The interest aroused by the “singing school,” and by the organization of choirs due to the multiplication of tune books, both English and American, delayed the abolition of the older metrical versions and postponed the introduction of Watts’ Imitations and Hymns for several decades, but the complaints from the larger and more cultured churches and their scholarly ministers became more vociferous.[2] The combination of the absurdities of the metrical versions, and those created by the senseless repetition made necessary by the fugue tunes then in use, became unendurable. II. THE INTRODUCTION OF WATTS’ HYMNS Watts’ _The Psalms of David Imitated_ was very well adapted to serve as an entering wedge. It brought a certain sanction by making David’s Psalms the foundation. They were still psalms, not hymns, and so satisfied to some degree the claims of tradition, and placated those who would have balked at hymns of “human composure.” Benjamin Franklin in 1729 was the first to reprint the Imitation, but complained that the copies remained on his shelves unsold. The demand evidently grew, for in 1741 he issued a second edition. The first reprint of Watts’ Hymns appeared in 1739 in Boston. Three years later, in 1742, Franklin reprinted them in Philadelphia, and years later still, they were republished in New York. Whitfield’s visit to America and the outburst of singing of the Great Awakening (1742), with its profound religious experiences that could find no adequate expression in the Psalms alone, gave Watts’ Hymns a larger opportunity. In 1744 the singing of Watts’ Hymns was one of the diversions of the people when they met together. It was not until after the Revolution that the introduction of Watts’ Psalms and Hymns became general. There were a number of issues with such abridgments or changes as were made necessary by Watts’ references to British conditions, by Joel Barlow, a patriotic poet, author of the _Columbiad_, and later U. S. Minister to France, and by Nathan Strong, Samuel Worcester, and Timothy Dwight, the distinguished president of Yale College. All these had considerable vogue, especially the last which contained metrical versions of the Psalms Watts had omitted and other psalms versified anew. President Dwight’s “I love Thy kingdom, Lord” appeared as a versification of Psalm 137. It is a classic, one of the two leading hymns on the Christian Church, and is rarely omitted in our hymnals. Besides the Psalms it contained 263 hymns, 168 of which were by Watts. The contentions which had occurred over methods of singing—the “Deaconing” or lining out of the hymns, the use of choirs, the fugal tunes—now gave way to differences over the use of various editions of Watts, or over the use of hymns in church service. The tradition, happily unjustified now, that the music of the church constituted “the war department” seems to have been originated during that century of conflict.