It's a beautiful book; I've seen and touched it in person. I think it's a shame that the congregation can't meet their goals another way.
Posted on 12/05/2012 7:46:01 AM PST by ConservativeStatement
Looks like alms aren’t going to be enough for this congregation. The Old South Church in Boston, one of the oldest in the nation, just voted to auction off a 372-hymn book worth $10 to $20 million.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Even then he'd only offer a couple thousand dollars because it's not in great condition, the maket has just fallen through the floor for these old hymn books and do you know how long that's gonna sit in the shop before he finds a buyer? And its not even signed by Geroge Whitefield.
It's a beautiful book; I've seen and touched it in person. I think it's a shame that the congregation can't meet their goals another way.
Some kid named Martin Luther scribbled in it too.
And knock off a few bucks for all of the miſſpellings.
And yet, the vast majority of people succumb to Rick’s low-ball offer. Whether it’s just the path of least resistance or the dire need for cash, it always amazes those in our household how easily people are willing to surrender.
“And yet, the vast majority of people succumb to Rick’s low-ball offer”
Are you sure they do? They may be getting mo money behind the scenes.
BTW, Did ya see the old Strat on Hard Core Pawn last night?
Yes, and no.
Back in the day, printers had a finite set of type. So, they had to make do with what they had. "f" for "s", etc. I'm sure if they had enough "s", the printer would have used them.
Otherwife, can you imagine the nightmare of collation, if the printer waf to print juft enough of the page for with the available correct type, then to go back and finifh printing the pagef after drying time?
I think this is a good idea. God did not put his church on earth to keep expensive artifacts. If they can use the money to further His work, that is better than to simply give people the pleasure of seeing an old book.
The type was not a limiting factor. Early typography took over from Classical and medieval Latin the difference between the terminal and medial letter "s".
A medial "s" was written on a long stroke, the terminal "s" had a little curlicue.
German Fraktur never got the message and is still using the medial "s" - that's where I first encountered it.
In fact, to avoid confusion, when a medial "s" adjoined the letter "f" some typesetters would use a terminal "s" instead.
Secular New Englander’s have auctioned off God a long time ago. I was born and raised in MA and went to college in VT ( how I kept my faith is miraculous)
with decreased church attendance..churches are forced to sell things of value just to keep the heat on.
my apologies to the devout who still live there and fight the good fight
Old South Church selling their "Bay Psalm Book" is like the town of Plymouth selling Plymouth Rock to the highest bidder. They're one of the oldest Congregational (though now UCC) congregations in New England.
Of course, they long ago abandoned the Pilgrim's stern and rockbound beliefs for trendy "inclusion", and therein lies their problem.
Their embracing of the usual mainline "inclusive" nonsense drove off traditional members, and the various minority groups they hoped to "outreach" to aren't contributing, although they're happy to take handouts. When you have an "interim minister" for 4 years, you are a dying congregation - and it looks like only a couple of hundred people attended the vote.
So they are a semi-abandoned urban church with no congregation to speak of and thus no money for upkeep. Add to that an aging building (1870s) and deferred maintenance, and they have a big problem.
ſ f ſ f ſ f.
It is clearer in italics: ſ f ſ f ſ f
The ſ doesn't have the bar all the way across (or at all in some typefaces). It is not interchangeable with an f (well, maybe by fome cheap printfhops which juft didn't care).
I did find some websites which tracked "misspellings" in scanned old texts and the long s quickly disappeared around 1800.
http://polymath07.blogspot.com/2011/06/we-now-have-one-s.html is one such site which graphs the usage of wish vs. (what the OCR sees as) wifh over the years.
Plymouth rock probably isn’t the actual rock they stepped on. It also was split in two, so half of it is still on the beach. Of course, they didn’t land at Plymouth — that was their 2nd stop.
But anyway, a town should maintain their history, not sell it off to the highest bidder.
But the church doesn’t exist to maintain the history of the church. It has a higher purpose. I believe the admonition “lay not up your treasures here on earth” would apply.
Of course, if they hadn’t held onto it, it wouldn’t have value; the problem with the philosophy of dumping collectables is that you have to hold them for them to become collectable. Then you have to decide when they are “collectable enough”.
On the rest of your comment, I am not aware of the specific church or it’s teachings, so my principle was general in nature. Maybe this particular church wouldn’t use that money to further the kingdom, and therefore it makes no difference.
I’ve spent many years of my church life in churches where there were no buildings because they didn’t want to tie up their money in property; instead they gave it all to missionaries. Now my church has merged with a church that had a modest building, so we are no longer nomads.
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