Other Old Psalm-Books.
There are occasionally found in New England on the shelves of old
libraries, in the collections of antiquaries, or in the attics of old
farm-houses, hidden in ancient hair-trunks or painted sea-chests or among a
pile of dusty books in a barrel,--there are found dingy, mouldy, tattered
psalm-books of other versions than the ones which we know were commonly
used in the New England churches. Perhaps these books were never employed
in public worship in the new land; they may have been brought over by some
colonist, in affectionate remembrance of the church of his youth, and sung
from only with tender reminiscent longing in his own home. But when groups
of settlers who were neighbors and friends in their old homes came to
America and formed little segregated communities by themselves, there is no
doubt that they sung for a time from the psalm-books that they brought with
them.
A rare copy is sometimes seen of Marot and Beza's French Psalm-book,
brought to America doubtless by French Huguenot settlers, and used by them
until (and perhaps after) the owners had learned the new tongue. Some of
the Huguenots became members of the Puritan churches in America, others
were Episcopalians. In Boston the Fancuils, Baudoins, Boutineaus,
Sigourneys, and Johannots were all Huguenots, and attended the little brick
church built on School Street in 1704, which was afterwards occupied by
the Twelfth Congregational Society of Boston, and in 1788 became a Roman
Catholic church.
The pocket psalm-book of Gabriel Bernon, the builder of the old French Fort
at Oxford, is one of Marot and Beza's Version, and is still preserved and
owned by one of his descendants; other New England families of French
lineage cherish as precious relics the French psalm-books of their Huguenot
ancestors. There has been in France no such incessant production of new
metrical versions of the psalms as in England. From the time of the
publication of the first versified psalms in 1540, through nearly three
centuries the psalm-book of all French Protestants has been that of Marot
and Beza. This French version of the psalms is of special interest to all
thoughtful students of the history of Protestantism, because it was the
first metrical translation of the psalms ever sung and used by the people;
and it was without doubt one of the most powerful influences that assisted
in the religious awakening of the Reformation.
Clement Marot was the "Valet of the Bed-chamber to King Francis I.," and
was one of the greatest French poets of his time; in fact, he gave his
name to a new school of poetry,--"Marotique." He had tried his hand at
an immense variety of profane verse, he had written ballades, chansons,
pastourelles, vers équivoques, eclogues, laments, complaints, epitaphs,
chants-royals, blasons, contreblasons, dizains, huitains, envois; he had
been, Warton says, "the inventor of the rondeau and the restorer of the
madrigal;" and yet, in spite of his well-known ingenuity and versatility,
it occasioned much surprise and even amusement when it was known that the
gay poet had written psalm-songs and proposed to substitute them for the
love-songs of the French court. I doubt if Marot thought very deeply of the
religious influence of his new songs, in spite of Mr. Morley's belief in
the versifier's serious intent. He was doubtless interested and perhaps
somewhat infected by "Lutheranisme," though perhaps he was more of a
free-thinker than a Protestant. He himself said of his faith:--
"I am not a Lutherist
Nor Zuinglian and less Anabaptist,
I am of God through his son Jesus Christ.
I am one who has many works devised
From which none could extract a single line
Opposing itself to the law divine."