Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/651

Rh requisite for bringing their immense resources under control of the organist. Mr. Hastings, while adopting many innovations from European sources, improved upon them materially m his method of application; his coupling and draw-stop system, in particular, being most sympathetic and effective in operation. These organs possess remarkably well-balanced tonal qualities also, being free from the prevailing acoustic defects apparent in large instruments of some makers.

Organ-building, like all the arts, was encouraged in New York to a greater extent than elsewhere in the years preceding the Revolutionary War and immediately afterward The spirit of



liberalism found its expression in the practices and observances of church bodies, too, and a desire to erect imposing organs in keeping with the custom obtaining in English communities was manifest. Geib, who built the old Grace Church instrument, was censured severely at the time of its construction for his inability to complete an organ of more massive proportions and capable