Whist

In the Puritan era, cards held a place of ambivalence. On the one hand, certain contexts or aspects of card-playing could be construed as violations of the third commandment (concerning lots), sixth commandment (indolence) or eighth commandment (wasteful gaming, or gambling). On the other, if certain criteria were met, card-playing need not be condemned carte blanche, but might under the right circumstances be enjoyed as a lawful recreation.

William Perkins, Cases of Conscience in Works, Vol. 2, pp. 141-142 (modernized type):

Games of hazard are those in which hazard only bears the sway, and orders the game, and not wit; wherein also there is (as we say) chance, yea, mere chance in regard of us. Of this kind is Dicing, and sundry games at the Tables and Cards. Now games that are of mere hazard, by the consent of godly Divines are unlawful. The reasons are these.

First, games of mere hazard are indeed lots; and the use of a lot is an act of religion, in which we refer unto God the determination of things of moment, that can no other way be determined. For in the use of a lot there be four things. The first is, a causal act done by us, as the casting of the Die. The second is, the applying of this act to the determination of some particular controversy, the ending whereof maintain peace, order and love among men. The third is confession, that God is a sovereign Judge, to end and determine things that can no other way be determined. The fourth is supplication, that God would by the disposition of the lot when it is cast, determine the event. And these actions are enfolded in the use of a lot, and they are expressed, Act. 1. v. 24, 25, 26. Now then, seeing the use of a lot is a solemn act of religion, it may not be applied to sporting, as I have showed in the first conclusion. Secondly, such games are not recreations, but rather matter of stirring up troublesome passions, as fear, sorrow, &c. and so they distemper the body and mind. Thirdly, covetousness is commonly the ground of them all. Whereupon it is, that men usually play for money. And for these causes, such plays by the consent of learned Divines, are unlawful.

The third kind of plays are mixed, which stand partly of hazard, and partly of wit, and in which hazard begins the game, and skill gets the victory: and that which defective by reason of hazard, is corrected by wit.

To this kind are referred some games at the cards and tables. Now the common opinion of learned Divines is, that as they are not to be commended, so they are not simply to be condemned, and if they be used, they must be used very sparingly. Yet there be others that hold these mixed games to be unlawful, and judge the very dealing of the cards to be a lot, because it is a mere causal action. But (as I take it) the bare dealing of the cards is no more a lot, than the dealing of an alms, when the Princes Almner puts his hand into his pocket, and gives, for example, to one man six pence, to another twelve pence, to another two pence, what comes forth without any choice. Now this causal distribution is not a lot, but only a causal action. And in a lot there must be two things. The first is, a causal act: the second, the applying of the foresaid act, to the determination of some particular and uncertain event. Now the dealing of the cards is a causal act; but the determination of the uncertain victory is not from the dealing of the cards in mixed games, but from the wit and skill, at least from the will of the players. But in things that are of the nature of a lot, the wit and will and a man hath no stroke at all. Nevertheless, though the dealing of the cards and mixed games be no lots; yet it is far safer and better to abstain from them, than to use them, and where they are abolished, they are not to be restored again, because in common experience, many abuses and inconveniences attend upon them: and things unnecessary, when they are much abuses, because they are abused, they must not be used, but rather removed, as the brazen serpent was, 2 King. 18. 4.

In seventeen-century old England and new England, one card game in particular stood out as an acceptable recreation, and it was called Whist. It's predecessor was Ruff and Honours, and its successor in popularity is Bridge. Whist is wist not (unknown, pardon the grammatical awkwardness as well as the feeble attempt at humor) by many today, but it gained widespread acceptance even in Puritan circles back in the day.

Francis J. Bremer and Tom Webster, eds., Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America, p. 554:

Card games, which took England by storm in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, did pose a dilemma to Puritans. They associated cards with the Italians and French, both of whom they assumed were usually depraved in their pursuit of amusements. Additionally, cards lent themselves easily to gambling and indolence. On the other hand, card games were cheap, easily accessed, great fun, and could teach arithmetic skills. In general, most Puritan moralists never explicitly condemned card games but remained uneasy about them. In New England, however, during the late seventeenth century, whist became an extremely popular card game and enjoyed widespread acceptability. Whist parties became commonplace and often had more than a dozen participating couples.

