A Much-Needed Reform by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 11, 1886

A Much-Needed Reform.

By Editor

A CORRESPONDENT of the California Christian Advocate says:—

"The gospel-hymn rage has run its race. We have just passed through the age of silly melodies and musical medleys that have seized the public like a vast epidemic—a kind of bric-a-brac, bazaar poetry, without meter or melody; sold by the hundred, peddled by evangelists, pushed by semi-religious people, which dethroned the poets, martyred the masters, took possession of the people, and perverted the public taste; a kind of caterwauling chorus, lullaby ditty, dithyrambic doggerel, rendered by irrelevant, irreverent, ungodly noises; a kind of cross between a jingle and a jig."

How glad we should be if we could only know that this is so, and that we might now be assured of hearing only devotional music when we meet for public or private worship. But we greatly fear that the public taste has been hopelessly perverted. We have just read that the pope has issued a brief to the clergy of Italy, forbidding the use of polkas, waltzes, and other forms of dance music in churches. We do not believe in popery; but we do wish there was a recognized authority in this country, which would issue a decided protest against the jingle and jargon which is inappropriately called "poetry" and "music."