In April 1902, at Geneva, Switzerland, a lecture was given by a man described later by Lorraine Boettner as the the author of “the most exhaustive and authoritative work ever published on [John] Calvin” - Émile Doumergue. Seven years later, on the occasion of Calvin’s 400th birthday, this address on “Music in the Work of Calvin” was translated and published by B.B. Warfield. It highlights not only a tremendous appreciation on the part of Calvin for Biblical aesthetics in worship, but also how very foundational one particular aspect of the arts was to the Calvinistic branch of Christendom - the Psalter. One extract is here given, but the entire address is very much worth reading (found here).
Here we are, gentlemen, on a fine afternoon in May, 1558, on the great promenade of the students of Paris, the Pré-aux-Clercs, on the banks of the Seine. Some students are singing the Psalms, and their singing is so fine that their comrades gather and sing with them. The same scene is repeated the next day. Only, the lords of the court — Chatillon, Condé, the King of Navarre — mingle with the singers. It is a procession of seven or eight hundred people which unrolls itself, and the immense and delighted crowd listens with transport. What is it? The apparition of the Psalm, sung in chorus — “that unexpected harmony”, as Michelet puts it, “that sweet, simple and strong singing, so strong as to be heard a thousand leagues away, so sweet that everyone thought he heard in it the voice of his mother”. And while to the echoes of the Pré-aux-Clercs, there were answering the echoes of the Pré Fichaut of Bourges or of the promenades of Bordeaux, the old historian of the University of Paris, Bulee, said: “In the singing of the Psalms, the Protestants laid the foundations of their religion”; and Florimond de Raemond said: “It is from this event [the apparition of the Psalms] that the Church of Calvin may be dated” — the Church of the Psalms.
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From that moment, the Psalms have been indissolubly bound up with the life, public and private alike, of Calvinists, and, as has been remarked, it would be possible to make a calendar, in which all the salient events of the history of French Protestantism should be recalled by a verse of a Psalm.
Here is that famous verse, for example, of Psalm 118:
This is the happy day
That God Himself did make;
Let us rejoice alway
And in it pleasure take.
Now, in describing the battle of Coutras (1587), won by Henry of Navarre, the son of Jeanne d’Albret, from the Duke de Joyeuse and the Catholic army, D’Aubigne expresses himself thus:
“Of the two artilleries, the last to come, that of Huguenots, was the first in position, and commenced to play before nine o’clock. Laverdin, seeing the damage which it did, rode towards his general and cried out, while still some distance off: ‘Sir, we are losing by waiting: we must open up.’ The response was: ‘Monsieur the Marshal speaks the truth.’ He returned at a gallop to his place, gave the word and charged.
“On the other side, the King of Navarre having had prayer offered throughout the army, some began to sing the Hundred-and-eighteenth Psalm: ‘This is the happy day.’ Many Catholics of the White-Cap cried out loudly enough to be heard: ‘S’Death! They are trembling, the poltroons; they are making confession.’ Vaux, lieutenant of Belle-garde, who had more frequently rubbed knees with these people and who alone rallied for the combat, said to the Duke: ‘Sir, when the Huguenots take this figure, they are ready to lay on with a will.’ ” And some hours later the victory was theirs.
But this same song, “This is the happy day”, has sustained the Calvinists in other combats, more dangerous, more difficult. It is heroic to cast ourselves at a gallop without fear into the midst of the battle. It is more heroic, laid on a bed of agony, to receive, calm and smiling, the assault of the last enemy which man has to conquer on this earth. Such a hero, the author whose narrative we have just read showed himself. His widow relates: “Two hours before his death, he said with a joyful countenance and a mind peaceable and content, ‘This is the happy day’.” There is something more heroic still. Listen! Far from the excitement of the combat, unsustained by the affections and care of friends, face to face with the mob howling with rage and hate, on the scaffold, at the foot of the gallows, here are the martyrs of the eighteenth century, — the Louis Rancs, the Frangois Benezets, the Frangois Rochettes,' — who, with their glorious souls, raise towards the heavens where their Saviour listens to them, the song of triumph: “This is the happy day!”
The Psalms in the heart of the Bible were at the heart of Biblical worship as envisioned and practiced by John Calvin. To join with him in singing such praise to God — oh, this is the happy day!
