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58 The National Music of America.
Church, Salem, the fifth, none of these being Congregational or Puritan churches.
In 1790 the Brattle Square Church, which had declined the offer of the first church organ of New England, changed its mind regarding the wickedness of the matter, and ordered an organ built in London, probably the second used in a Congregational church in New England.1 It will serve to show how slowly the prejudice against the instrument was dying out, when it is stated that one of its leading members offered to pay back to the church all its outlay, and even to give a sum to the poor of Boston, if they would allow him to cause the unhallowed instrument to be thrown into Boston Harbour !
Nor was this prejudice confined to America only ; in Scotland it is even to-day not entirely
1 A German musician, named Hans Gram, was the organist. He was looked upon as one of the leading musicians of the country at that time. A few years later a better foreign musician came to Boston, — Gottlieb Graup-ner, of whom we shall speak in a later chapter. |
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