In
Woodbury, Connecticut, in 1750 the singers "may sitt up Galery all day if
they please but to keep to there own seat & not to Infringe on the Women
Pues." In 1763, in the Ipswich First Parish, the singers were allowed to
sit "two back on each side of the front alley." Similar entries may be
found in nearly every record of New England churches in the middle or
latter part of that century.
The musical battle was not finished, however, when the singing was at last
taught by rule, and the singers were allowed to sit together and form a
choir. There still existed the odious custom of "lining" or "deaconing"
the psalm. To this fashion may be attributed the depraved condition of
church-singing of which Walters so forcibly wrote, and while it continued
the case seemed hopeless, in spite of singing-schools and singing-teachers.
It would be trying to the continued uniformity of pitch of an ordinary
church choir, even now-a-days, to have to stop for several seconds between
each line to listen to a reading and sometimes to an explanation of the
following line.
The Westminster Assembly had suggested in 1664 the alternate reading and
singing of each line of the psalm to those churches that were not well
supplied with psalm-books. The suggestion had not been adopted without
discussion, It was in 1680 much talked over in the church in Plymouth, and
was adopted only after getting the opinion of each male church member.
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