Sabbath in Puritan New England Part 12

So wasted is my flesh I'm left Nothing but skin and bone.

"Like th' Owl and Pelican that dwell In desarts out of sight, I sadly do bemoan myself, In solitude delight.

"The wakeful bird that on Housetops Sits without company And spends the night in mournful cries Leads such a life as I.

"The Ashes I rowl in when I eat Are tasted with my bread, And with my Drink are mixed the tears I plentifully shed."

A version of the Psalms which seems to have demanded and deserved more attention than it received was written by Cotton Mather. He was doomed to disappointment in seeing his version adopted by the New England churches just as his ambitions and hopes were disappointed in many other ways. This book was published in 1718. It was called "Psalterium Americanum. A Book of Psalms in a translation exactly conformed unto the Original; but all in blank verse. Fitted unto the tunes commonly used in the Church." By a curious arrangement of brackets and the use of two kinds of print these psalms could be divided into two separate metres and could be sung to tunes of either long or short metre. After each psalm were introduced explanations written in Mather's characteristic manner,--a manner both scholarly and bombastic. I have read the "Psalterium Americanum" with care, and am impressed with its elegance, finish, and dignity. It is so popular, however, even now-a-days, to jibe at poor Cotton Mather, that his Psalter does not escape the thrusts of laughing critics. Mr. Gla.s.s, the English critic, holds up these lines as "one of the rich things:"--

"As the Hart makes a panting cry For cooling streams of water, So my soul makes a panting cry For thee--O Mighty G.o.d."

I have read these lines over and over again, and fail to see anything very ludicrous in them, though they might be slightly altered to advantage.

Still they may be very absurd and laughable from an English point of view.

So superior was Cotton Mather's version to the miserable verses given in "The Bay Psalm-Book" that one wonders it was not eagerly accepted by the New England churches. Doubtless they preferred rhyme--even the atrocious rhyme of "The Bay Psalm Book." And the fact that the "Psalterium Americanum" contained no musical notes or directions also militated against its use.

Other American clergymen prepared metrical versions of the psalms that were much loved and loudly sung by the respective congregations of the writers.

The work of those worthy, painstaking saints we will neither quote nor criticise,--saying only of each reverend versifier, "Truly, I would the G.o.ds had made thee poetical." Rev. John Barnard, who preached for fifty-four years in Marblehead, published at the age of seventy years a psalm-book for his people. Though it appeared in 1752, a time when "The Bay Psalm Book" was being shoved out of the New England churches, Barnard's Version of the Psalms was never used outside of Marblehead. Rev. Abijah Davis published another book of psalms in which he copied whole pages from Watts without a word of thanks or of due credit, which was apparently neither Christian, clerical nor manly behavior.

Watts's monosyllabic Hymns, which were not universally used in America until after the Revolution, are too well known and are still too frequently seen to need more than mention. Within the last century a flood of new books of psalms of varying merit and existence has poured out upon the New England churches, and filled the church libraries and church, pews, the second-hand book shops, the missionary boxes, and the paper-mills.

XV.

The Church Music.

Of all the dismal accompaniments of public worship in the early days of New England, the music was the most hopelessly forlorn,--not alone from the confused versifications of the Psalms which were used, but from the mournful monotony of the few known tunes and the horrible manner in which those tunes were sung. It was not much better in old England. In 1676 Master Mace wrote of the singing in English churches, "'T is sad to hear what whining, toling, yelling or shreaking there is in our country congregations."

A few feeble efforts were made in America at the beginning of the eighteenth century to attempt to guide the singing. The edition of 1698 of "The Bay Psalm-Book" had "Some few Directions" regarding the singing added on the last pages of the book, and simple enough they were in matter if not in form. They commence, "_First_, observe how many note-compa.s.s the tune is next the place of your first note, and how many notes above and below that so as you may begin the tune of your first note, as the rest may be sung in the compa.s.s of your and the peoples voices without Squeaking above or Grumbling below."

