The congregational “deacon” of New England has long been a subject of pleasantry: one of the best instances being afforded by Mr. Lowell in the character of Deacon Bitters, in his inimitable ‘Fitz-Adam’s Story,’ 1867. To deacon-off a hymn or a metrical psalm was to “line it out.” To deacon berries, to put the largest on the top. To deacon land, to extend one’s fences fraudulently (Farmer). To deacon wine, &c., to adulterate it (Century D.). The word was frequently contracted to “Dea.” or “Deac.”
1791.
| With prayer the solemn work begins; | |
| A song of Zion next succeeds; | |
| And here the deacon, rising slow, | |
| Gravely proclaims the psalm, and reads. | |
Gazette of the U.S., Phila., Sept. 14: from the Mass. Magazine. |
1793. The deacon, with too much apparent sanctity to be real, whined out the psalm line by line.—Mass. Spy, March 7: from the Concord Herald.
1793. A deaconish story, and fair promises.—Id., August 8.
1794. I should hate to have a deaconish fellow for a sweetheart, much more for a husband.—Id., May 22.
1821. Deac Josiah Bridge is mentioned in the Mass. Spy, Feb. 28, and Dea. Ebenezer Read, April 4, “Died, Mrs. Judith White, 2d wife of Deac. Moses White.”—Id., May 23.
1822. I was very sorry to observe that our custom of lining out the hymn as sung scarcely exists [on the Atlantic Coast]; and that singing, in many cases, was profanely abandoned to the choir, as though praise at any rate might be done by proxy.—Letter of William Ward, Mass. Spy, Feb. 13.
1823. Some fifty years ago, it was the province of one of the Deacons, after the Psalm had been read from the pulpit, to repeat it line by line.—Mass. Spy, Oct. 8: from the New Hampshire Sentinel.
1831. It was the custom in many parts of New England to sing the psalms and hymns by “deaconing” them, that is, by the deacon’s reading each line previous to its being sung.—Troy (N.Y.) Watchman, Sept. 3.
1845. The insult was given by deaconing out, as the phrase goes, the following verses.—T. W. Coit, ‘Puritanism,’ p. 232. (N.E.D.)
1852. In the goodly village of Q., which was the scene of our present sketch, Dea. Pip lived, and now lives, if he is not dead.—Yale Lit. Mag., xvii. 345 (Aug.).
1857. By some accident, I heard that Dea. Bigpurse had a partner—a Mr. Plainbody—who continually persisted in going about and sewing up the tears which his senior partner made in the hearts of the poor.—Id., xxii. 282 (June).
1856. It had been a custom [at Londonderry, NH.] from earliest days to “deacon the hymn,” that is, the precentor read two lines, and then all sung them, and so to the end.—Lawrence, ‘New Hampshire Churches,’ p. 94.
1867.
| A deacon he, you saw it in each limb, | |
| And well he knew to deacon-off a hymn, | |
| Or lead the choir through all its wandering woes | |
| With voice that gathered unction in his nose. | |
‘Fitz-Adam’s Story,’ Atlantic Monthly, xix. p. 25 (Jan.). |
