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-compass 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 compass 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 God."

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 succumbing 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 God 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 God. 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 passion 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 endorsement 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 asserted 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 passed 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 pass 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 pass 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 circumstances 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

rectitude, 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, amusement-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, Massachusetts, 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 assist 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 Assembly 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 instituting 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 space 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:--

"The Lord will come and He will not,"

and after singing that line through heard the second line,--

"Keep silence, but speak out."

Many new psalm-books appeared about the time of the Revolutionary War, and

many church petitions have been preserved asking permission to use the

new and more melodious psalm and hymn books. Books of instruction also

abounded,--books in which the notes were not printed on the staff, and

books in which there were staffs but no notes, only letters or other

characters (these were called "dunce notes"); books, too, in which the

notes were printed so thickly that they could scarcely be distinguished one

from the other.

"A dotted tribe with ebon heads

That climb the slender fence along,

As black as ink, as thick as weeds,

Ye little Africans of song."

One book--perhaps the worst, since it was the most pretentious--was "The

Compleat Melody or Harmony of Sion," by William Tansur,--"Ingenious

Tans'ur Skilled in Musicks Art." It was a most superficial, pedantic, and

bewildering composition. The musical instruction was given in the form of a

series of ill-spelled dialogues between a teacher and pupil, interspersed

with occasional miserable rhymes. It was ill-expressed at best, and

such musical terms as "Rations of Concords," "Trilloes," "Trifdiapasons,"

"Leaps," "Binding cadences," "Disallowances," "Canons," "Prime Flower

of Florid," "Consecutions of Perfects," and "Figurates," make the book

exceedingly difficult of comprehension to the average reader, though

possibly not to a student of obsolete musical phraseology.

A side skirmish on the music field was at this time fought between the

treble and the tenor parts. Ravenscroft's Psalms and Walter's book had

given the melody, or plain-song, to the tenor. This had, of course, thrown

additional difficulties in the way of good singing; but when once the

trebles obtained the leading part, after the customary bitter opposition,

the improved singing approved the victory.

Many objections, too, were made to the introduction of "triple-time" tunes.

It gave great offence to the older Puritans, who wished to drawl out all

the notes of uniform length; and some persons thought that marking and

accenting the measure was a step toward the "Scarlet Woman." The time was

called derisively, "a long leg and a short one."

These old bigots must have been paralyzed at the new style of psalm-singing

which was invented and introduced by a Massachusetts tanner and

singing-master named Billings, and which was suggested, doubtless, by the

English anthems. It spread through the choirs of colonial villages and

towns like wild-fire, and was called "fuguing." Mr. Billings' "Fuguing

Psalm Singer" was published in 1770. It is a dingy, ill-printed book with

a comically illustrated frontispiece, long pages of instruction, and this

motto:--

"O, praise the Lord with one consent

And in this grand design

Let Britain and the Colonies

Unanimously join."

The succeeding hymn-books, and the patriotic hymns of Billings in

post-Revolutionary years have no hint of "Britain" in them. The names

"Federal Harmony," "Columbian Harmony," "Continental Harmony," "Columbian

Repository," and "United States Sacred Harmony" show the new nation.

Billings also published the "Psalm Singer's Amusement," and other

singing-books. The shades of Cotton, of Sewall, of Mather must have groaned

aloud at the suggestions, instructions, and actions of this unregenerate,

daring, and "amusing" leader of church-singing.

It seems astonishing that New England communities in those times of anxious

and depressing warfare should have so delightedly seized and adopted this

unusual and comparatively joyous style of singing, but perhaps the new

spirit of liberty demanded more animated and spirited expression; and

Billings' psalm-tunes were played with drum and fife on the battlefield to

inspire the American soldiers. Billings wrote of his fuguing invention, "It

has more than twenty times the power of the old slow tunes. Now the solemn

bass demands their attention, next the manly tenor, now the lofty counter,

now the volatile treble. Now here! Now there! Now here again! Oh ecstatic,

push on, ye sons of harmony!" Dr. Mather Byles wrote thus of fuguing:--

"Down starts the Bass with Grave Majestic Air,

And up the Treble mounts with shrill Career,

With softer Sounds in mild melodious Maze

Warbling between, the Tenor gently plays

And, if th' inspiring Altos joins the Force

See! like the Lark it Wings its towering Course

Thro' Harmony's sublimest Sphere it flies

And to Angelic Accents seems to rise."