bible – The Lloyd C Douglas Page

The Demotion of Death, Part 4

From Lloyd C. Douglas, “The Demotion of Death,” in the January 27, 1921, issue of The Christian Century.

The following is the conclusion of Lloyd Douglas’s essay, “The Demotion of Death,” which appeared in the January 27, 1921, issue of The Christian Century. He is talking to an audience largely of ministers, sharing his experiences visiting the sick. He writes:

“Not infrequently, we are called into consultation by some person whose days are numbered. Here one needs expect to find no cowardice, no whimpering, no hysterical rebellion against an unfriendly fate; but a type of courage that makes one marvel at the superb possibilities of the human spirit when confronting destiny with the heroism of faith. And if we would do our congregations an estimable service, we might tell them something of our experiences and observations – just to hearten them for their own vicissitudes. Surely this is much better than to be everlastingly bombarding them with the indictment of cowardice and faithlessness.

“A few days ago, I talked with a man who had – just that day – been given notice. He was a man of forty. The surgeons had just informed him that his case was inoperable; that he had, probably, three months to live. He told me about it with no more agitation than if he had been informing me of a trip he expected to make, early in March, to some foreign country. There was no sigh of resignation; no repetition of the phrase, ‘Thy will be done,’ which is so often the plaint of the passively desparing; no queries why a good God could have permitted this thing to come upon him. He had just one problem: how to make the very most of the next ninety days! How to get the most out of them; how to put the most into them!

“And he made me proud, that day, that I was privileged to be of the same order of Nature as he. I told him so. I felt myself fairly shaken with emotion as I realized myself standing in the presence of a soul so fine-grained, so endowed with spiritual courage, that it could meet a crisis – the Crisis – with such poise and serenity! In the light of such experiences, I know that there is latent in the human soul possibilities still undreamed of. We are in a process of spiritual evolution. We have come up from crude beginnings, and we have attained to a grandeur of spirit that stirs us deeply whenever we contemplate these vast soul-gains! It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall be made clearly manifest to us, and we see Him as He is, we shall be like Him!”

The Demotion of Death, Part 1

by Ronald R Johnson

The title page from Lloyd C. Douglas, “The Demotion of Death,” Christian Century, 1/27/1921.

The following is from Lloyd Douglas’s essay, “The Demotion of Death,” which appeared in the January 27, 1921 issue of The Christian Century. He writes:

“The world was old, weary, and jaded before there was vouchsafed to the race, through the words and deeds of Jesus, that which would dispel the gloom of life at the point where the shadows had ever rested most darkly. The Hebrew prophets spoke of death – when, rarely, they spoke of it – as a mystery too vast to be encompassed by human thought or phrased in human speech. The spiritual leaders of other peoples rose to their very highest points of faith when expressing the vague hope that the soul might persist. But all men walked uncertainly as their slanting shadows lengthened toward the east. Solemnly did they respect their obligation to preserve the bodies of their fathers, hoping that their children would deal no less considerately with theirs – but, beyond the sepulchre, there waited nothing more than was comprehended by an undefined wish.

“Thus, life lacked the buoyancy, the zest, the zeal, the urge, that came upon it by way of his spiritual contribution who has become known to the civilized world as Master and Lord. Not until he came was victory proclaimed at that part of life which surely is the most important of all parts of it! Not until he came did the soul become the motive power of life; lasting through all changes; superior to all changes; containing an indestructible spark that was as supreme over the body as the body was supreme over its clothes!

“Consistent with his own belief, this man of the vision splendid went to his own death with a serenity that made them marvel who had been so disinterested in his tragedy that they gambled for his robe. Not a tremor was in his voice as he declared to his sorrowing disciples, ‘Let not your heart be troubled. In my Father’s house are many mansions.’ Not a trace of agitation in his tone as he remarks to the fearful crowd, that lined his way to the hill Golgotha, ‘You need not weep for me! If you weep, let it be for yourselves and your generation.’ Ah – to what heights did the evolving soul of humanity arise that afternoon when he hung, dying, to whom death was but a guide to a land uninvaded by sorrow!”

[Douglas’s essay will continue in my next post.]

Lloyd Douglas on Church Music, Part 5

by Ronald R Johnson

From “The Music of the Church,” by Lloyd C. Douglas, in the 1/13/1921 issue of The Christian Century.

