by Kenneth L. Carroll
Originally pubished in Spring 1984 in Quaker History. Note: the headers have been added for clarity of reading. You can read a brief synospsis of Carroll’s findings about early Friends’ views and practices in Jim Fussell’s article on Singing in the Spirit.
Early Friends were quite convinced that they were living in a “new age”—one which closely paralleled that of the church in the days of the Apostles. They sometimes saw themselves as “prophets” — dressing in sackcloth and ashes, going “naked as a sign,” and expressing their prophetic calling in still other ways. [Kenneth L. Carroll, “Sackcloth and Ashes and Other Signs and Wonders,” Journal of Friends Historical Society, LIII (1975), pp. 3 14-325, “Early Quakers and’Going Naked as a Sign’,” Quaker History, LXVII (1978), pp. 69-87.] Some were given to the performance of “healings” and other miracles. [Cf. Henry J. Cadbury, George Fox s Book of Miracles (Cambridge, 1948) for a good presentation of this subject.] Like the earliest Christians they, too, were guided by the Spirit and attempted to live and worship in the spirit. Their knowledge of scripture (which reflected and recorded the life and experiences of the primitive church) influenced their attitudes and practices very much. [Henry J . Cadbury, Quakerism and Early Christianity (London, 1 957) provides a fascinating discussion of the parallels between early Quakerism and early Christianity.]
One of the more intriguing aspects of early Quakerism is to be seen in its somewhat mixed attitude toward singing. Today it is widely known that the earliest Quakers rejected the practice of singing “David’s Psalms” which was so much a part of the seventeenth century English worship, attacking it as a “form.” Few people today, however, know that the earliest Quakers did not thereby rule out all use of music—but often sang in a variety of places, including even meetings for worship.
Distinction between Spirit-guided Song and Singing of Psalms
The foundation for the early Quaker attitude toward the singing of Psalms was, to some degree, already laid before the start of Fox’s preaching. Geoffrey Nuttall long ago pointed out that in late sixteenth century England there was a growing movement against “set prayers.” [Geoffrey F. Nuttall, The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience (Oxford, 1946), p. 66.] By the 1640s there had developed a much greater rejection of “stinted prayers.” In Cromwell’s Army, Nuttall notes, Baxter “found the men ‘sometimes against the tying of our Selves to any Duty before the Spirit moves us’.” [Ibid., p. 67] Thus, there was even some opposition to the “customary use” of the Lord’s Prayer. Nuttall’s summary of the situation is that “The more extreme the radicalism the more insistence we find that the prayer only is spiritual which is dependent on the immediate movings of the Holy Spirit.” [Ibid., p. 67]
As might be expected, there was a somewhat similar development where hymn-singing was concerned. From 1644 to the Restoration in 1660 all church music was prohibited by Parliamentary decree except unaccompanied singing of “metrical versions of the Psalms.” Some radical Puritans objected to hymn or psalm singing from books (a position taken both by Particular and General Baptists and also by the Amsterdam Separatists led by John Smith). [Ibid. , p. 73. Cf. Edwin H. Alton, Quakers and Music in the British Isles (1965), unpublished typescript at Friends House Library, London, pp. 14, 20-21, 23.]
A number of early Friends had already arrived at such a position in their pre-Quaker Days: William Springett and his wife refused to sing the Psalms of David “in meter,” as did also William Dewsbury, George Whitehead, Luke Howard, and Samuel Fisher before they became convinced Friends. [William Sewel, The History of the Rise, Increase and Progress of the Christian People Called Quakers (Burlington, N.J., 1774), p. 104; Luke Howard, Love and Truth in Plainness Manifested (2 vols., London, 1704), I, pp. 6-7; William Dewsbery, The Faithful Testimony of that Ancient Servant of the Lord, and Minister of the everlasting Gospel, William Dewsbery (London, 1689), pp. 45-55; W. C. Braithwaite, Beginnings of Quakerism (London, 1923), pp. 13, 63]
Most churches did have the singing of Psalms as a regular part of their worship service. The favorite collections were by Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins. Sternhold’s earlier metrical versions of the Psalms may have been done as early as the time of Henry VIII. His meter had four rhymes, while those of Hopkins had two. The Sternhold and Hopkins’ edition of the Psalms is reported to have had a greater circulation than any book in the English language with the exception of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. [Dictionary of National Biography (London, 1885-1905), XXVII, pp. 334-335, and LIV, pp. 223-224, contains articles on Hopkins and Sternhold.]
