the Psalter by persons of richer and meaner talents.'1 A modern writer tells us that 'since the Reformation there have been at least sixty-five musical versions of the whole book of Psalms, besides legions of less ambitious attempts.' 2 Some of those above enumerated, especially that by George Sandys, are no doubt very superior in poetical merit to the renderings of Tate and Brady. But superior poetical merit is only one of many qualifications for congregational psalmody, and it was not without fair grounds of reason that the New Version, although only allowed' by authority, much as Wither's and Blackmore's were, should have firmly established itself, while its rivals all passed into greater or less obscurity.

The New Version, however, did not do much towards a revival of congregational singing. 'Psalmody,' wrote Secker in 1741, 'hath declined of late within most of our memories, very unhappily.'5 And again, as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1766 :-'Nor will it be a small benefit, if in the course of your liturgical instructions you can persuade the bulk of your congregations to join in the decent use of psalmody, as their forefathers did, instead of the present shameful neglect of it by almost all, and the conceited abuse of it by a few.'6 Indeed, the abuses and negligences which very commonly prevailed in the manner of conducting the singing, were quite as great hindrances to a solemn and instructive style of church music as any deficiencies in the metrical versions which were employed.

In fact, congregational singing had, in the earlier part of the eighteenth century, fallen, through various reasons, into a very discreditable condition, both in the English

1 An Inquiry into the Right Way of fitting the Book of Psalms for Christian worship,' Works, vol. ix. p. 27.

2 Fraser's Magazine (1860), vol. Ixii. p. 312.

3 Oxford Essays (1858), p. 141.

4 Life of Blackmore, in Anderson's ed. of British Poets, vol. vii. p. 584. 5 Second Charge as Bishop of Oxford.-Secker's Eight Charges, p. 65. 6 Third Canterbury Charge, id. 319.

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Church and among Dissenting communities; and reform of some kind or another was ardently desired by all who took any intelligent interest in this important part of public worship. In this situation,' writes an earnest champion of psalm-singing in contradistinction to what he called 'human compositions,' 'the hymnmakers find the Church, and they are suffered to thrust out the Psalms to make way for their own compositions, of which they have supplied us with a vast variety, collection upon collection, and in use too, new hymns starting up daily, appendix added to appendix, sung in many congregations, yea, admired by very high professors to such a degree that the Psalms are become quite obsolete, and the singing of them is now almost as despicable as it was some time among the profane. I know,' he adds, 'that this is a sore place, and I would touch it gently, as gently as I can with any hope of doing good. The value of poems above psalms is become so great, and the singing of men's words, so as quite to cast out the word of God, is become so universal, except in the Church of England, that one scarce dare speak upon the subject. I blame nobody for

singing human compositions. My complaint is against preferring men's poems to the good word of God, and preferring them to it in the Church. I have no quarrel with Dr. Watts, or with any living or 'dead versifier. I would not have all their poems burnt. My concern is to see Christian congregations shut out divinely inspired Psalms, and take in Dr. Watts's flights of fancy, as if the words of a poet were better than those of a prophet.'1

These words of a good man introduce us to a controversy that has long ago worn itself out, but which

1 Romaine's Essay on Psalmody, pp. 105-6. In a later edition (1775) of this work, Romaine expunged his severe animadversions on modern hymns. 'We no longer,' said Toplady, 'read of Watts's hymns being Watts's whims.'-(Toplady to Lady Huntingdon, Life and Times of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, ii. 66.)-The passage is, however, left, both as representing what was for a long time Romaine's own opinion and also a very common feeling among Churchmen.

once interested and disturbed the minds of many worthy Christian people-the question whether any hymns but those of David, and such others as are taken directly from Scripture, could properly be sung in the worship of the Church. There were some strait Nonconformists

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who objected to any kind of psalmody. The only Scriptural singing, they said, was from the heart. Á strong party among the Baptists did not overcome their scruples on this point till after the middle of the century.1 Of course there was no such feeling as this in the English Church. And yet the Defences of Church Music, published by Dodwell,2 by Dr. Bisse, and by G. Payne,* and some expressions in the Spectator, seem to show that, owing probably to the very unsatisfactory condition into which congregational singing had fallen, there were many who would willingly have dispensed altogether with the musical part of the service. The extract, however, quoted from Romaine is but one instance among numberless others of a frequent opinion, which may perhaps be traced in every age of the Church until the present one. The hymns of the early Church were many; and some very beautiful ones were composed by some of the most illustrious among its saints. Chrysostom and others tell us that the Psalms constituted the special, if not the exclusive, hymnody of Christian worship. The use of other hymns was specially condemned by a canon of the Council of Laodicea in the fourth century, and was made by St. Augustine a point of accusation against the Donatists.

