disillusion any one who expected to find sacred poetry. The metrical
form given the 137th Psalm is an example of the Puritan theologians'
contempt for polished language:

The rivers on of Babilon
there when wee did sit downe:
yea even then wee mourned, when
wee remembred Sion.

Our Harps wee did hang it amid,
upon the willow tree.
Because there they that us away
led in captivitee,

Required of us a song, & thus
askt mirth: us waste who laid,
sing us among a Sions song,
unto us then they said.

The lords song sing can wee? being
in strangers land. Then let
loose her skill my right hand, if I
Jerusalem forget.

Let cleave my tongue my pallate on,
if minde thee doe not I:
if chiefe joyes o'er I prize not more
Jerusalem my joye.

Nevertheless, strange as it may seem, the "Bay Psalmist" passed through
twenty-seven editions, and was even reprinted several times abroad, being
used extensively in England and Scotland. Gradually, however, psalmody
began to lose its hold on the Reformed churches, both in Europe and
America, and hymnody gained the ascendancy. The publication in 1707 of
the epoch-making work of Isaac Watts, "Hymns and Spiritual Songs," was
the first step in breaking down the prejudice in the Calvinistic churches
against "hymns of human composure." In America the Great Awakening under
Jonathan Edwards, which began in 1734 and which received added impetus
from the visit of John Whitefield in 1740, also brought about a demand
for a happier form of congregational singing. Then came the influence of
the Wesleyan revival with its glorious outburst of song.

Jonathan Edwards himself, stern Puritan that he was, was finally forced
to confess that it was "really needful that we should have some other
songs than the Psalms of David." Accordingly hymn singing grew rapidly in
favor among the people.

The first attempt to introduce hymns in the authorized psalm-books was
made by Joel Barlow, a chaplain in the Revolutionary War. Instructed by
the General Association of Congregational Churches of Connecticut to
revise Watts' "Psalms of David" in order to purge them of their British
flavor, he was likewise authorized to append to the Psalms a collection
of hymns. He made a selection of seventy hymns, and the new book was
published in 1786.

It was received with delight by the Presbyterians, but the
Congre