George Fox, who attacked “forms without power,” was opposed to the singing of these “metrical Psalms” in worship. He and his followers expressed their opposition in a number of ways — and especially in the written word. A very early manuscript, probably by Richard Farnsworth (d. 1666), sets forth the early Quaker position quite clearly:
- The children of Israel after their deliverance from Egypt broke out in songs to praise God (Exodus 15:1-18), as did Deborah and Barak at the time of their victory over the Canaanites (Judges 5), “long before Hopkins & Sternhould’s Time”;
- David himself called upon people to sing unto the Lord and to give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness (Ps. 30:4), “long before Hopkins and Sternhould and some other poets put David’s conditions into rhyme and meter for people to singe”;
- when God “Requires A people to sing he teaches them what to say” (and this “without Hopkins & Sternhould’s poetry who hath put David’s prayers & prophecies, . . . and mourning into rhyme & meeter, with an addition of their own innovation & lies”);
- in the early church before the time of Apostasy (i.e. , before the church hardened into a system and departed from its primitive simplicity), those who sang psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs were called to “singe with the spirit & singe with understanding also” (1 Cor. 14:15)];
- Since the Apostasy (falling away from the living Christianity of the apostolic times) people did not know what to sing until Sternhold and Hopkins and “some other poets made them songs of David’s condition and added thereunto their own inventions & lies and people are set to sing them (now as the false prophets) without the True Spirit to give them spiritual understanding.”
He continues:
For when they sing say[ing]: O Lord I am not puffed in my mind, doe they not lie in the name of the Lord; but if they were guided by the true Spirit, they dare not take upon them willfully to Lie. For God’s people do not willingly Lie…. But they that sing & say they are not puffed in mind, when they are puffed in minde; and say they have no scornful eye one at another, and say they are as a little child that is weaned from his mother’s breast (so he is without actual transgression) when they are not soe and sayes, all their bones shakes, then they doe not soe; And sayes they are mourning all the day long, when they do not so (for just as they are mourning all the day long what time or part of that day came they to singing), do not such both lie & sing without the Spirit & true spiritual understanding and is that any wayes to the praise of God, or is it not rather a selfish act.
The author points out that Hopkins and Sternhold, in order to work out their “meter and rhymes,” often make David say something which is not in scripture. Thus, those that sing their psalms have “Ignorantly… grounded a confidence upon a lie.” [Portfolio 36, 138, Friends House Library, London. This early manuscript bears the caption “Concerning Singing, &c.”]
John Whitehead, in a 1655 statement, echoes the arguments of Farnworth against the use of “David’s Psalms in rhyme and metre,” pointing out that
proud men and men of strife and contention sing these words, turned into rhyme: “Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty, neither do I exercise myself in great matters, not in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of its mother; my soul is as a weaned child.” And those that live without the fear of God, and never come into any true sense of their sins, but live in jollity and wantonness, sing: “All my flesh trembles, I am afraid of thy judgments: I go mourning all the day: all the night make I my bed to swim.” Thus poor, ignorant people sing lies to the Lord, whereby he is dishonoured. [John Whitehead, The Life & Writings of John Whitehead, an Early & Eminent Minister of the Gospel in the Society of Friends (London, 1852), p. 40.]