But

1 Ivimey's Hist. ii. 373, and Marlow's Discourse against Singing, quoted in Skeats's Hist. of the Free Churches, 92.

2 Dodwell characteristically dwelt on the power of sacred music in repelling and disabling evil spirits: Brokesby's Life, 359.

3 Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 120.

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4 'Defence of Church Music:' Sermon at the Anniversary Meeting of the Three Choirs.

5 Spectator, No. 630.

Felix Bovet, Histoire du Psautier, 14, and Appendix, 207.

7 The 59th. See Id.

8 Augustine, Ep. 19; in id.

The canon of Laodicea was repeated twelve centuries later in a decree of the Council of Braganza in 1563.1 However certain it might be that Christian churches would not consent to be deprived of the public use of their rich and ever-increasing inheritance of sacred song, there was evidently something of a scarcely licensed irregularity in the use of these later hymns. A similar feeling existed to some extent in the Reformed Churches. The improvement of congregational singing was a special object with Wickliffe 2 and later reformers. Yet it was only in Germany that the ferment of religious feeling found any general vent in popular hymns. It may seem strange that translations of them were not largely introduced into England. But the foreign Protestant churches with which the English reformers were at one time brought into close intercourse, were chiefly Calvinistic, and Calvin was by no means inclined to permit the Psalms to be in the smallest degree supplanted in the churches over which he exercised his dictatorship. He would not absolutely exclude other hymns; 'but,' said he, 'you may search far and near, but you will not find better hymns than those of Holy Scripture.' 3

The popular hymns, therefore, of the eighteenth century-collection upon collection, appendix upon appendix '—were altogether a new phenomenon, if not in the Christian Church in general, yet at all events in England. They were caught up at once by large masses of the people; but it cannot be wondered at that they were regarded by many with great suspicion, and often vehemently resisted. It is perfectly needless to recall the arguments by which they were supported or opposed. They maintained their ground, and have fairly won the day. Religion in England owes no insignificant debt to the hymns which the last century

1 Augustine, Ep. 19.

2 Fraser's Magazine (Sept. 1860), p. 300.

3 Calvin's Preface to the Liturgy, quoted by Bovet, p. 207.

produced in such copious abundance. The dissertations by which Watts, Toplady, and others prefaced their hymns, with the object of showing by careful arguments, derived alike from history and reason, that hymns other than those taken from Scripture might lawfully and properly be used in the public services of the Church, have no other interest now, except as memorials of past controversy.

It may be said to be the peculiar privilege of hymn-writers, as of the composers of sacred verse in general, that to a great extent they write, not for any one society of Christians, but for the Church at large. Men whose theological views contrast most strongly meet on common ground when they express in verse the deeper aspirations of the heart, and the voice of Christian praise. Isaac Watts (1674-1748), like many others to whom we owe some excellent hymns, was a Dissenter. His father, a deacon of the Independents, had suffered imprisonment for his opinions at a time when toleration was scarcely yet known. Nonconformity, which at the beginning of the eighteenth century was at about its lowest ebb, may well cherish his memory with gratitude, not only because of his hymns, but because his scholarship and his acquaintance with men of letters did much to redeem Dissent from the charge of narrowness and littleness,"1 and still more, because in days of inertness and indifference he strenuously maintained the better traditions of the old Puritanism. He was a link also between the clergymen whose services had been unhappily lost to the English Church through the Act of Uniformity, and the pious revivalists whose energies failed at length to find scope within her borders in the last century. had been the intimate friend of John Howe; forty years later he became the friend and adviser of George Whitefield.2

He

His Hymns and Spiritual Songs were published in 2 Id. p. 257.

1 H. S. Skeats's Hist. of the Free Churches, p. 256.