The following is from “The Music of the Church,” an article Lloyd Douglas published in The Christian Century on January 13, 1921. He has just finished saying that the public has better taste in music than most ministers are willing to admit, and that makes it harder for them to listen to poor music at church. He continues:

“Unfortunately, too many churches have been specializing in poor music. The reasons for it are legion. Two or three of them will bear mentioning. The trouble may be, for example, with the choir leader. Not to speak too abstractly, permit me to present Sister Iontha Place. Miss Place began directing the choir at the tender age of twenty-two, just after her return from the year she spent at the Tophole Conservatory. That was in the early summer of 1901. [Twenty years earlier, in other words.] Because she has been at it so long, and also because her brother is the heavy contributor, Miss Place must be retained. By virtue of her position, she may sing solos if she wishes so to do. And she wishes so to do – almost every Sunday. Miss Place flats abominably. There is only one satisfying tone taken in the whole of her performance – the final syllable of ‘Amen.’ There are ten persons in her choir – the sort that could be expected to become and remain party to such an enterprise. Every Sunday there is a sugary little anthem about ‘Behind the Beyond is Somewhere,’ or ‘His Old Mother’s Rocking Chair.’ And other stuff like that.

“Now, Rev. R. H. Pepper, a real preacher with a real message, has become aware that he can never make anything of his church so long as this state of things persists. He wants to know what he is to do. For, as has been said, Miss Place is the esteemed sister of Deacon G. Rowling Place, and in most excellent health. Your duty is plain, Pepper. It is not a pleasant job; but – somehow – you must contrive to displace the misplaced Miss Place (begging a thousand pardons!). Nobody envies you the task; for this kind comes out only by prayer and fasting. But you can’t preach against that music. You must either change matters at that point, or be resigned, or resign!

“Have another? Well; meet our good friend, Mr. Onestop, the genial organist who has been playing for nothing (a just wage for services rendered) during the past thirteen years. Whenever the suggestion has come up to the board of trustees that Brother Onestop be given a big birthday dinner in celebration of his retirement as organist, somebody has remembered that Onestop really has been doing the best he could – which even the frenzied admit – and absolutely without recompense. This latter is to be kept carefully in mind. A new organist will add another annoying item to the budget; and the board’s pet motto is, ‘Budge not the budget!’

“These well-meaning people do not realize that they would be doing Percy Onestop a kindness by shielding him from any further rough criticism and contumely behind his back. And, as to the economics involved, Onestop’s gratuitous service at the organ is the most expensive item in their whole blessed and unbudgeable budget! If there are any tears to fall, let them be shed in behalf of our brother, the preacher, who has become the ungrateful legatee of such a bequest as Onestop. What shall he do? In the midnight watches, he asks himself, ‘What shall I do?’ He must get rid of Onestop. It would be positively wrong for him to poison the fellow; but he can easily request the rendition of certain musical numbers which are quite out of Onestop’s reach. If the man has any sense at all, he will see the point. If not, it can be explained to him by the aid of a map and lucid footnotes. But Onestop must go!”

In my next post, Douglas will say more about the role of the pastor in insuring that his church offers good music.

Lloyd Douglas on Church Music, Part 3

by Ronald R Johnson

The following is from “The Music of the Church,” an article Lloyd Douglas published in The Christian Century on January 13, 1921. Before getting into the subject of his essay, he’s talking about some of the things that can help keep the church pews empty on Sunday mornings. He has just finished talking about various ministers’ personality problems. He continues:

“But one’s full sympathy goes out to the minister who knows that he is not making a go of it – not failing for any of the reasons indicated above… but because he has never taking into account the importance of that supreme feature of Christian worship: the music of the church.

“He may be an able preacher, but he can’t preach past bad music. He may be a tactful and beloved pastor, but he can’t win and hold people to his Sunday services with that execrable choir! He may be no end of a statesman in his deft manipulation of his multitudinous auxiliary societies, boards, cabinets, bureaus, and whatnots; but the feeble organist will see to it that the SRO sign is never put out. Sometimes he is entirely unaware that this is so.

“Not infrequently one hears a preacher saying that he knows nothing about music at all – church music or any other kind – saying it nonchalantly, as he might admit ignorance of the tapestries peculiar to the Ming dynasty, apparently oblivious to the fact that his confession is equivalent to a carpenter’s casual remark that he never could saw a board straight or drive a nail without pounding his thumb. No more rarely one hears a preacher saying that he has ‘no ear for music’ – saying it with a smile that clearly means he is too much preoccupied with serious matters to give attention to anything so trivial. We are to understand that it is just a pleasant little joke that he has on himself. By no means is it a joke! It is exactly as if a painter should confess to color-blindness! For so large a place does music rightfully hold in Christian worship that whoever accepts responsibility for the religious education and devotional inspiration of a church can never hope to teach his congregation how to sense the Divine Presence unless he is not only in love with music but fairly conversant with its history, its functions, and the proper manner of its execution. ”

Lloyd Douglas on Church Music, Part 1

by Ronald R Johnson

The title page of “The Music of the Church,” by Lloyd C. Douglas, as published in The Christian Century on January 13, 1921. The photograph is taken from Douglas’s 1920-1923 Scrapbook. The green item in the upper left side of the picture is a cloth “snake” that the Bentley Library provides to help lay pages flat while being photographed.