Similar attacks on the use of David’s Psalms as “rhymed and metered” by Sternhold and Hopkins were made by James Naylor [James Nayler, A Collection of Sundry Books, Epistles & Papers (London, 1716), p. 698], Edward Burrough in 1656, 1657, 1658, and 1659, [Edward Burrough, Truth Defended. Or Certain Accusations answered, Cast upon us who are called Quakers, by the Teachers of the World, and the People of this Generation (London, 1656), p. 12; The Rebukes of A Reviler Fallen upon his own head (London, 1657), pp. 52-53; The True Christian Religion Againe Discovered (London, 1658), p. 7; A Discovery of some part of the War between the Kingdom of the Lamb and the Kingdom of Anti-Christ (London, 1659), p. 27] Edward Cook[e] in 1670, [Edward Cook, Some Considerations Proposed to all you that sing Davids Sundry Experiences, Confessions, Complaints, Exhortations, Prophesies, Praises, &c in Rhyme and Meter (n p., 1670)], and Robert Barclay in his Apology (1676) [Robert Barclay, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, As the same Held Forth, and Preached, by the People called, in Scorn, Quakers, 6th edition (London, 1736), pp. 406-407 (Proposition XI, section xxvi). Cf. Robert Barclay, Truth Triumphant Through the Spiritual Warfare, Christian Labours & Writings of that Able & Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ (London, 1692) pp. 29-30. Cf. William Sewel, op. cit., I, p.218, concerning Richard Clayton’s putting a paper on a “steeple house door” (1655), asking many questions including “whether it was expedient to give to scoffers, scorners, drunkards, swearers, and persecutors, David’s condition to sing?”]
Quakers did not insist that all singing of David’s Psalms was wrong, but only when done by one who was not in David’s “condition.” Richard Hubberthorn, answering a priest who had attacked Quakerism, says (while discussing the singing of Psalms in prison by Paul and Silas) that there is a
difference betwixt the Saints singing with grace and understanding, and the World, which have gotten the form, where thou art: The Apostle did not speak to such as were in thy condition, to be filled with the spirit, who were not come to repentance; but he spoke to them who were turned from the World, and such sing praises to God…. But David’s condition and the Saints’, is witnessed among them whom the World scornfully call Quakers, which power makes all tremble, though you scorn it a while and have gotten the outside, the letter, David’s condition in a form of words, scorning his life, and the power of God where it is made manifest. [Richard Hubberthorn, A Collection of the Several Books of that Faithful Servant of God, Richard Hubberthorn (London, 1663), p. 13]
Robert Barclay, who in his Apology condemns the usual practice of singing Psalms, also sees that under certain conditions there is a place for such songs:
As to the singing of Psalms, there will not be need of any long discourse…. We confess this to be a part of God’s Worship, and very sweet and refreshful, when it proceeds from a true sense of God’s Love in the heart, and arises from the divine influence of the Spirit, which leads souls to breathe forth either a sweet harmony, or words suitable to the present condition; whether they be words formerly used by the saints, and recorded inScripture, such as the Psalms of David, or other words; as were the hymns and songs of Zacharias, Simeon, and the blessed Virgin Mary. [Barclay, Apology, Prop. XI, section xxvi, pp.406-407. He continues: “But as for the formal customary way of singing, it hath in Scripture no foundation, nor any ground in true Christianity.”]
