Diary of a Prairie Missionary       Part 2

accommodating any particular people at a time, they must pursue, the customs set in the East.  He went so far as to assert that their master of the song could not sing at all If I read the line! Finding myself in a dilemma, if not in perils among false brethren, I then pled for liberty to commence the morning service by singing the 100 Ps. long metre, which was with great reluctance granted.  Thus deprived of the permission of singing "the Lord's song" in the temple of fashion (for fashion was the governing principle, which must grind to powder, my scruples of conscience) I called upon Mr. Brown (already mentioned) who, with Mr.  went Mr. Mitchell nd requested from a Mr. Garret the use of his Auction Room at 5 P.M. which was cheerfully granted.  As it had been published by handbills that I should preach In their Pres.  Meetinghouse so-called at l0 ½  A.M. I attended and commenced with the hundredth psalm, which they choir sung in their own way.  After sermon and prayer I believe I ought to have pronounced the blessing but Chenaniah, the Master of song came running up the pulpit stairs wanting to know. "is this a suitable hymn?" I told him to go and sing the 50th psalm of Watts common metre, which they did. Thus I was forced to "kiss the calves", in their temple. Who that believes that "whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning", can suppose that Ephraim cannot now offend in Baal, as well as speak trembling In Israel?  If so, would not Hosea now say concerning such persons, as he once said of Ephraim?  "and now they sin more and more and have made them idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves". Hos.l3:2. The reason why they so much dreaded to displease their singer, I afterwards found, was that the Episcopalians were desirous to obtain his services, and as modern music fashionably played and sung is reckoned necessary to fill the churches, the breath of desolation, colder than the blast from Lake Winnepeg, would chill their mighty efforts to gather a polite congregation, if the opposition should employ the best ohorister, This, reader, Is but too true of many hymn-singing American churches. Providence kindly threw in the way, in the afternoon. a Gene As. Presbyterian Clergyman so that I had not positively to refuse to preach to them as I would probably have done, for Russel maintained in the morning, that I had nothing to do with the singing, and that they would attend to it, as they thought proper.  A Mr. Sill preached at 3 P.M. or rather read a sermon from a roll of manuscript.  On the right of the pulpit three of four seats were reserved for the singers. Before them two shelves were erected to which they stood, and on which they laid their tune & hymnbooks.  When the hymn was mentioned, the leader turned not only to the hymnbook but to the tune book, named aloud the tune and then sol’d and fa’d for some time before they took the track, still looking on their tune Book as well as their hymnbook. They appeared to be ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the tune. After singing two, three or more of the gentlemen of the band went asleep, at which some of the young ladies of the choir appeared tickled and amused. At prayer they neither knelt nor stood, but crouched into their seats, in a lazy looking position. At 5 P.M. I, aocording to appointment preached In Mr. Garrett’s Auction room which was used as a place of worship by the Episcopalians.  About 40 or 50 collected and we sung the "sweet psalms" without molestation.  I attended their "Union” Sabbath School, (vulgarly called "Sunday School ") but it, like every one which I have seen on that plan, only convinced me more of the value of the Shorter Catechism, as a Compend of Divine truth. Comparatively little good is effected, in my opinion, in them. In the evening a Mr. Hinton, a Baptist preacher officiated in their Arminian, Independent Presbyterian, Meetinghouse. He gave us a semi-Aminian, semi-Calvanistic sermon. For the sake of enjoying a tune on the flute, a Catholic dropped in, and played upon one of the two flutes used by the Choir, at the time of singing. Such was the "conscience of Deacon Russell. He could not permit a Presbyterian Clergyman to read the inspired psalms in his temple yet it was doing God service to gratify the musical taste of a Catholic gentleman with an exhibition of his skill, in a Chief seat in the synagogue on the evening of the Lord's day ! !  I might here make a variety of observation upon the latest religious fashions from the East, and prove the identity of these customs, as I have seen them there; but I waive this in the meantime.