The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-11-11
EIasr Nav aNGLAND zoos.
me Bay Psalm Book Which was
Printed IN Boston in I64O.

III 0DbLOl In 1870.
From the Youths Companion
The first book printed in the English
language in America was book of psalms
This was In 1910, and since the book was
printed and first used in the settlement on
Massachusetts bay, 1t was and Is commonly
called the Bay Psalm Book. Only eight
copies OF the original edition are known to
De now In existence. One of them was sold
Within a few years in New York for 81 200
say seven times its weight in gold. The
DUTY OF compiling a rev psalm book "for
Ine use and OBLIGATION of the saints in New
England" had been intrustei TO the Rev.
Mr. eide, the Rev. Richard Mather, and
that glory Of New England PuritanIsm.
the noble John Eliot, the apostle to the In
dians.
These three persons were graduates of
Emmanuel college, in Cambridge, England,
and were writer's of good, sound, sensible
sermons, but it must be confessed that thew
dld not shine as poets Their lines are Of
irregular length, the some is often confused
ana unlntellIgible, and the grammar is
sometimes shocking. One would have hard
work to parse ouch a stanza as this:
And sayd he would not them waste; had not
Moses stood WHOM he chose)
Fore him 4 tn breach: to turne his wrath
Lest that he should waste those.
Ihs printing OF the book was done in
cambridge upon a 'printery," or press,
which friends in Holland had given to Har-
ward College in 1888
Some Of the colonists were not satisfied
with the new psalms, and it was soon de-
clded that the verses needed "poIishinQ"
Inc work was undertaken by President
Dunster OF Harvard College, aud assisted by
young tutor named Lyon, who wrote some
Scripture Songs" which were printed at
the end OF the psalm book. As the Puritan
young people had no merry ballards and
roundelays these songs of Mr. Lyons manu-
fecture were no doubt enjoyed, but thew
read queerly enough now. Here is portion
OF the song of Deborah and Barak:
Jael the Kanite Heber's wife
Bove women blest shall be;
Above the women in the tent
blessed one is she
he water ask'd; she gave him milk:
Him butter forth she fetchd
In lordly dish; then to the nail
She forth her left hand stretched.
Her right the workmsn's hammer held
And Sisera struck dead;
She pierced and struck his temple through
And then smote of his head
he at her feet how'd fell, lay down
he al her feet how'd where
He fell, ev'n where he how'd down
He fell destroyed there.
1t Is pleasant to think of the three rover
end versiters, with their severe but kindly
faces, clad somberly in sad-coIored gar
ments, great knee breeches, square-cut
Tapped coats. with heavy cloth or frioze
stockings and leather shoes, with huuare
white bands around their necks, and Black
skull caps on their close-cropped and un-
| powdered heads; seated with ink horn and
| quill pens at a table covered With Hebrew
and Greek lexicons and a great Brooches
Bible
In winter they must have had to draw
their writing-tables fairly within the great
stone fireplace, else their ink would have
frozen and their hands would have been too
stiff to hold the pen. And though they were
full of grace and zeal, >" they must often
have sighed and groaned and mended their
pins and tried fresh quills and perhaps
scratched their heads while they cudgeled
their brains for their hating lines, just as
any sternly prosaio man nowadays would
wriggle and twist were he forced to write
page after page OF something that would
pass for poetry
If the Puritaps had known no better
psalms we should not wonder at their quiet
~ and happily accepting those of the Bay
Psalm Book, but they had used in England
Sternhold & Hopkins version of the
Psalms, which contained such noble and
stirring lines as
The Lord descended from above
| And how'd the heav'ns hye.
And underneath his feete he cast
The darkness of the skye.
On cherubs and on cherubnes
Full royalty he roade
And on the wnges of all the windes
Came flying all abroade.
They had to sing instead in their new
version:
Likewise the heavns he down how'd
and he descended and there was
under his feet gloomy cloud
And he on cheruo rode and flew:
yea he flew on wings of windes
| His secret place he darkness made
his covert that him round confide
| The psalms, too, were very long-some
had $40 lines-so that it often took half an
hour to sing one Of them. during which
time the patient congregation always stood.