Singing during Persecution
Early Quakers not only believed that one might sing but that one might sing even the Psalms when singing in the spirit. One early anti-Quaker tract reports, when attacking Quaker “pretended” miracles, that two Quakers in prison at Chester (or some other place in the west) “were singing of Psalms together, a thing they so highly exclaimed against others for doing, and suddenly such a glorious light shone into the prison, as made the jailer to come trembling, and fall down before them, whereupon he and his household were converted to them that day.” [Jonathan Clapham, A Full Discovery and Confutation of the Wicked & Damnable Doctrines of the Quakers (London, 1656), p. 45] Incarceration in prison produced other examples of singing. Thomas Holme, writing to Margaret Fell from Chester prison in the spring of 1654, reported that “a little before midnight the power of the lord came upon me and sweet melody was within me and about midnight I was compelled to sing and the power was so great it made all my fellow prisoners amazed and some were shaken for the power was exceeding great.” [Swarthmore Manuscripts, I, p. 190 (Transcripts II, p. 329). Ed. Note: Holme appears prominently in the carefully researched historical novel, Kendal Sparrow: A Novel of Elizabeth Fletcher, by Barbara Schell Luetke. The novel describes Holme’s penchant for bursting into ecstatic song.] Holme felt real peace and joy in having been obedient to the command of the Lord. Thomas Briggs, who was put in a dungeon after being arrested in Manchester, reported that “when I was put into that hole, the Lord’s power and presence did so fill my heart, that I sang for joy, to the admiration of those that put me in.” [Thomas Briggs, An Account of Some of the Travels and Sufferings of that Faithful Servant of the Lord, Thomas Briggs (n.p., 1685), p.4] In 1655 George Fox, George Whitehead, and George Rofe were placed in the dungeon at Bury St. Edmunds where they sang “Praises to the Lord our God in the sweet enjoyment and living sense of his glorious presence, being nothing terrified nor dismayed at their cruelties, but cheerfully resigned in the Will of the Lord to suffer for his name and Truth’s sake.” [George Whitehead, The Christian Progress of that Ancient Servant and Minister of Jesus Christ, George Whitehead (London, 1725), p. 87] Catharine Evans, while a prisoner of the Inquisition on Malta, sang hymns. [Cf. Bulletin of Friends Historical Association, XXV (1936), pp. 50-51, for a review of Percy A. Scholes, The Puritans and Music in England and New England: A Contribution to the Cultural History of Two Nations (London, 1934), where we read that the Dutch edition of Sewel’s History gives not only the words but also the score of the hymns she sang.]
Alexander Jaffray reports the very interesting experience of thirty or forty Friends in prison in Aberdeen, Scotland:
and not a word had been spoken among us, either in prayer or preaching,—we breathing in our hearts for power to do the Lord’s will;—his power at last broke In among us in a wonderful manner, to the melting and tendering our hearts. And though I was kept very empty a long time, yet at last the glorious power of God broke over the whole meeting, and upon me also, and ravished my heart,—yea, did appear as a ray of divine glory, to the ravishing of my soul, and all the living ones in the meeting. So that some of those that were in the town-council above us confessed to some of our number with tears, that the breaking in of that power, even among them, made them say one to another, “O, how astonishing it is, that our ministers should say, the Quakers have no psalms in their meetings; for such a heavenly sound we never heard in either old or new church.” [Alexander Jaffray, Diary of Alexander Jaffray… with Memoirs of the Rise, Progress, and Persecution, of the People Called Quakers, in the North of Scotland (London, 1833), p. 513. Jaffray (1614-1673) was at one time chief magistrate at Aberdeen.]
Some early Friends were also moved to sing when they were held in stocks, as can be seen in the case of Elizabeth Cowart and Margaret Newby who were fastened in the stocks at Evesham in the autumn of 1655. Their letter to Margaret Fell tells what happened after Cowart had been placed in the “thieves” stocks. Newby began to speak, and then she was “moved to sing & Friends were much broken & the heathen were much astonished.” Then Newby was also placed with both feet in the stocks, where the two of them were to be kept overnight and then whipped and sent away. They were ordered not to sing (upon penalty of having both hands placed in the stocks also); “nevertheless we did not forbear being both moved eternally by the lord to sing in the stocks.” After a night in the stocks they were carried out of the town, where it was reported of one of them that “when they had taken her the power of the lord was much seen & she was carried on in much rejoicing & singing.” [Swarthmore MSS I, p. 359 (Tr. I, p. 650). Margaret Newby and Elizabeth Cowart to Margaret Fell, from Tewkesbury, 25th of 9th Month, 1655. Cf. Braithwaite, Beginnings of Quakerism, p. 197]
