Untitled article | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, March 3, 1868

FromReview and Herald, Vol. XXXI, No. 12

Worship in New York.

A correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial gives the following description of fashionable worship at the present day, in New York city. Making all due allowance for the sarcasm of his style, he states facts which show the fallen and lifeless condition of the churches, and which cannot be denied. He writes thus:

“I was inveigled into attending a fashionable church, last Sunday, on the promise held out that I would hear some of the most heavenly music ever vouchsafed to human ears. So far as pleasing the senses went, I was perfectly gratified. The organ of said fashionable church is a superb instrument, and the same may be said of the tenor, and bass, and indeed every voice hired for the occasion.

This is the style of thing in New York, and the churches vie with each other in getting up first class orchestral accompaniments to what they are pleased to call divine worship. In one aristocratic circle of the Lord’s elect, a negro minstrel leads the choir, and in all of them hired voices—if not from the opera, at least from professional sources—praise God in machine music.

I don’t profess to be so pious as to be shocked beyond recovery at this sort of thing. The poor girl from the opera, or the harmonious nigger from the minstrels, may have much heart, and true prayer in her or his soul, when pouring out the praise the sweet voice makes acceptable, but I am disgusted at the spirit which procures the music as an entertainment, and a boast, rather than an effort to offer thanks to the Lord in the sweetest gift granted the human family.

While one sweet, clear voice went soaring up, like a bird, in music stolen from the Catholic church and the opera, I felt that a round of applause, with a subdued cry of “bravo,” and “encore” would be appropriate. This is the spirit that pervades the congregation. All sense of religion was lost in admiration of the singer, and a mean pride of being equal, if not superior, in the way of music, to any other church in New York. Not long since, a congregation of a fashionable church “up town,” was startled by a new voice, that thrilled the souls of all, with clear tones and perfect execution. “Who was she,” passed from mouth to mouth, as the congregation poured out. A few knowing ones could answer that the sweet voiced tenor was from the Olympic, and could be seen, very much of her, any night, in the “Black Crook.” Well, the poor girl who makes a precarious living by an exhibition of her legs, may be as pure as any of said congregation, and therefore possessed of the same right to lift her voice in praise, especially as that voice is a sweet one, and one of God’s best gifts. But then, it is not in accordance with the received ideas to which you and I have been educated.

This sort of church music is but part of the ostentation that makes up two-thirds of the religion here. It is not very extensive—only one-tenth of the population claim to be religious, and if we count out the Catholics, Universalists, and the Hebrews, the number is still less. And these three named are counted out by the Young Men’s Christian Association, for I notice in the advertisements put up in prominent places, directing strangers to places of worship in New York,

these three are not honored with a place. Probably this is right enough, as one of the strangers in New York I make no complaint. If the Y. M. C. Association had omitted the advertisement altogether I would not complain. But, as I was saying, but a small part of New York make profession of religion, and those who do make only profession.

I notice from statistics, lately published, that New York has five hundred and eighty-one ministers, and five hundred and eighty barbers. Singular coincidence that, and very illustrative of the condition of religion in the great commercial heart of the Union.

Religion here is ostentatious, and it is a cheap sort of ostentation. It does not break out in huge cathedrals and ministers, as the blind faith of the dark ages did in Europe, when delicate spires rose, cloud-capped, to be worshiped by art through all coming time. It expends its religious fervor in paint and putty. The churches are small and insignificant, but the upholstery is immense. We have here the church of the Sainted Zebra, and the church of the Holy Grapevine. They are wonderful in their way—their way being the upholstery.

How close we cast our little vanities to the river of death, I thought, while gazing at a congregation dressed as carefully and gaily as if gotten up for an opera. The preacher, one of the five hundred, would have been as much at home in the barber-shop as in the pulpit. He might lack faith, he certainly lacked sense, but he was eminently respectable. St. Peter might shake hands with him and not lose caste—St. Peter might, with entire security, introduce the parson to the other eleven. I rather think the parson would require an introduction. And my ugly thoughts grew grotesque. Suppose, speaking of introductions, that the meek and lowly Saviour, who once trod our earth, barefooted and sore, the friend of the poor and down-trodden, who took no heed of what they should wear, should enter and seek a seat in this temple erected to his glory. How quickly that keen-eyed sexton would seize on him and lead him out.

If the music was paid for, the preaching was conventional. I never heard a more powerful discourse on the sweetness of holiness and the sinfulness of sin; and it must have pleased every one, for no one’s conscience could have been touched. So far as phraseology went, it was just such an elaboration as a Hebrew rabbi might have given to a congregation of Moses and sons, eighteen hundred years ago in Jerusalem. I thought of what M. E. Conway once said to me on a like occasion: “Well, if these merchants are not Jews in their dealings, they are certainly Hebrews in their prayers.”

It is not my province to be theological, but as we moved slowly out to the music of a fashionable galop played on the organ, I could not help thinking that in these degenerate days there were just two sects left that were in earnest and meant business—one is the Catholic and the other the Methodist. They have convictions; the rest have sentiments. Outside of these, from the tallest steeple and the heaviest upholstery of New York down to the gifted Gaddis’ “dear little congregation,” it strikes the undersigned as all fringe-work.

There, now, you have my Sunday’s experience, and Sunday’s reflections in New York, and I am ready to apologize to the five hundred and odd clergymen, or the five hundred and odd barbers, “if any I have offended.”