But few of these psalm-books of Ainsworth are now in existence; but few
indeed came to New England. Elder Brewster owned one, as is shown by
the inventory of the books in his library. Not every member of the
congregation, not every family possessed one; many were too poor, many
"lacked skill to read," and in some communities only one psalm-book was
owned in the entire church. Hence arose the odious custom of "deaconing" or
"lining" the psalm, by which each line was read separately by the deacon or
elder and then sung by the congregation. There is no doubt, however,
that this Ainsworth's Version was used in many of the early New England
meetings. Reverend Thomas Symmes, in his "Joco-Serious Dialogue," printed
in 1723, wrote: "Furthermore the Church of Plymouth made use of Ainsworths
Version of the Psalms until the year 1692. For altho' our New England
version of the Psalms was compiled by sundry hands and completed by
President Dunster about the year 1640; yet that church did not use it, it
seems, 'till two and fifty years after but stuck to Ainsworth; and until
about 1682 their excellent custom was to sing without reading the lines."
John Cotton's account of the Salem church written in 1760, says, "On June
19, 1692, the pastor propounded to the church that seeing many of the
psalms in Mr. Ainsworth's translation which had hitherto been sung in the
congregation had such difficult tunes that none in the church could set,
they would consider of some expedient that they might sing all the psalms.
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