Family singing

“Why should we be ashamed to let our neighbors know that we owned and praised God in our families as well as our churches? … The occasion of the Jailor’s conversion, was by the singing of Paul and Silas; and we know not how many persons may be converted by our practising this duty; and this I may say, that it is a very ready way to discountenance profane songs, and to promote religion. O that it could be said of us, as it was of the primitive christians, who, instead of singing profane songs, used nothing but spiritual and divine hymns; so that, (as St. Jerom relates of the place where he lived), you could not go into the field, but you might hear the ploughman at his hallelujahs, the mower at his hymns, and the vine-dresser singing David’s Psalms.” 

Unknown writer, quoted by John Dobell in his “Preface” to A New Selection of Seven Hundred Evangelical Hymns for Private, Family, and Public Worship: (Many Original) from more than Two Hundred of the Best Authors in England, Scotland, Ireland, & America, Arranged in an alphabetical order; Intended as a Supplement to Dr. Watts’s Psalms and Hymns (Morris-Town: Peter A. Johnson, 1810, p. v).