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The National Music of America. 55
musical cause with an excellent translation of the Psalms for vocal purposes, burst forth in fierce diatribes when the organ was inaugurated, and denounced the wickedness of Boston roundly, in his Thursday lecture.1
There is inferential proof that the Puritans did not bother themselves with instrumental music of any kind. Henry M. Brooks, in his " Olden-Time Music," says (p. 33) :
" An examination of the earliest * inventories ' in the Probate Office of Essex County fails to find record of any musical instruments appraised in the estates settled therein. While every pot, skillet, gridiron, article of wearing-apparel, old chair and table, bed, bolster, and pillow, silver spoon, pewter dish, bushel of corn, indeed articles of the most trifling nature, are carefully enumerated, no lutes,
1 The weekly " lectures " in Boston were of the nature of prayer-meetings, and the address was not at all different from what we to-day would call a sermon. As regards the singing of psalms, Cottton Mather thus expresses himself: " The singing of psalms is a supplicating of God himself, wherein by humble prayer we beg the pardon of our sins." Dr. Cotton Mather was the most voluminous writer in the colonies, his publications amounting to three hundred and eighty-two works I |
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