This "Squeaking above and Grumbling below" had become far too frequent in the churches; Judge Sewall writes often with much self-reproach of his failure in "setting the tune," and also records with pride when he "set the psalm well." Here is his pathetic record of one of his mistakes: "He spake to me to set the tune. I intended Windsor and fell into High Dutch, and then essaying to set another tune went into a Key much to high. So I pray'd to Mr. White to set it which he did well. Litchfield Tune. The Lord Humble me and Instruct me that I should be the occasion of any interruption in the worship of G.o.d."

The singing at the time must have been bad beyond belief; how much of its atrocity was attributable to the use of "The Bay Psalm-Book," cannot now be known. The great length of many of the psalms in that book was a fatal barrier to any successful effort to have good singing. Some of them were one hundred and thirty lines long, and occupied, when lined and sung, a full half-hour, during which the patient congregation stood. It is told of Dr. West, who preached in Dartmouth in 1726, that he forgot one Sabbath Day to bring his sermon to meeting. He gave out a psalm, walked a quarter of a mile to his house, got his sermon, and was back in his pulpit long before the psalm was finished. The irregularity of the rhythm in "The Bay Psalm Book" must also have been a serious difficulty to overcome. Here is the rendering given of the 133d Psalm:--

1. How good and sweet to see i'ts for bretheren to dwell together in unitee:

2. Its like choice oyle that fell the head upon that down did flow the beard unto beard of Aron: The skirts of his garment that unto them went down:

3. Like Hermons dews descent Sions mountains upon for there to bee the Lords blessing life aye lasting commandeth hee.

How this contorted song could have been sung even to the simplest tune by unskilled singers who possessed no guiding notes of music is difficult to comprehend. Small wonder that Judge Sewall was forced to enter in his diary, "In the morning I set York tune and in the second going over, the gallery carried it irresistibly to St. Davids which discouraged me very much." We can fancy him stamping his foot, beating time, and roaring York at the top of his old lungs, and being overcome by the strong-voiced gallery, and at last sadly succ.u.mbing to St. David's. Again he writes: "I set York tune and the Congregation went out of it into St. Davids in the very 2nd going over. They did the same 3 weeks before. This is the 2nd Sign. It seems to me an intimation for me to resign the Praecentor's Place to a better Voice. I have through the Divine Long suffering and Favour done it for 24 years and now G.o.d in his Providence seems to call me off, my voice being enfeebled." Still a third time he "set Windsor tune;" they "ran over into Oxford do what I would." These unseemly "running overs" became so common that ere long each singer "set the tune" at his own will and the loudest-voiced carried the day. A writer of the time, Rev. Thomas Walter, says of this reign of _concordia discors_: "The tunes are now miserably tortured and twisted and quavered, in some Churches, into a horrid Medly of confused and disorderly Voices. Our tunes are left to the Mercy of every unskilful Throat to chop and alter, to twist and change, according to their infinitely divers and no less Odd Humours and Fancies.

I have myself paused twice in one note to take breath. No two Men in the Congregation quaver alike or together, it sounds in the Ears of a Good Judge like five hundred different Tunes roared out at the same Time, with perpetual Interfearings with one another."

Still, confused and poor as was the singing, it was a source of pure and unceasing delight to the Puritan colonists,--one of the rare pleasures they possessed,--a foretaste of heaven;

"for all we know Of what the blessed do above Is that they sing and that they love."

And to even that remnant of music--their few jumbled cacophonous melodies--they clung with a devotion almost phenomenal.

Nor should we underrate the cohesive power that psalm-singing proved in the early communities; it was one of the most potent influences in gathering and holding the colonists together in love. And they reverenced their poor halting tunes in a way quite beyond our modern power of fathoming. Whenever a Puritan, even in road or field, heard at a distance the sound of a psalm-tune, though the sacred words might be quite undistinguishable, he doffed his hat and bowed his head in the true presence of G.o.d. We fain must believe, as Arthur Hugh Clough says,--

"There is some great truth, partial, very likely, but needful, Lodged, I am strangely sure, in the tones of an English psalm-tune."

Judge Sewall often writes with tender and simple pathos of his being moved to tears by the singing,--sometimes by the music, sometimes by the words.

"The song of the 5th Revelation was sung. I was ready to burst into tears at the words, _bought with thy blood_." He also, with a vehemence of language most unusual in him and which showed his deep feeling, wrote that he had an intense pa.s.sion for music. And yet, the only tunes he or any of his fellow-colonists knew were the simple ones called Oxford, Litchfield, Low Dutch, York, Windsor, Cambridge, St. David's and Martyrs.

