specially a Priestly garment, as it
is worn by Deacons and also by Lay-Readers, and in a modified form
by choristers. The word is derived from the Latin, _superpelliceum_,
meaning an over-garment. (See VESTMENTS.)

Surpliced Choir.--When the body of singers of the Church service is
composed of boys and men they are vested in cassocks and surplices
or cottas and given a place in the Chancel. This is a very ancient
usage in the Church of God, reaching back to the Temple service at
Jerusalem. In the description of that service given in 2 Chronicles
5:12 and 13 we read: "Also the Levites which were the singers, all
of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun, with their sons and their
brethren, being arrayed in white linen . . . stood at the east end
of the Altar . . . praising and thanking God." In this whole
passage we see the original of those surpliced choirs by which the
same Psalms of David have been sung in every age of the Christian
Church.

The surpliced choir has always been a feature of the Anglican Church,
peculiar to it as a national custom. {250} And as the American
Church is the daughter of the English Church, having derived from
her all her great treasures of devotion and beauty in worship, so
she, too, employs the vested choir and encourages its use. In this
connection, it is interesting to note that the first mention of a
surpliced choir in America is in connection with old St. Michael's
Church, Charleston, S. C. In the history of this parish may be
found the following interesting reference to the vested choir: "In
1798 there was a bill for 'washing the surplaces (sic) of clergy
and children.' A little earlier the Vestry requested the Rector
to entertain, at their expense, six of the boys on Sunday as 'an
incitement for their better performance of the service'; and in
1807 the organist was requested to have at least twelve choir boys."

Thus as early as the end of the Eighteenth Century the music of the
Church was rendered by a surpliced choir in a Southern parish. For
some reason vested choirs were given up in the American Church and
for many years little or nothing was heard of them. But after a
while when the Church here got more thoroughly established and
began to put on strength we find that its growing devotion demanded
_the restoration_ of the vested choir. This demand became so general
that to-day there are very few parishes in which the music is not
thus rendered. This is not to be wondered at, f