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.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213