ise of hymnody in America ran parallel with the development of
hymn-singing in England. The Puritans who came from Holland in the
Mayflower in 1620 were "separatists" from the Church of England, hence
they used a psalm-book of their own, published by Henry Ainsworth at
Amsterdam in 1612. This was the book that cheered their souls on the
perilous crossing of the Atlantic and during the hard and trying years
that followed their landing at Plymouth.

Amid the storm they sang,
And the stars heard and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
With the anthems of the free.

This was also the book that comforted Priscilla, when John Alden stole in
and found that

Open wide on her lap lay the well-worn psalm-book of Ainsworth.

The later Puritans who came directly from England, on the other hand,
were not "separatists," hence they brought with them the psalm-book of
Sternhold and Hopkins, which was the version of the Psaltery approved at
that time by the Established Church.

The wretched paraphrases of the Psalms in both the Ainsworth and the
"orthodox" version of Sternhold and Hopkins eventually led to an
insistent demand among the New England Puritans for an entirely new
psalm-book which should also adhere more closely to the Hebrew original.
The result was the famous "Bay Psalmist" of 1640, which was the first
book printed in British America.

The Puritan editors of this first attempt at American psalmody cared no
more for poetic effect than did their brother versifiers across the
waters. This they made quite plain in the concluding words of the Preface
to the "Bay Psalmist": "If therefore the verses are not always so smooth
and elegant as some may desire or expect; let them consider that God's
Altar needs not our pollishings: Ex. 20, for wee have respected rather a
plaine translation, than to smooth our verses with the sweetness of any
paraphrase, and soe have attended to Conscience rather than Elegance,
fidelity rather than poetry, in translating the hebrew words into english
language, and David's poetry into english meetre: that soe wee may sing
in Sion the Lords songs of praise according to his own will; untill hee
take us from hence, and wipe away all our tears, & bid us enter into our
masters joye to sing eternall Halleluiahs."

The editors scarcely needed to apprise the worshiper that he should not
look for artistic verses, for a glimpse within its pages was sufficient
to