ORANGE CONG. CHURCH
of the gallery," says one, "is drawn a single row of choir, headed by a key-pipe in the centre." "A small squeak from this," says another narrator, "warned the audience to be ready ; then the chorister stood up in his place and led his band through the psalm, all the while beating time with his arm, and singing-now bass, now treble, now falsetto, in the face of the Lord and his people. Next to the minister, the chorister was on Sundays the greatest man-far before the tithing-man and the deacon." In view of the regard paid by the forefathers to Old Testament models, and the prominence given to musical instruments in the Jewish worship, the long-continued prejudice against instrumental music is somewhat surprising. But choirs having once become established in the sanctuary, the introduction of musical instruments, "and that of all sorts," speedily followed. The flute, the clarionette, the violin, the bass viol and the violoncello "gradually crept in after the pitch-pipe," and continued in full blast, alike in city and country meeting-houses, until a quite recent period. Says the author of "Hartford in the Olden Time," speaking of the tithing-man, "We have an unpleasant memory of one-a tall, strong, most demure-looking personage-who in our boyhood once screwed our right ear between his bony fingers till it almost gushed blood ; and all because we laughed a little louder, and with less impediment than the rest of the congregation, when one of the cat-guts of a bass viol snapped asunder, with a loud and ludicrous twang, in the midst of a grave hallelujah." Such remembrances as these might easily be cherished by some who are present to-day-so recently has the church orchestra ceased to be. The first real organ built in America dates, I believe, from 1745 ; but it was a long time before Puritanism would admit this noblest and most devout of all instruments into the house of God-the dread of popery again serving as a barrier. There is one other item in the order of services, of which I wish to speak. This was announced by one of the deacons, who said, "Brethren of the congregation, now there is time left for