The Pilgrims brought with them from Leyden Ainsworth’s version of the Psalms, published in Amsterdam—Genevan rather than English in character. Its use was largely confined to the Pilgrims and their descendants. Presently the copies of both versions became rare and the service of song depended on the “lining out” of the verses.
The first book printed in America was the Bay Psalm Book, an independent version of the Psalms made by Thomas Welde, Richard Mather, and John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, a committee appointed in 1636. It was proposed to make it more scriptural than either of the previous versions used. It appeared in 1640. Its preface consisted of a discourse urging that psalm-singing was both lawful and necessary. During the next century and a half no less than seventy editions were printed. It was improved by Dunster and Lyon and reprinted in Great Britain, eighteen editions being called for in England and twenty-two in Scotland. This was America’s first contribution to the song service of the Mother Country, but by no means the last.
It may be interesting to see just what literary style this Bay Psalm Book could display, and a few specimens are herewith given. The one hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm, for instance, was given the following form:
1. “The rivers on of Babilon
There when wee did sit downe:
Yea, even then wee mourned when
wee remembred Sion.
2. Our Harp wee did hang it amid
Upon the willow tree,
Because there they that us away