" Sometimes we see
on the blank pages, in a fine, cramped handwriting, the record of the
births and deaths of an entire family. More frequently still we find the
familiar and hackneyed verses of ancient titlepage lore, such as are
usually seen on the blank leaves of old Bibles. This script was written in
a "Bay Psalm-Book" of the sixteenth edition, and with the characteristic
indifference of our New England forefathers for tiresome repetition, or
possibly with their disdain of novelty, was seen on each and every blank
page of the book:--
"Israel Balch, His Book,
God give him Grace theirin to look
And when the Bell for him doth toal
May God have mearcy on his Sole."
What the diction lacked in variety is quite made up, however, in the
spelling, which was painstakingly different on each page.
Another Psalm-Book bore, inscribed in an elegant, minute handwriting, these
lines, which were probably intended for verse, since the first word of each
line commenced with a capital letter:--
"Abednego Prime His Book
When he withein these pages looks
May he find Grace to sing therein
Seventeen hundred and forty-seven."
This is certainly pretty bad poetry,--bad enough to be worthy a place in
"The Bay Psalm Book,"--but is also a most noble, laudable, and necessary
aspiration; for power of Grace was plainly needed to enable Abednego or any
one else to sing from those pages; and our pious New England forefathers
must have been under special covenant of grace when they persevered against
such obstacles and under such overwhelming disadvantages in having singing
in their meetings.
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