A venerable and hitherto decorous old deacon
of Roxbury not only left the church when the hated bass-viol began its
accompanying notes, but he stood for a long time outside the church door
stridently "caterwauling" at the top of his lungs. When expostulated with
for this unseemly and unchristianlike annoyance he explained that he was
"only mocking the banjo." To such depths of rebellion were stirred the
Puritan instincts of these religious souls.
Many a minister said openly that he would like to walk out of his pulpit
when the obnoxious and hated flutes, violins, bass-viols, and bassoons were
played upon in the singing gallery. One clergyman contemptuously announced
"We will now sing and fiddle the forty-fifth Psalm." Another complained of
the indecorous dress of the fiddle-player. This had reference to the almost
universal custom, in country churches in the summer time, of the bass-viol
player removing his coat and playing "in his shirt sleeves." Others hated
the noisy tuning of the bass-viol while the psalm was being read. Mr.
Brown, of Westerly, sadly deplored that "now we have only catgut and resin
religion."
In 1804 the church in Quincy, being "advanced," granted the singers the
sum of twenty-five dollars to buy a bass-viol to use in meeting, and a few
other churches followed their lead. From the year 1794 till 1829 the
church in Wareham, Massachusetts, was deeply agitated over the question of
"Bass-Viol, or No Bass-Viol.
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