Purchasing Church-Organs

George Whitefield Andrews has the following article in the Chicago Advance relative to the purchase of pipe-organs:

We cannot commend the custom of buying an instrument without expert counsel where it is possible to obtain it. This need not involve expense. Many able organists are ready to give gratuitous and reliable advice on all matters connected with the purchase of an organ, when requested to do so. Nor can we praise the far too frequent readiness to buy a good-sized instrument, even though it be open to the suspicion of belonging to the class of cheaply built products.

An organ must have good tone, variety of tone, and durable mechanism, if it is to have utility and length of life. Much as it is to be regretted, there are many organs built, and in places of public worship, that have none of the qualities they ought to have, from which nothing satisfactory can be produced, and which are only a distress to an intelligent musician from the beginning, and equal disappointment to all who subscribed in payment, when they begin to fall to pieces, as they inevitably do in a short time.

We would say with emphasis: buy rather a small organ and a good one, but not for the sake of size purchase a large instrument unless means are sufficient to insure its being first class. We have been greatly pained to see how much is wasted in the purchase of cheap organs. They mean nothing mechanically or musically, and we are opposed to them for the same reason that leads us to avoid cheap furniture and shoddy clothing. Having a good organ, take care of it; see that it is kept in repair and in tune, so that it may accomplish its best work. We have seen many an organ in a state which has seemed to us very unworthy of a church, the members of which as individuals would never think of letting their personal property get into such a condition.