About the year 1714 Rev. John Tufts, of Newbury, who had previously prepared "A very Plain and Easy Introduction to the Art of Singing Psalm-tunes," issued a collection of tunes in three parts. These thirty-seven tunes, all of which but one were in common metre, were bound often with "The Bay Psalm-Book." They were reprinted from Playford's "Book of Psalms" and the notes of the staff were replaced with letters and dots, and the bars marking the measures were omitted. To the Puritans, this great number of new tunes appeared fairly monstrous, and formed the signal for bitter objections and fierce quarrels.

In 1647 a tract had appeared on church-singing which had attracted much attention. It was written by Rev John Cotton to attempt to influence the adoption and universal use of "The Bay Psalm-Book." This tract thoroughly considered the duty of singing, the matter sung, the singers, and the manner of singing, and, like all the literature of the time, was full of Biblical allusion and quotation. It had been said that "man should sing onely and not the women. Because it is not permitted to a woman to speake in the Church, how then shall they sing? Much lesse is it permitted to them to prophecy in the church and singing of Psalms is a kind of Prophecying."

Cotton fully answered and contradicted these false reasoners, who would have had to face a revolution had they attempted to keep the Puritan women from singing in meeting. The tract abounds in quaint expressions, such as, "they have scoffed at Puritan Ministers as calling the people to sing one of _Hopkins-Jiggs_ and so _hop_ into the pulpit." Though he wrote this tract to encourage good singing in meeting, his endors.e.m.e.nt of "lining the Psalm" gave support to the very element that soon ruined the singing.

His reasons, however, were temporarily good, "because many wanted books and skill to read." At that time, and for a century later, many congregations had but one or two psalm-books, one of which was often bound with the church Bible and from which the deacon lined the psalm.

So villanous had church-singing at last become that the clergymen arose in a body and demanded better performances; while a desperate and disgusted party was also formed which was opposed to all singing. Still another band of old fogies was strong in force who wished to cling to the same way of singing that they were accustomed to; and they gave many objections to the new-fangled idea of singing by note, the chief item on the list being the everlasting objection of all such old fossils, that "the old way was good enough for our fathers," &c. They also a.s.serted that "_the names of the notes were blasphemous_;" that it was "popish;" that it was a contrivance to get money; that it would bring musical instruments into the churches; and that "no one could learn the tunes any way." A writer in the "New England Chronicle" wrote in 1723, "Truly I have a great jealousy that if we begin to _sing_ by _rule_, the next thing will be to _pray_ by rule and _preach_ by rule and _then comes popery_."

It is impossible to overestimate the excitement, the animosity, and the contention which arose in the New England colonies from these discussions over "singing by rule" or "singing by rote." Many prominent clergymen wrote essays and tracts upon the subject; of these essays "The Reasonableness of Regular Singing," also a "Joco-serious Dialogue on Singing," by Reverend Mr. Symmes; "Cases of Conscience," compiled by several ministers; "The Accomplished Singer," by Cotton Mather, were the most important. "Singing Lectures" also were given in many parts of New England by various prominent ministers. So high was party feud that a "Pacificatory Letter" was necessary, which was probably written by Cotton Mather, and which soothed the troubled waters. The people who thought the "old way was the best" were entirely satisfied when they were convinced that the oldest way of all was, of course, by note and not by rote.

This naive extract from the records of the First Church of Windsor, Connecticut, will show the way in which the question of "singing by rule"

was often settled in the churches, and it also gives a very amusing glimpse of the colonial manner of conducting a meeting:--

