Book Five

(575 to 600) with a few exceptions _New Version_, 1696, Tate and Brady. “Through all the changing scenes of life” (583) “As pants the hart for cooling streams” (586) “O come, loud anthems let us sing” (18) “While shepherds watched their flocks by night” (73-4)

8. Psalm Versions.

The use of the psalms in singing, first on the Continent, then in England and Scotland, and later in America, brought forth many metrical versions of the psalter, the principal ones being the following:

a. _The Genevan Psalter_, begun 1539, published complete in 1562. It was made at the request of John Calvin by Clément Marot, court poet of France, and Theodore Beza, a French scholar. It became the psalm book for the Reformation churches on the continent, and is spoken of as the most famous book of praise the Christian Church ever produced. It was issued in at least one thousand editions and translated into a number of tongues. Some of the original tunes are still in use, e.g., “Old Hundredth.”

b. _The Anglo-Genevan Psalter_, Geneva, 1556. This was used by John Knox, the Scottish reformer, and his followers who fled the persecutions of “Bloody Mary,” and formed a congregation at Geneva. The book incorporated some of the Sternhold and Hopkins versions which were in use in England, and added others.

c. _The Old Version_, Sternhold and Hopkins, completed in 1562. Used in England for 134 years. It is entitled, _The Whole Booke of Psalmes_, but came to be known as the “Old Version.”

d. _The Bay Psalm Book_, Boston, 1640. This was the first book printed in English-speaking America. It was made to obtain greater literalness to the Hebrew original than was found in the versions then in use. The book reigned supreme among the English churches in New England for over a century. Seventy editions of it were printed in America, the last in 1773. Eighteen editions appeared in England, and twenty-two in Scotland. There were no tunes given it until 1698, then only 13, with the air in the bass.

e. _The Scottish Psalter_, completed 1650. Special mention is made of this version of the Psalms because it is the source of nearly all the selections of metrical psalms which constitute