyerbeer's "Huguenots" and Bellini's "Sonnambula," from such artists as
Mademoiselle Squintelle, Prima Donna Soprano, from Grand Opera House, Paris. Signor Bombastani, Basso Buffo, from Royal Italian Opera. Carl Schneiderine, First Baritone, of His Majesty's Theatre, Berlin.
If after three months of taking these two prescriptions the congregational singing is not thoroughly dead, send me a letter directed to my name, with the title of O.F.M. (Old Fogy in Music), and I will, on the receipt thereof, write Another prescription, which I am sure will kill it dead as a door nail, and that is the deadest thing in all history.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE BATTLE OF PEW AND PULPIT.
Two more sermons unloaded, and Monday morning I went sauntering down town, ready for almost anything. I met several of my clerical friends going to a ministers' meeting. I do not often go there, for I have found that some of the clerical meetings are gridirons where they roast clergymen who do not do things just as we do them. I like a Presbyterian gridiron no better than a Methodist one, and prefer to either of them an old-fashioned spit, such as I saw one summer in Oxford, England, where the rabbit is kept turning round before a slow fire, in blessed state of itinerancy, the rabbit thinking he is merely taking a ride, while he is actually roasting.
As on the Monday morning I spoke of I was passing down the street, I heard high words in a church. What could it be? Was it the minister, and the sexton, and the trustees fighting? I went in to see, when, lo! I found that the Pew and the Pulpit were bantering each other at a great rate, and seemed determined to tell each one the other's faults. I stood still as a mouse that I might hear all that was said, and my presence not be noticed.
The Pew was speaking as I went in, and said to the Pulpit, in anything but a reverential tone: "Why don't you speak out on other days as well as you do to-day? The fact is, I never knew a Pulpit that could not be heard when it was thoroughly mad. But when you give out the hymn on Sabbaths, I cannot tell whether it is the seventieth or the hundredth. When you read the chapter, you are half through with it before I know whether it is Exodus or Deuteronomy. Why do you begin your sermon in so low a key? If the introduction is not worth hearing, it is not worth delivering. Are you explaining the text? If so, the Lord's meaning is as important as anything you will have in your sermon. Throw back your shoulders, open your mouth! Make your voice strike against the opposite wall! Pray not only for a clean heart, but for stout lungs. I have nearly worn out my ears trying to catch your utterances. When a captain on a battlefield gives an order, the company all hear; and if you want to be an officer in the Lord's army, do not mumble your words. The elocution of Christ's sermon is described when we are told he opened his mouth and taught them—that is, spoke distinctly, as those cannot who keep their lips half closed. Do you think it a sign of modesty to speak so low? I think the most presuming thing on earth for a Pulpit to do is to demand that an audience sit quiet when they cannot hear, simply looking. The handsomest minister I ever saw is not worth looking at for an hour and a half at a stretch. The truth is that I have often been so provoked with your inarticulate speech, that I would have got up and left the church, had it not been for the fact that I am nailed fast, and my appearance on the outside on a Sabbath-day, walking up and down, would have brought around me a crowd of unsanctified boys to gaze at me, a poor church pew on its travels."