111E PSALTER.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:']
SIR,—r011 may think the passage sulkiined worth printing. I take it from the Southern Churchman (pu cd at Richmond, Virginia) for August 12th. The writer under the heading " How the Psalter is Appointed to be Read" quotes the following passage from a pamphlet by the Rev. John P. Peters, D.D. :—
"After discussing the origin and growth of the Psalter and its uses in the Temple and Synagogue, he says : No old Synagogue over used the Psalter as we do. They understood it better. Fancy cutting up a hymn book into sixty selections, and direct- ing that it should be read through monthly at Morning and Evening Prayer. It is scarcely credible that anyone should do such a thing, and yet that is what we of the English-American Churches have been doing for 350 years ; and the humour of it has scarcely struck us yet. It is humorous, absurdly humorous, from our very unconsciousness of our stupidity. It would surely be stupid to treat our hymn books so ; but at least the consecutive hymns in those would have some relation to one another, whereas in the Jewish hymn book, the Psalter, owing to its method of compilation, such is not the case. There grave and gay, penitential psalms and jubilant chorus, requiem and wedding march, thank-offering and Litany lie side by aide. The Psalters which we use in Ghurch, therefore, when we read the day selections, are often as ineptly and even absurdly combined as though we were to read one after the other in immediate juxtaposition, as part of our worship, Sunday after Sunday, such combinations as : All hail the power of Jesus' Name. Oft in danger, oft in woe.
Blest be the tie that binds.
From Greenland's icy mountains.
Saviour, when in dust to Thee.' "
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