Lloyd Douglas continued making controversial comments in The Christian Century in an article entitled, “The Music of the Church,” published in the January 13, 1921, issue. This time he took aim at church music.

He began by describing the pastor who doesn’t feel it’s his responsibility to supervise the church’s music. And that, he says, explains why “his church treasurer is always blue over a bank balance that is always red.” Douglas continues:

“Nor need this good man [the pastor] quest an ampler reason for the habitual listlessness of his congregation on the first day of the week, if it is listless, or for the diminutive size thereof, if it is small. Of course, there may be other excellent reasons, but this one will do quite nicely.”

Douglas employed a number of writing techniques that were unusual for the time and especially for Christian magazines. Here’s an example: he pretends that he’s being interrupted by one of his readers.

“Our young brother in the second balcony heckles us to state a few of these other reasons [why the pastor’s congregation might be listless or small]. We dislike to be interrupted [Douglas jokes, since he’s actually interrupting himself], but the question is fair. Well – for instance – something may be wrong with the preacher’s sermons. Their dimensions may be at fault – too long, too deep, too narrow. They may be blighted with a chronic pessimism. Weekly information to the effect that the world is going, if not already gone, to the dogs, and that the whole of nature groaneth and travaileth to the exclusion of any other lawful pursuit gets to be an old and not very attractive theme after a while. And people get tired of hearing, constantly, that they are miserable sinners – a fact too obvious to demand such frequent repetition. When they have enough, they quit. That is one reason, and a mighty good one.”

[And there are others, which Douglas will mention in my next post. But he’s actually going to talk about church music. That’s all coming! To be continued…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 5j: The Rummage Sale Ad

by Ronald R Johnson

From Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted – A Congregation; Fifth Phase – Making Worship Worshipful,” in the 9/9/1920 issue of The Christian Century.

[The following is from the last installment of the series, “Wanted – A Congregation!” which Lloyd Douglas published in the Christian Century during the summer of 1920. This final essay is entitled, “Fifth Phase: Making Worship Worshipful,” and it was in the September 9th issue. Douglas is describing the new order of worship that Blue is going to institute at his church:]

“This paean of praise sweeps into a great crescendo, closing on a ‘seventh’ which is immediately followed by the dominant chord – the first syllable of ‘Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow,’ in which everybody unites. Then the minister and the congregation sit down.

“Mr. Blue understands that his projected service of worship has now arrived at a very critical moment. Shall the doors be thrown open now, while the tardy tramp to their seats? It does not appear so. At this moment, the choir, without prelude or pause, bursts into its ‘praise anthem’ – ‘bursts’ because that is the way it must go into it! There must be no fussing for the place in the book, no tinkling introduction of a dozen measures; the choir must plunge into its praise anthem. And surely we have been richly endowed with such musical blessings! This should be one of the great events of the service – this anthem of praise. When it is done, the choir is seated. The service of worship – strictly speaking – is ended. Now let the tardy in, while the organist plays some incidental music, probably an improvisation of the score of the next hymn to be sung immediately before the sermon.

“Here follows the Scripture Reading, and after it the solo. Unless the solo is good, it should be left out. Until we can have inspiring solos, let us have none. Let us not permit our children to compare our church music with that of the moving-picture show, to our discredit. Then, the prayer.

“Blue has now arrived at the ‘announcements.’ Mentally he reviews the customary performance. Belated messages, turned in after the bulletin had gone to press, are now to be read: ‘The Ladies of Group Five have a very fine eggbeater for sale at the small price of Fifty Cents.’

“Here the preacher smiles foolishly and comments thereon. It is assumed, he says, that whenever Group Five – goodole Group Five – goes on the market with an eggbeater, it is some eggbeater – a veritable world-beater of an eggbeater, etc. (For shame!) He continues reading:

“‘These eggbeaters may be had from any member of Group Five or by telephoning Mrs. O. D. Liverus [Douglas means for us to pronounce this, “O deliver us!”] at her residence – number 9191-x.’

