[24] Dubbs, p. 16.
[25] Dubbs, p. 25.
[26] Dubbs, p. 21.
[27] Dubbs, p. 25.
CHAPTER II.
Church Music and the Manner of its Performance.
It has already been mentioned that there were many German hymn-writers in Philadelphia in the early eighteenth century, and it is now in place to consider what was the quality of the music in the German churches at that period, and whether musical instruments of any kind were used in the Philadelphia churches.
For the first record it is necessary to go a little beyond Philadelphia to the Hermits of the Wissahickon. To this people undoubtedly belongs the honor of first using instrumental music in religious services. Of their voyage across the Atlantic, Kelpius says:
“We had also prayer meetings and sang hymns of praise and joy, several of us accompanying on instruments that we had brought from London.”[28]
Evidently the instruments which they brought with them were not satisfactory or were regarded as inadequate for the worship of God, as Kelpius in a letter to friends in London asked that two clavichords with additional strings might be sent.[29]