Barbara Blaugdone (16097-1704) records that she was whipped by a beadle “till the blood ran down my back.” She reported, however, that
I never startled at a blow; but the Lord made me to rejoice, that I was counted worthy to suffer for his name’s sake, and I sang aloud; and the beadle said, “Do ye sing, I shall make ye cry by and by; and with that he laid more stripes, and laid them on very hard. I shall never forget the large experience of the Love and Power of God which I had in my travels, and therefore I can speak to his praise, and glorifie his name: for if he had whipped me to death in that state which I was in, I should not have been terrified or dismayed by it. [Barbara Blaugdone, An Account of the Travels, Sufferings & Persecutions of Barbara Blaugdone (Shoreditch, 1691), pp. 15-16. Ed. note: You can find several of Blaugdone’s writings in the collection, Hidden in Plain Sight: Quaker Women’s Writings, 1650-1700, ed. by Mary Garman et al]
Not only did a number of early Friends sing while experiencing persecution, whether it be in stocks, prisons, or whippings, but some of them also sang in Quaker meetings. A 1655 letter from Thomas Willan to Margaret Fell reports that Thomas and Elizabeth Holme
were very much exercised by the power of the lord in songs and himes [hymns] and prayer that made melody & rejoiced the heart of some, but being not in wisdom of words altogether made some scruple especially friends of Underbarrow, but truly it was the preaching of the cross, which will confound, the enticing words of man’s wisdom. [Swarthmore MSS I, p. 247 (Tr. Ill, p. 539)]
George Fox later speaks of this 1655 development and, although noting that some at Underbarrow “scrupled” this singing, expressed his own judgment that the “life was raised thereby & refreshed in many.” [George Fox, The Journal of George Fox, edited by Norman Penney (2 vols., Cambridge, 1911), II, p. 326. Fox rephrases the passage somewhat.] Early in 1656 the same sort of expression in song manifested itself at Swarthmore. Humphrey Norton, who had lately been there, wrote to Fox that in the Swarthmore meeting “there is many speakers & prayers & such a singing as the like I have not heard.” [Ibid., I, p. 246] The Cambridge edition of Fox’s Journal reproduces a very interesting document entitled “A Paper to Papists & all professors & others,“ which states that the same “spirit that gave forth scriptures teaches us [Quakers] how to pray, praise, sing, fast & to give thanks.” [Ibid., I, p. 329 (italics added). Cf. pp. 330-331, for still other claims of singing being inspired by the spirit] There are many indications in Fox’s Journal that he approved of “singing in the spirit” and that Fox himself engaged in such singing from time to time—as seen in the case of his 1653 imprisonment or his being carried before Major Porter in 1660. [Ibid., I, pp.126, 359] He seems to approve of James Lancaster’s singing, speaking of him as being “moved.” [Ibid., I, p. 305] Fox also, when recording his attendance at the Province of Munster Meeting in Ireland (1669), said that the power of the Lord was so great that “friends in the power, & spirit of the Lord broke out into singing many together with an audible voice, making melody in their hearts.” [Ibid., II, p. 141]
Outrunning the Leading of the Spirit
As noted above there was some early “scrupling” of singing in meeting, perhaps occasioned by some Friends outrunning the leading of the spirit. About 1654 John Grave wrote to Margaret Fell about one Robert Benn who “speaks [and] sings often in meeting” but who was a burden to “many tender consciences,” for he “seems very tender but is very deceitful.” [Swarthmore MSS. IV, p.232 (Tr.IV, p.181) John Grave often spoke to Benn privately but Benn “never came down, neither did he ever spurn against it.”] Some of the more troublesome Friends of the 1650s were given to singing. When Nay1er made his controversial entrance into Bristol (1656), going as a “sign,” he and his company “sang” as they approached Bristol. When the women dismounted and walked alongside Nayler’s horse they “sang.” George Witherly, who came alongside them, later reported “he knoweth not what they sang, but they made a humming noise.” As the party entered into Bristol itself, Martha Simmonds and Hannah Stranger, holding the reigns of his horse and leading Nayler, sang “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Israel.” When Nayler and his group were brought before magistrates the small band kept singing “Hosanna” and “holy, holy, holy.'” [Ralph Farmer, Sathan Inthron ‘d in his Chair of Pestilence (London, 1657), pp.1-3. Cf. Kenneth L. Carroll, “Martha Simmonds, Early Quaker Enigma,”Journal of Friends Historical Society, LIII, (1972), pp. 31-52.] When later questioned Martha Simmonds replied that “the power of the Lord carried me to sing and lead his Horse.” [Farmer, op. cit.,p. 15.] Hannah Stranger explained her singing by saying “I cannot be silent if the Lord moved me to it. [Ibid., p. 16. Cf. p. 18, where Dorcas Erbury reported “I did not sing then; but they that did were called to it by the Lord.”]
