Refreshments In The Organ Loft
Church choir members hypocritically avoid the sermon by hiding and eating refreshments.
Many years ago, says a writer in a New-York paper, I boarded, when a very young man, with a family at the South, the head of which was an organist in the church. Not being attached to any church or to any form, I willingly attended divine service with him now and then, and for convenience sat with him in the organ loft. As I do not mention names or places, it is no breach of confidence to reveal the secrets with which I became acquainted, as connected with the choir. The loft was railed in, and furnished with substantial thick crimson curtains, which, when drawn, were sufficient to exclude vulgar eyes from the hallowed interior.
It was the custom, when the excellent ritual of devotion was gone through, and the rector had named the text, for the singers to draw the curtain around them and read or sleep, as it suited them best. In very warm weather they also took care to be supplied with refreshments, and thus the tedious half hour allotted to the sermon was pretty easily consumed without much weariness. I recollect that one very warm Sabbath afternoon, the singers had watermelons and lemonade wherewith to console themselves, and it happened that one of the gentlemen in handing a slice to a lady singer overset the lemonade
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