“It is this sort of drool from the pulpit that makes the intelligent and devout want to crawl under the seat, just through abject humiliation! But what is a man to do – Blue asks himself – when Mrs. O. D. Liverus comes down to the study before the service and hands me this note, saying, ‘I know I shouldn’t do this, but oh, Mr. Blue, Mr. Blue!’ Mr. Blue resolves that he will stand pat, hereafter, on his decision. ‘Positively no announcements will be read from the pulpit!’

“And suppose Mrs. Liverus gets angry! Well, it’s time the saints were getting over their touchiness. Christianity shouldn’t make people so edgy as all that. And when it does, there is something the matter with it.

“This brings us up to the church ‘offering.’ And, because the time is all gone, it brings us also to the close of this story. The writer hereby invites the editor to urge him to a chapter on ‘Church Finances’ – which is a live matter, and needs discussion.

“Oh, we’ll make a preacher out of this Blue fellow yet! For one thing, he is getting over his timidity. He has found out that he has a very important work to do and must not be influenced too much by traditions and customs, especially when said traditions and customs are bad.

“It is a red-letter day in the preacher’s experience when, after somebody has said, ‘Oh, but – Mis-ter B-loooo – we just nev-ver do it that way!’ he is able to reply, smilingly but confidently, ‘Oh, yes we do – from now on!’ There is excellent psychology in that. Instantly the preacher becomes worth more to that particular parishioner. Oh – there may be a little sulking; but it all comes out right in the end.

“It is a high spot in the discouraged preacher’s life when, after the choir director has looked over the projected order of worship and has remarked, ‘We simply cannot do it!’ – the minister is able to reply, ‘Well, we’re going to, nevertheless!'”

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 5i: Blue’s Call to Worship

by Ronald R Johnson

[The following is from the last installment of the series, “Wanted – A Congregation!” which Lloyd Douglas published in the Christian Century during the summer of 1920. This final essay is entitled, “Fifth Phase: Making Worship Worshipful,” and it was in the September 9th issue. Douglas is talking about the new order of worship that Blue is going to use in his church:]

“First, there was the invocation of God’s presence; then, the prayer that the people’s worship might be acceptable to Him. Now comes the minister’s ‘call to worship’ in the words:

“‘Seek ye the Lord while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, for he will have mercy; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.’

“During the reading of these words, the organ begins, with much feeling, but barely audible to the congregation, the beautiful score of Mendelssohn’s ‘If With All Your Hearts Ye Truly Seek Me.’

“And the congregation replies, reading from the printed order of worship on the bulletin, while the organ continues its accompaniment of the prayer for pardon, with slightly more volume:

“‘The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.’

“Following this plea for forgiveness and acknowledgement of pardon, the minister is to introduce the praise element in the words:

“‘O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together.’

“It is natural that the congregation should wish to reply:

“‘O come, let us sing unto the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.’

“By this time, the organ, suiting itself to the mood of praise, has been gaining in volume until the congregation is encouraged to read these words boldly, as becomes the text. And immediately the words are ended, the full choir breaks forth with a rendition of the passage:

“‘O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his kindness endureth forever. O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker: for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.’

[Douglas’s essay will continue in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 5h: The Call to Worship

by Ronald R Johnson

[The following is from the last installment of the series, “Wanted – A Congregation!” which Lloyd Douglas published in the Christian Century during the summer of 1920. This final essay is entitled, “Fifth Phase: Making Worship Worshipful,” and it was in the September 9th issue. Douglas is talking about the Order or Worship, and he says, in reference to a male quartet:]

“To render this effectively will require a great deal of patient rehearsal by the quartet; but Blue knows that when these four men begin to realize the inspirational possibilities of this part of the service, they will gladly spend the time.

“You and I have a great deal to say about the wickedness of the stage, and doubtless there is even more that might be said on the same subject; but we should be ashamed when we remember that the stage is able to grip the public’s imagination because of the indefatigable zeal and patience with which the actors school themselves in their parts. Why, before a performance is actually presented, and during the last few days of rehearsal, these people toil for uninterrupted hours, pausing neither for meals nor sleep, that they may work together to produce the desired effect at certain psychological moments! And, sometimes, preachers go into the pulpit and try to read a hymn on the spur of the moment and bungle and fumble and haggle at it until the sensitive want to cry out in mingled pain and disgust. No less often, they do not know what the Scripture Lesson is to be until the opening hymn is being sung; and they get up and read it without any advance preparation whatsoever. More frequently, they haven’t the vaguest notion what the pastoral prayer is going to consider, or how it is going to consider it – a terra incognito, both as to form and content!