Sometimes singing was disruptive or even an expression of opposition. Martha Simmonds, a strong supporter of Nayler, attacked Fox at Launceston Prison by singing before him.” [Swarthmore Mss. Ill, p. 153 (Tr. II, p.597)] Fox wrote to Nayler that “Martha Simmonds… came singing in my face inventing words.” [Farmer, op. cit.,p. 9] The Nayler episode was so traumatic that it seems to have helped to spawn the appearance of “some other Persons of a loose Ranting Spirit,” who “frequently disturbed our Friends Meeting in London, by their Ranting, Singing, Bawling and Reproaching us, crying out against divers of our faithful Ministers and their Testimonies.” At the forefront of “this turbulent Company was one Mildred, an impatient Woman, and Two or three Rude Boystrous Fellows, who were Ranters.” [Nayler, op. cit.,p. xvi] These types of disturbances in London continued some months before they were brought to an end. In early 1657 Richard Hubberthorne complained to Fox that “Mildred & Judy Impudently strive against the Truth.” [Swarthmore MSS, IV, 13 (Tr. II, p. 603)] Fox was led to condemn both Mildred and Judy. [Ibid., II, p.42 (Tr. IV, p.773)] The same type of disturbances appeared elsewhere in England, such as in Bristol where at the end of 1658 Friends were experiencing “great trials” at the hands of “those that are called singers.” [Ibid., I, p. 142 (Tr. IV, p. 261)] Robert Rich, one of the most extreme of Nayler’s followers, went to Barbados “where … he was turbulent in our Friends Meetings with Noisy Singing, &c.” [Nayler, op. cit., p.xvii]
Not only were a number of those who sang caught up in a ranting spirit, but others were drawn to other forms of extreme behavior-— so that they often engaged in the use of “signs and wonders.” [Concerning the use of signs, cf. Kenneth L. Carroll “Quaker Attitudes Toward Signs and Wonders,” Journal of Friends Historical Society, LIV, (1977), pp. 70-84, and other articles cited above in 1st reference note above.] At the very time that Stranger and Simmonds were singing before Nayler [Farmer, op. cit.,p. 17], Timothy Wedlocke was “led” to go naked before Nayler. In Cardiff some who sang also sat in meeting dressed in sackcloth and ashes. [Swarthmore MSS. I, p. 196 (Tr. II, pp. 371-373). Cf. Braithwaite, Beginnings of Quakerism, p. 270, where there are references to those who even burned their Bibles and were given to other “actings in the deceit.”] There is no wonder then that the practice of singing came under a growing questioning, condemnation, and rejection by many Friends (as was also true of “signs and wonders”).
