"
Other editions quickly followed these "pollishings" until, in 1709, sixteen
had been printed. Mr. Hood stated that at least seventy editions in all
were brought out. Some of these were printed in England and Scotland, in
exceedingly fine and illegible print, and were intended to be bound up with
the Bible; and occasionally duodecimo Bibles were sent from Scotland to
New England with "The Bay Psalm-Book" bound at the back part of the book.
Strange as it may seem, the poor, halting New England version was used in
some of the English dissenting congregations and Scotch kirks, instead of
the smoother verses composed in England for the English churches.
The Reverend Thomas Prince, after two years of careful work thereon,
published in 1758 a revised edition of the much-published book, and it was
adopted by his church, the Old South, of Boston, the week previous to his
death. It was used by his congregation until 1786. He clung closely to the
form of the old editions, changing only an occasional word. In his preface
Dr. Prince says that "The Bay Psalm-Book" "had the honor of being the
first book printed in North America, and as far as I can find, in this
New World." We have fuller means of information now-a-days than had the
reverend reviser, and we know that as early as 1535 a book called "The
Book of St. John Climacus or The Spiritual Ladder" had been printed in the
Spanish tongue, in Mexico; and no less than one hundred and sixteen other
Spanish works in the sixteenth century, as the "Bibliografia Mexicana"
testifies.
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