[1]Dr. Louis F. Benson has well characterized this Psalter in its influence on French character: “The metrical Psalter made the Huguenot character. No doubt a character nourished on Old Testament ideals will lack the full symmetry of the Gospel. But the Huguenot was a warrior, first called to fight and suffer for his faith. And in singing psalms he found his confidence and strength.... In the wars of religion, the Psalms in meter were the songs of camp and march, the war cry on the field, the swan song at the martyr’s stake.” [2]“Of course, psalms in the ballad form were easily learned and kept in memory. And in the days when the ability to read was less general than now, these rhymes, scattered so freely broadcast, took root in many a mind and contributed powerfully to the righteousness and stability of the nation.” (J. Balcom Reeves, in _The Hymn in History and Literature_.) CHAPTER XIV [1]Comparing the English church with the German, Horder exclaims: “The Puritans, indeed, had in their midst a finer poet than Luther, but they never introduced even Milton’s superb renderings of certain of the Psalms into their worship. What a use Luther would have put Milton to, if he had been a member of his church! What songs he would have written! Aye, what music, too!” [2]“Thus the psalms have been at once an inspiration and a bondage: _an inspiration_ in that they have kindled the fire which has produced the hymnody of the entire church; _a bondage_, because, by stereotyping religious expression, they robbed the heart of the right to express in its own words the fears, the joys, the hopes that the Divine Spirit had kindled in their souls.” (W. Garrett Horder, in _The Hymn Lover_.) [3]Thomas Wright in his recent _Life of Isaac Watts_ remarks: “Earlier in this work I referred to Watts’ enthusiasm for, and his indebtedness to, John Mason, who deserves rather than any other writer the name of the Father of the Modern Hymn. If there had not been a Mason there would never have been a Watts.” CHAPTER XV [1]It is perhaps needless to say that the word “vulgar” did not have the opprobrious connotation that it inevitably brings today. It simply meant “ordinary.” [2]George W. Garrett Horder, in _The Hymn Lover_. CHAPTER XVI [1]“It was their love of social psalmody that made Methodist hymnody what it was, and it was the desire to better parochial psalmody that furnished John Wesley with the original motive of his work in hymnody.” (Dr. Louis F. Benson, in _The English Hymn_. [New York: Harper and Bros.] Used by permission.)