Bygone Church Life in Scotland

by Unknown

Church Music.

By Thomas Frost.

Though the use of instrumental music in the services of the Church fell into disfavour after the Reformation, the existence of a sculptured representation of an organ in Melrose Abbey shows that instrument to have been known as early as the fourteenth century. That “regals,” as they were then called, were placed in some of the principal churches, and used in worship, is also evidenced by documents still in existence. That these, however inferior they may have been to similar instruments of the present day, were carefully constructed, and at considerable cost, appears from the payments made to William Calderwood for “a pair of organs” for the Chapel Royal at Stirling in 1537, and for “a set of organs” for the King’s Chapel at Holyrood in 1542. But the Reformation led to these instruments being everywhere discarded as partaking too much of Romanism to be acceptable to the followers of Knox.

The organs of the royal chapels kept their places for a time, but elsewhere the “kists of whistles,” as they then came to be called, were broken up and the materials sold in aid of the fund for the poor. But no long time elapsed before the Earl of Mar, as captain of Stirling Castle, caused the organ in the Royal Chapel to be removed and broken up; and in 1571 the Scottish Parliament expressed approval of the act. The prevailing feeling against the organ was intensified when, in 1617, orders were given by James VI. that carved figures of the Apostles should be affixed to the seats of the choir in the Chapel at Holyrood, where the organ was then being repaired, after a long period of disuse and neglect. Instrumental music thus became associated in the public mind with what was regarded as idolatry, and so much excitement prevailed that the bishops advised that the restoration of the organ and the choir stalls should be delayed until it subsided.

In 1631 Charles issued an order for the erection of an organ in every cathedral and principal church, and thereby renewed the agitation against the instrument. The order was disregarded, and in 1638, when popular opposition to the introduction of the Anglican prayer-book was being strongly manifested, the General Assembly ruled that the attempt to introduce instrumental music into the services of the Church should be resisted. Spalding, speaking of the agitation of that period, says that “the glorious organs of the Chapel Royal were masterfully broken down, nor no service used there, but the whole chaplains, choristers, and musicians discharged, and the costly organs altogether destroyed and unuseful.” Six years later, the General Assembly recorded in their minutes the gladness with which that body had received the news from their commissioners at Westminster of the taking down of the great organs of St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey.

Psalmody was little more in favour than the gilded pipes of the organ. The Westminster Directory for Public Worship, adopted by the General Assembly in 1645, recommends that “for the present, where many in the congregation cannot read, it is convenient that the minister, or some other fit person appointed by him and the other ruling officers, do read the psalm, line by line, before the singing thereof.” Before this time, in 1642, there had been much controversy in the western Lowlands concerning the singing of the doxology at the end of a psalm, a practice which was popularly regarded as a commandment of men, not to be accepted as a divine ordinance. The General Assembly, in 1643, took the matter into consideration, and ordered the dispute to be dropped. In 1649, however, the subject was again before the Assembly, which then resolved that the singing of the doxology should be discontinued.

In 1647, a committee was named by the General Assembly to examine and revise Rous’s paraphrase of the Psalms, and Zachary Boyd was requested to make a metrical version of the other Biblical songs; but nothing was done in the latter direction, probably due to the desire for uniformity with the Presbyterian Church in England, and in 1650 the present metrical version was printed for use in public worship, without the addition of any hymns or paraphrases. Nothing further was done for the improvement of congregational singing for more than half a century.

The question of instrumental music was revived in 1687, by the erection in the Royal Chapel at Holyrood, by order of James II., of a large and magnificent organ, which was regarded as a step towards the introduction of the Romish service. So convinced were the people of this that the clergy of even the Episcopal churches discontinued the use of the organ in public worship. In the following year, when James had abdicated, and the fear of Popish devices had become allayed, the mob of Edinburgh testified to the national joy, and at the same time indulged their latent propensity to mischief by breaking down the organ and burning the materials.

As in England down to a much later period, so also in Scotland, a metrical version of the Psalms was alone in use in worship, though several attempts were made at different times in the last century to introduce hymns of a more distinctively Christian character, as well as more poetical than the old paraphrases of Hebrew psalmody. The matter was before the General Assembly in 1707, and again in 1742, when a committee was appointed to prepare some paraphrases of passages in the Bible, “to be joined with the Psalms of David, so as to enlarge the Psalmody.” Three years afterwards, some examples of religious poetry were submitted by the committee for the judgment of the Assembly; but, as before, nothing was done, and the matter remained in abeyance until 1775, when it was suggested by the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr that the Assembly should take such measures as might be judged necessary to introduce the paraphrases of 1751 into the Psalter of the Church. These were, in consequence, again examined and revised by a committee, but it was not until 1781 that the committee made their report and the Assembly ordered copies of the collection (which had been printed in 1751) to be submitted to the Presbyteries. Pending the Presbyterial judgment, the Assembly allowed the collection to be used in public worship “where the minister finds it for edification.”