“Any preacher who in his practice of ophthalmology tries to remove the mote from the eye of the actor, while himself guilty of such blunders of indolence and indifference, had better desist until he is able to extract the two-by-four which interferes with his own vision. But that isn’t get on very fast with Blue’s new order of service, is it?”

[Douglas will continue his essay in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 5g: No Laughing Matter

by Ronald R Johnson

[The following is from the last installment of the series, “Wanted – A Congregation!” which Lloyd Douglas published in the Christian Century during the summer of 1920. This final essay is entitled, “Fifth Phase: Making Worship Worshipful,” and it was in the September 9th issue. Douglas has just described the kind of folksy praise hymn that a lot of churches were starting to adopt by 1920. He continues:]

“Well – this was the sort of ‘praise hymn’ with which Broad Street church had tuned itself up to worship for some weeks. It was a shame; and we do wrong to laugh. It is no laughing matter. When one considers the welfare of the honest stranger who may have gone into that place on such an occasion, almost frantically starving for something that would nourish his soul, and had sensed that surge of revulsion which sweeps over a sensitive spirit forced to witness glaring indecencies and blasphemies, one understands that this is too serious to be taken lightly.

“Blue is to have no more of this. His first hymn will be a hymn of praise, in fact as well as in name, and conditions are going to be created to make the congregation sing. Then comes silence – after the ‘amen’ with which the hymn closes – and Blue means to see to it that the ‘amen’ is sung with vigor and volume, remembering that most of the ‘amens’ sung in his church are rendered as if two-thirds the congregation and half the choir understood that there were to be no ‘amens’ that day. Either do it or quit it! What must be the thought of the keen-witted man who sees the church committing exactly the same blunders and running amuck in precisely the same places in the service, Sunday after Sunday? Perhaps he thinks the manager of the institution is too stupid to have noticed or too lazy to have mended.

“The new order of service for Broad Street church begins, properly, with that impressive silence following the first hymn – not a long pause, but one full of meaning. And then the minister is to say:

“‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.’

“Immediately following the reading of these words, a male quartet is to sing, unaccompanied and very softly, a beautiful setting of the sentence:

“‘Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.'”

[Douglas’s essay will be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 5f: Old Friend Blue Again

by Ronald R Johnson

“Readers of these articles will have noticed that whenever the writer would ease his mind of something a bit too rough and radical to be fathered with the first personal pronoun singular, he solemnly imputes the burden to one hypothetical D. Preston Blue, who serves in the capacity of official goat, and sends him forth into the wilderness. How do you like that ‘wilderness’ idea? Well – that’s where the goat went, did he not? But, we’re getting derailed here. Lend a hand, won’t you, and let us jack this thing up on the track again.

“D. Preston Blue, on vacation, has been suffering of severe misgivings over his ‘order of service.’ He has resolved to plan a brief ritual with some inspirational possibilities. After much careful and prayerful study, he has made a service which proceeds somewhat as follows. It will be recalled that Blue proposes to have the opening hymn sung without other announcement than is to be found on the printed bulletin. There is a great deal to be said about the bulletin for which no time or space is provided here – how it ought to be made, what purposes it should serve, and the excellent service it may render as an advertising medium.

“This opening hymn is frankly announced on the bulletin as ‘The Hymn of Praise’ – and it must be exactly as advertised. Blue reflects upon the time when a peripatetic tent-preacher had taken all Centerville by the ears, and a great (as to numbers) chorus nightly sang at the top of its lungs such doggerel as distinguished the singing evangelist’s own hymnbook (which was to be had at the opening of the meeting and during several impressive intervals thereafter, for the absurdly low price of forty cents) – that he, Blue, had temporarily adopted the book in his own services, at the request of a warmed-over brother who, in the tent, had found again something he declared he had lost (and never missed). So – for several weeks Broad Street began its worship on Sundays by singing ‘Brighten the Corner Where You Are’ or ‘You in Your Corner and I in Mine’ and several other ‘corner’ hymns which appear to have been produced, as to libretto, by Mr. Uriah Heep in collaboration with Pollyanna; the music brought forth by somebody who had attempted, unsuccessfully, to compose the score for a jazz opera, and had marketed his rejected offspring for the purpose indicated above. (If any blame attaches to these remarks, see Blue.)”

[Douglas’s essay will continue in my next post…]