It was this debate stemming from the abuse and misuse of singing which led London Yearly Meeting to issue a very significant minute on this subject in 1675 (after the start of the Wilkinson-Story controversy):
It hath been and is our living sense & constant testimony according to our experience of the divers operations of the Spirit and Power of God in his Church, that there hath been and is serious sighing, sensible groaning, and reverent singing, breathing forth an heavenly sound of joy with grace, with the Spirit and with understanding, in blessed unity with the brethren, while they are in public labour & service of the Gospel, whether by preaching, praying or praising God, in the same Power & Spirit, and all to the edification and comfort In the Church of Christ; which therefore is not to be quenched or discouraged by any: But where any do or shall abuse the Power of God, or are more unmoderate, or do either in imitation, which rather burdens than edifies, such ought to be privately admonished, unless rebellious; for that Life, Spirit and Power is risen in the Church which doth distinguish and hath power accordingly to judge. [Christian and Brotherly Advices Given forth from time to time by the Yearly Meetings in London, minute 42. This Book of Extracts is found in Friends House Library, London. Cf. William C. Braithwaite, The Second Period of Quakerism (London, 1921), p. 300]
Decline of the Practice of Singing among Friends
The practice of singing seems to have fallen into rapid decline in England, although isolated cases can still be found after 1675. On the whole, however, it appears to have been replaced by the singsong chant or delivery which many Quaker ministers developed. In Ireland that practice, somewhat modified, continued for quite a while. James Jenkins reports that Elizabeth Tuke, an English Friend, and some Irish Friends talked about “the musical preaching of some of our ministers” and mentioned a case where a young woman had been moved to tears by the “tuneful” ministry of a female Friend. [James Jenkins, “The Records and Recollections of James Jenkins, Respecting Himself and others, From 1761 to 1821, being a period of sixty years with Additions tending to illustrate the whole,” pp. 103-104. This typescript is to be found in Friends House Library, London. The whereabouts of the original is unknown. It was the “sweet word Mesopotamia” which brought her to tears (a story somewhat reminiscent of George Whitefield’s ability to move people to tears by his very utterance of that word).] When Robert Dudley told Esther that she had “generally a sweet tune when addressing us” she answered, “I must strive against it—it is not proper.” [Ibid., p. 104] Dudley also reported that at a meeting in Cashell a man sobbing in meeting said, when asked, “it was no words I heard, that had such an effect upon me, but it was the holy twang which the good man used that was too much for me [to] bear.” [Ibid., p. 104] Samuel Neale, an Irish minister “of considerable quality,” had a “fine soft voice [which] was often (when preaching) raised into sweetest melody.” [Ibid., p. 90]
In the American colonies, just as in England, there existed this early Quaker practice of singing. Roger Williams refers to such a development when he writes
What is their monstrous way of Singing and Toning and Humming many at once, as they often do and notoriously did atPortsmouth on Rhode Island this last year, when no man is edified, nor understands what they say, and it may not themselves (and this under thecolour of singing in the Spirit) what is itI say but rendering their Tongues which should be their Glory and the Glory of God, their scorn and shame, and the holy Name of God’s holy Spirit contemptible also. [Roger Williams, George Fox Digg’s out of His Burrowes, ed. by J. Lewis Dimkan (Providence, 1872), pp. 134-135. Cf. p. 212 where he attacks the Quakers “own un-Christian, Fantastical, absurd, and unprofitable way of Toning and singing.” Cf. Arthur J.Worrall, Quakers in the Colonial Northeast (Hanover, N.H., 1980), p. 36, mistakenly reports that Quakers sang in opposition to Williams.]
There are other references to this phenomenon in New York and New England Quakerism at the end of the eighteenth century. William Edmundson refers to such behavior among a group which had “gone out from Friends” (1675), saying that Long Island Friends were troubled by “several, that were gone from Truth, and turn’d Ranters, e.g., Men and Women who would come into Friends Meetings, singing and dancing in a rude Manner, which was a great Exercise to Friends.” [William Edmundson, A Journal of the Life, Travels, Sufferings, and Labour of Love in the Work of the Ministry of William Edmundson (Dublin, 1715), p. 91] Joan Vokins seems to have encountered this same group in 1680. [Joan Vokins, God’s Mighty Power Magnified (London, 1691), pp. 34-35. She reports (p. 34) that “the opposing Ranters and Apostates could not show their antic tricks, nor oppress Friends, as they used to do; for they were very abusive in those remote Islands, and commonly did much Mischief inFriends Meetings.”] Thomas Chalkley also met “with some of the People called Ranters, who disturbed our Meetings” when he was on Long Island in 1698. [Thomas Chalkley, A Collection of the Works of Thomas Chalkley (Philadelphia, 1749), p. 22] In the colonial northeast at the end of the seventeenth century there existed a group known as the “Singing Quakers,” which Worrall identifies with the followers ofThomas Case on Long Island (although some of them seem to have spread to the mainland also). These “Singing Quakers” greatly disturbed New England Yearly Meeting in 1697, and they were excluded from the yearly meeting sessions. They are described as
