Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/39

Rh In the revision of the Prayer-book in 1661-2 the famous rubric was inserted after the third Collect at Morning and Evening Prayer, 'In quires and places where they sing, here followeth the Anthem.' Authority was thus given by Church and State to the introduction into the service at this point of an anthem, which was to be chosen by the minister. Hymns in verse were used as well as unmetrical passages of Scripture, set to music by Blow, Purcell, and other composers. There was no technical meaning such as we now attach to anthems, but metrical hymns were given a right of way into the service.

The New Version by Tate and Brady, published in 1696, did not easily displace the Old. Bishop Beveridge, in 1710, made a vigorous onslaught on it as 'fine and modish', 'flourished with wit and fancy,' 'gay and fashionable.' He says one vestry had cast it out after it was introduced by the clergyman. Beveridge strenuously defends the Old Version as a venerable monument of the Reformation.

In Scotland, where services had been established in the vernacular after the breach with Rome, the metrical psalm was preferred to the chanted prose psalm, both because it was more convenient for popular use and was deemed to be nearer to the Hebrew structure. The Psalter has, indeed, had 'a mighty influence upon the Scottish mind and heart.' So late as 1749 metrical psalmody was the only part of the service in which Scotch congregations joined. The singing of hymns, other than the Paraphrases of 1741-81, did not become at all general among the United Presbyterians till after 1852. The Established Church was eighteen years later, and the Free Church three years later still. Calvin had adopted Marot's version of the Psalms, and when Marot himself fled to Geneva the Reformer induced him to revise his earlier versions and add new ones. After his death Beza continued the work. In the completed Psalter published in 1562, forty-nine versions are by Marot, the rest by Beza. French tunes and French metres found their way from this collection into the Scotch Psalter. Sternhold's psalms were also known at Geneva, and thence exerted some influence on Scotland. The Dundie Psalmes, or Gude and Godlie Ballates, was the first version used in Scotland. The book was probably issued in a rudimentary form as early as 1568. The earliest perfect edition we possess, that of 1578, is a poetical miscellany. It contains sixteen 'spiritual Sangis', eleven from the German, one from