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Show LOVE TUEIB HKEK. The Trouble That Sunday Drinking Caused In a Choir. New York. Julv 1. Between tho cboirof the First German Presbyterian vnurch, at Stagg and Leonard streets, Brooklyn, ou one side and the pastor, the Rev. John Gottlieb Hehr. and the eiders of the church on the other, there has been for many months a want of harmony, and reccntlv the choir withdrew with-drew from the church in a body. The root of the difficulty, the pastor savs, is the choir's practice of drinking beer Sunday afternoon, iu refusing to sing ou any evening, even Sunday Sun-day evening, aud in maintaining the right to be independent of discipline tiy the consistory. The consistory is made up of the pastor aud the elders. 1 he choir, ou the other hand, insist that they are an independent body of singers sing-ers kuown as the Neauder singing society, soci-ety, from the name of a former pastor A the church. A meeting of the choir members was held in Kssex hall on -lhursdav eveniug last, and they declared de-clared themselves independent o'f the church. Christian Siegmau was elected president, Conrad Weilzel secretary, and Georgo Deitrich treasurer. The llev. Mr. Hehr said last evening: 'There were thirteen members iu the choir, seven women and six men. For a loug time the choir has taken a collection col-lection among themselves every Suuday to buy a keg of beer. They went to a beer saloou, usually at Essex- hall, 157 Ewen street, and sat around the keg and drank. There were two or three old men members of the church they were, too aud half a dozen young women of the choir, who had recently joined the church, and it became too much to bear, aud so we remonstrated with the choir kindly. The old men replied re-plied with abusive documents, declaring that they were independent of the church since they organized as tho 'Neauder choir.' This iiame, however, they adopted only after the Rev. Mr. Neauder's death aud since my promotion promo-tion from assistant pastor to the full pastorate. We asked the choir if it were true, as it claimed, that it was an independent body in the church, to show us its constitution and by-laws, but it has refused. Then we told it that its connection with the church had been forfeited. It has been asserted that we are ungrateful, because the members of the choir had been largely instrumental in the raising of $1800 at the church fair last fall under the management man-agement of George Deitrich and Henry Tbeirman. The fact is, tho choir did no more than other members of the church for the fair. Moreover, an incident in-cident occurred at the fair which throws light on tho action of the choir. "An elder of tho church gave a gold-headed gold-headed caue, to bo voted to the most popular member of the committee of three in charge of the fair. Mr. Doit-rich Doit-rich and Mr. Thierniau, both of the choir, were named by me chairman aud secretary respectively of the committee, com-mittee, and I thought it only fair to vote for one of the elders, who was the third member of the committee. There waB great strife for tho cane, and every vote was watched. When I voted a young man was looking over my shoulder, saw the name on my ballot, bal-lot, and told Mr. Deitrich, who proceeded proceed-ed to shako his fist iu my face on the spot and declare that he resigned from the church. Mr. Thierman said he would not resign, but would 'make it hot for roe,' and he has. The men in tho choir will never return to the church, but I think the young women will not sever their membership. Two of them so informed mo yesterday. There is a new choir of twelve members, mem-bers, and we do not need the 'Neander choir.' " |