an ancient sort of Quakers called Singing Quakers, whom they keep out of their Meeting house, for by the sudden raptures of singing they fall into, and by their contradicting humor, they give public disturbance to the speaker. Howbeit they are kept out of the house by persons who sit at the door for that purpose, yet they Fail not to crowd to the door and under the windows and every now and then with an elevated voice contradict the speaker who notwithstanding holds on his discourse without replying. I saw one of these Singing Quakers, a Frenchman, and discoursed with him in the French tongue; all that he would say was that they [Quakers] were fallen from the Light, and he was moved to come a long journey that he might reprove their apostasy. And indeed the Quakers themselves did acknowledge to me, those Singing Quakers were of an older standing amongst them, but had fallen into licentious practices which being against Truth, they found in themselves a witness against them. [Henry J.Cadbury, “Glimpses of Quakerism in America in 1697,” Bulletin of Friends Historical Association, LIII (1964), p. 38. This quotation is from a much fuller “A Glance at New York in 1697,” New York Historical Society Quarterly, XL (1956), pp. 55-73, dealing with the journey of Dr. Benjamin Bullivant (edited by Wayne Andrews).]
In 1704 Madam Knight spoke of “Singing Quakers” at Milford, Connecticut (where one of their members lived), describing them as sitting down “humming and singing and groaning after their conjuring way.” [Ibid., p. 38, n. 1] This somewhat perverted manifestation of “singing in the spirit” must have disappeared before too long, for there are no known references to the “Singing Quakers” after this time. [Worrall, op. cit., p. 66, notes that New England Yearly Meeting reported (with apparent satisfaction) that there had been no interruptions by ranters in 1712.]
Chanting or Singing One’s Message in Worship or “Singsong”
Yet the “singing” tradition continued in another form down through the generations in the chanting or singing of the Quaker message by many of those who traveled in the ministry. Bliss Forbush, in his book on Elias Hicks, notes how that “Contemporaries wrote that Elias Hicks sometimes used a singsong voice heard at that period in Friends’ Meetings.” [Bliss Forbush, Elias Hicks , Quaker Liberal (New York, 1956), p.164. He speaks of the”cadence” of Hicks and notes how D. Elton Trueblood has compared the “cadence of the prose poetry” of Walt Whitman to the style of preaching used by Quaker ministers.] So widely employed was this “tone” with which Quakers preached that it inspired the following item in Quaker Quiddities in 1860:
Dost miss the twang conventional, the tone
Which, by some instinct or custom strange,
So of tour public ministrations make
Revolting violations of the rules
which nature, law, and usage have ordained?
How painful and how futile, when the voice
Ranges the gamut ina single word
And touches every discord on the track!” [Quotation from Quaker Quiddities (Boston, 1860) in Bulletin of Friends
Historical Association, XVII (1920), p. 28.]
This use of the singsong, “tone,” “twang,” and cadence has almost completely disappeared from modern Quakerism, being found only in a few elderly members of Conservative or Wilburite yearly meetings. I remember hearing with great interest and some fascination, Anna E. C. Fisher using this method of giving her message at North Carolina Yearly Meeting at Woodland nearly a generation ago. As I heard this lingering vestige of “singing in the spirit” I could not help feeling (somewhat sadly) that this practice was already going the way of the plain speech, plain dress, and the Quaker bonnet. Yet I was also grateful to have had the experience of hearing something which I had only read about up to that time.
Kenneth L. Carroll was a Quaker scholar and historian, a member of Third Haven (MD) Monthly Meeting, and Professor of Religious Studies, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. He died in 2021. The Kenneth Carroll Prize is awarded by Friends Historical Association for a best article appearing in their Quaker History quarterly periodical. Pendle Hill awards Kenneth Carroll Scholarship for writing residencies.
Quaker History, Spring 1984, Vol. 73, No. 1 (Spring 1984), pp. 1-13
Published by Friends Historical Association.