Sons of the Academy luncheons. Even private dinner parties with just a few
people in a home usually included a toast to the Church, often sung.
Our Glorious Church is a beautiful song, with very poetic and significant
lyrics. There are two tunes to which it is sung, both very fine. A number of
the other church songs (mostly composed by Walter C. Childs in the 19th
century), although quite witty and catchy in their day, are from another era and
seem quaint now, and are being sung less and less. Times have changed, and
the importance and habit of offering toasts is not so much a part of modern
life as it once was.
But the quality of these songs and toasts, and the fact that there were so
many of them, and that they were such a prominent part of life in our church,
testifies to how central the Church was in the life of the people, and how it was
brought into everything, from the most profound spiritual, intellectual and
social issues to the most ordinary, everyday events.
The Church was always there, in sad times a