Excerpt from Church Music in America: Comprising Its History and Its Peculiarities at Different Periods, With Cursory Remarks on Its Legitimate Use and Its Abuse

The Rev. W. Burton, a friend Of education and humanity, a few years Since wrote a history of the Village School as it was and although it purports to be the picture of a single school, we presume the description will be found to delineate well the history of most schools in past timm. So, of What we write of Singing-schools, Choirs, etc., as they were, ample testimony may be found to Show that all were similar in regard to conveniences, limited time, means of instruction, and scarcity of books. We did not deem it advisable to commence our narrative abruptly at the period of 1770, lest the inquiry should come up, What has this to do with church music I We therefore commence back, and first take a view of music as used for sacred purposes, when patriarchs, prophets and apostles lived, and took a part in its promotion and performance. We also take a glance at the music Of ancient nations Since the Christian Era, not passing unnoticed on our way Martin Luther, the great reformer of religion, if not of music. We then pass hastily on to our Pilgrim Fathers, embarking for this land where no harmonious sounds had ever been heard, with some ten or twelve tunes imprinted on their hearts and fresh in their memories, and with Ainsworth's Psalms inseparably connected with their Bible.

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