"July 2. 1736. At a Society meeting at which Capt. Pelatiah Allyn Moderator. The business of the meeting proceeded in the following manner Viz. the Moderator proposed as to the consideration of the meeting in the 1st Place what should be done respecting that part of publick Woiship called Singing viz. whether in their Publick meetings as on Sabbath day, Lectures &c they would sing the way that Deacon Marshall usually sung in his lifetime commonly called the 'Old Way' or whether they would sing the way taught by Mr. Beal commonly called 'Singing by Rule,' and when the Society had discoursed the matter the Moderator pioposed to vote for said two ways as followeth viz. that those that were for singing in publick in the way practiced by Deacon Marshall should hold up their hands and be counted, and then that those that were desirous to sing in Mr. Beals way called 'by Rule' would after show their minds by the same sign which method was proceeded upon accordingly. But when the vote was pa.s.sed there being many voters it was difficult to take the exact number of votes in order to determine on which side the major vote was; whereupon the Moderator ordered all the voters to go out of the seats and stand in the alleys and then those that were for Deacon Marshalls way should go into the mens seats and those that were for Mr. Beals way should go into the womens seat and after much objections made against that way, which prevailed not with the Moderator, it was complied with, and then the Moderator desired that those that were of the mind that the way to be practiced for singing for the future on the Sabbath &c should be the way sung by Deacon Marshall as aforesaid would signify the same by holding up their hands and be counted, and then the Moderator and myself went and counted the voters and the Moderator asked me how many there was. I answered 42 and he said there was 63 or 64 and then we both counted again and agreed the number being 43.

Then the Moderator was about to count the number of votes for Mr. Beals way of Singing called 'by Rule' but it was offered whether it would not be better to order the voters to pa.s.s out of the Meeting House door and there be counted who did accordingly and their number was 44 or 45. Then the Moderator proceeded and desired that those who were for singing in Public the way that Mr. Beal taught would draw out of their seats and pa.s.s out of the door and be counted. They replied they were ready to show their minds in any proper way where they were if they might be directed thereto but would not go out of the door to do the same and desired that they might be led to a vote where they were and they were ready to show their minds which the Moderator refused to do and thereupon declared that it was voted that Deacon Marshalls way of singing called the 'Old Way' should be sung in Publick for the future and ordered me to record the same as the vote of the Said Society which I refused to do under the circ.u.mstances thereof and have recorded the facts and proceedings."

Good old lining, droning Deacon Marshall! though you were dead and gone, you and your years of psalm-singings were not forgotten. You lived, an idealized memory of pure and pious harmony, in the hearts of your old church friends. Warmly did they fight for your "way of singing;" with most undeniable and open partiality, with most dubious ingenuousness and rect.i.tude, did your old neighbor, Captain Pelatiah Allyn, conduct that hot July music-meeting, counting up boldly sixty-three votes in favor of your way, when there were only forty-three voters on your side of the alley, and crowding a final decision in your favor. It is sad to read that when icy winter chilled the blood, warm partisanship of old friends also cooled, and innovative Windsor youth carried the day and the music vote, and your good old way was abandoned for half the Sunday services, to allow the upstart new fashion to take control.

One happy result arose throughout New England from the victory of the ardent advocates of the "singing by rule,"--the establishment of the New England "singing-school,"--that outlet for the pent-up, amus.e.m.e.nt-lacking lives of young people in colonial times. What that innocent and happy gathering was in the monotonous existence of our ancestors and ancestresses, we of the present pleasure-filled days can hardly comprehend.

Extracts from the records of various colonial churches will show how soon the respective communities yielded to the march of improvement and "seated the taught singers" together, thus forming choirs. In 1762 the church at Rowley, Ma.s.sachusetts, voted "that those who have learned the art of Singing may have liberty to sit in the front gallery." In 1780 the same parish "requested Jonathan Chaplin and Lieutenant Spefford to a.s.sist the deacons in Raising the tune in the meeting house." In Sutton, in 1791, the Company of Singers were allowed to sit together, and $13 was voted to pay for "larning to sing by Rule." The Roxbury "First Church" voted in 1770 "three seats in the back gallery for those inclined to sit together for the purpose of singing" The church in Hanover, in 1742, took a vote to see whether the "church will sing in the new way" and appoint a tuner. In Woodbury, Connecticut, in 1750 the singers "may sitt up Galery all day if they please but to keep to there own seat & not to Infringe on the Women Pues." In 1763, in the Ipswich First Parish, the singers were allowed to sit "two back on each side of the front alley." Similar entries may be found in nearly every record of New England churches in the middle or latter part of that century.

