Now! Then! Amid Nonconformist protests at a new church rate, payable by all Leeds to build temples for the Church of England, a Farnley man says organs are a waste of money

Excerpt

A person from the body of the meeting [held in the parish church, chaired by the Rev. Fawcett, and attended by 4,000], whom we understood to be from Farnley, objected to the grant, on the ground that the objects for which it was required were unnecessary and expensive. He observed, that church furniture was very dear, and could it be supposed that an organ was a necessary thing? Did they ever know, or ever hear tell of an organ converting a sinner from the errors of his ways, and from the power of sin and Satan unto God? If an organ was taken to a dying man, and he was asked what he thought of it, he would reply, it is but as sounding brass, or as a tinkling cymbal [1 Corinthians 13].

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

This is a downdraught of the storm that split the Leeds Methodists in autumn 1827 regarding the installation of an organ in the Brunswick Chapel.

If we are to believe the Mercury (prop. and ed. Edward Baines), the meat of the meeting was the speech against the rate – against any rate – by Edward Baines:

I oppose assessments on principle, because I think their influence is to injure the cause of religion, to damp the zeal of its ministers, and to make that a sinecure which ought to be the post of exertion and energy.

Etc. etc.

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Original

A person from the body of the meeting [held in the parish church, chaired by the Rev. Fawcett, and attended by 4,000], whom we understood to be from Farnley, objected to the grant, on the ground that the objects for which it was required were unnecessary and expensive. He observed, that church furniture was very dear, and could it be supposed that an organ was a necessary thing? Did they ever know, or ever hear tell of an organ converting a sinner from the errors of his ways, and from the power of sin and Satan unto God? If an organ was taken to a dying man, and he was asked what he thought of it, he would reply, it is but as sounding brass, or as a tinkling cymbal.

131 words.