The musical battle was not finished, however, when the singing was at last taught by rule, and the singers were allowed to sit together and form a choir. There still existed the odious custom of "lining" or "deaconing"

the psalm. To this fashion may be attributed the depraved condition of church-singing of which Walters so forcibly wrote, and while it continued the case seemed hopeless, in spite of singing-schools and singing-teachers.

It would be trying to the continued uniformity of pitch of an ordinary church choir, even now-a-days, to have to stop for several seconds between each line to listen to a reading and sometimes to an explanation of the following line.

The Westminster a.s.sembly had suggested in 1664 the alternate reading and singing of each line of the psalm to those churches that were not well supplied with psalm-books. The suggestion had not been adopted without discussion, It was in 1680 much talked over in the church in Plymouth, and was adopted only after getting the opinion of each male church member.

When once taken into general use the custom continued everywhere, through carelessness and obstinacy, long after the churches possessed plenty of psalm-books. An early complaint against it was made by Dr. Watts in the preface of his hymns, which were published by Benjamin Franklin in 1741. As Watts' Psalms and Hymns were not, however, in general use in New England until after the Revolution, this preface with its complaint was for a long time little seen and little heeded.

It is said that the abolition came gradually; that the impetuous and well-trained singers at first cut off the last word only of the deacon's "lining;" they then encroached a word or two further, and finally sung boldly on without stopping at all to be "deaconed." This brought down a tempest of indignation from the older church-members, who protested, however, in vain. A vote in the church usually found the singers victorious, and whether the church voted for or against the "lining," the choir would always by stratagem vanquish the deacon. One old soldier took his revenge, however. Being sung down by the rampant choir, he still showed battle, and rose at the conclusion of the psalm and opened his psalm-book, saying calmly, "_Now_ let the _people of the Lord sing_."

The Rowley church tried diplomacy in their struggle against "deaconing,"

by inst.i.tuting a gradual abolishing of the custom. In 1785 the choir was allowed "to sing once on the Lord's Day without reading by the Deacon." In five years the Rowley singers were wholly victorious, and "lining out" the psalm was entirely discontinued.

In 1770, dissatisfaction at the singing in the church was rife in Wilbraham, and a vote was taken to see whether the town would be willing to have singing four times at each service; and it was voted to "take into consideration the Broken State of this Town with regard to singing on the Sabbath Day." Special and bitter objection was made against the leader beating time so ostentatiously. A list of singers was made and a singing-master appointed. The deacon was allowed to lead and line and beat time in the forenoon, while the new school was to have control in the afternoon; and "whoever leads the singing shall be at liberty to use the motion of his hand while singing for the s.p.a.ce of three months only." It is needless to state who came off victorious in the end. The deacon left as a parting shot a request to "make Inquiry into the conduct of those who call themselves the Singers in this town."

In Worcester, in 1779, a resolution adopted at the town meeting was "that the mode of singing in the congregation here be without reading the psalms line by line." "The Sabbath succeeding the adoption of this resolution, after the hymn had been read by the minister, the aged and venerable Deacon Chamberlain, unwilling to abandon the custom of his fathers and his own honorable prerogative, rose and read the first line according to his usual practice. The singers, previously prepared to carry the desired alteration into effect, proceeded in their singing without pausing at the conclusion of the line. The white-haired officer of the church with the full power of his voice read on through the second line, until the loud notes of the collected body of singers overpowered his attempt to resist the progress of improvement. The deacon, deeply mortified at the triumph of the musical reformation, then seized his hat and retired from the meeting-house in tears." His conduct was censured by the church, and he was for a time deprived of partaking in the communion, for "absenting himself from the public services of the Sabbath;" but in a few weeks the unhouselled deacon was forgiven, and never attempted to "line" again.

Though the opponents of "lining" were victorious in the larger villages and towns, in smaller parishes, where there were few hymn-books, the lining of the psalms continued for many years. Mr. Hood wrote, in 1846, the astonishing statement that "the habit of lining prevails to this day over three-fourths of the United States." This I can hardly believe, though I know that at present the practice obtains in out of the way towns with poor and ignorant congregations. The separation of the lines often gives a very strange meaning to the words of a psalm; and one wonders what the Puritan children thought when they heard this lino of contradictions that Hood points out:--