Bruce C. Daniels, Puritans at Play, p. 179:

Whist was the most frequently played game in old and New England. Particularly popular with the upper classes in England, whist was so ubiquitous among the gentry and clergy that it becamse a staple of satirical literature used to lampoon them: "to cheat the thirsty moments, whist awhile," one wit advised a minister fighting boredom. People believed that whist required quiet concentration to devise strategy; hence its name: "whist" meant "silence." [This is disputed by some since the game was originally called "whisk" which was morphed into "whist."] No one knows its origins for certain, but in England whist was first widely played in the 1640s. Its appeal to the elite rested somewhat on its snob appeal as a game reputedly for refined and intelligent players.
...
Whist applead to the same constituency in New England as it did in England. Ministers, merchants, college students, and professionals embraced it as their game of choice. Women seldom played cards -- the competition was thought to be inimicable to their nature -- but elite women did often play whist, which seemed to be the exception to the rule.
...
In almost all ways whist was the ideal game for Puritan society: quiet, contemplative, and companionable, it required skills of logic and arithmetic; it could not be readily played in a rowdy atmosphere or under the influence of alcohol; and, unlike many games, whist needed no betting to make the competition exciting. In fact players seldom gambled on whist. Not likely to lead to other vices, whist met all the criteria for useful recreation.

The History of Musical Instruments in American Churches

The question is sometimes asked, when were musical instruments first employed in American churches? Here are the results of some of my research in this area.

Bruce C. Daniels, Puritans at Play: Leisure and Recreation in Colonial New England, p. 59:

[Thomas] Brattle, a devout Puritan and the treasurer of Harvard College, imported the first organ into New England in 1708; he played it in his home to the delight of many friends. At his death in 1713, Brattle willed the organ to the Brattle Square Church, the most liberal Congregational church in town [Boston, Massachusetts]. The church trustees faced a difficult choice -- one that Thomas Brattle must have anticipated -- and planned to force Puritans to rethink their position on the use of instruments in worship. Not surprisingly, the trustees compromised. "With all due respect," they wrote, "[we] do think it proper to use the same [the organ] in the public worship of God." But they were indeed respectful, not scandalized -- and they gave the organ to King's Chapel, one of the Anglican churches in Boston. Thus, through the good offices of a leading Puritan and of a Puritan board of church elders, organ music was introduced to religious worship. Brattle's remained the sole organ in New England for two decades, until an Anglican parish in Newport imported another in 1733. Shortly after, two more appeared in Boston, one each at the other two Anglican parishes, and then in rapid-fire succession a couple of dozen Anglican parishes elsewhere in Massachusetts and Connecticut bought and installed them. In the 1750s, organs began appearing among the household possessions of many merchants, dissenters and Congregationalists alike, and in 1770, the first Puritan church to allow one, the Congregational Church of Providence, installed an organ of two hundred pipes, a truly magnificent instrument for its time. Providence's Anglican church, piqued at being upstaged by the Congregationalists, immediately ordered one, which was installed the following year. The two Providence parishes engaged distinguished organists, Benjamin West being hired by the Congregationalists and Andrew Law by the Anglicans. The breakthrough became nearly complete when the Brattle Square Church, had refused the first organ in New England, bought one in 1790.15

15. Owen, "Eighteenth-Century Organs," 656, 677-681; Hoover, "Epilogue to Sacred Music," 738-39; Sinclair Hitchings, "The Musical Pursuits of William Price and Thomas Johnson," in Lambert, ed., Music in Colonial Massachusetts, vol. 2, 631-32; Joyce Ellen Mangler, "Early Music in Rhode Island Churches: Music in the First Congregational Church, Providence, 1770-1850," RIH, 17 (1958), 1-3; William Dinneen, "Early Music in Rhode Island Churches: Music in the First Baptist Church, Providence," RIH, 17 (1958), 33-38.

Julius Melton, Presbyterian Worship in America: Changing Patterns Since 1787, pp. 35, 150:

Some churches which early took the controversial step of installing an organ were First Presbyterian Church of Alexandria, Virginia, in 1817; Independent Presbyterian of Savannah, Georgia, by the 1820's; and First Presbyterian of Rochester, New York, by 1830. Second Presbyterian Church of Charleston, South Carolina, went through a stormy controversy over using a choir and instruments -- highlighted by the padlocking of the cello by some conservatives -- before it finally secured an organ in 1856.[21]

It is worth noting that American Presbyterians preceded those in Scotland by a number of years in making this change in their common inherited pattern of church music. There was no successful introduction of an organ in Scottish Presbyterianism until 1860.[22]

[21] Daniel W. Hollis, Look to the Rock: One Hundred Ante-bellum Presbyterian Churches of the South (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1961), p. 129
[22] William D. Maxwell, A History of Worship in the Church of Scotland (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), p. 167

John Price, Old Light on New Worship: Musical Instruments and The Worship of God, A Theological, Historical and Psychological Study, pp. 133-135:

The first Puritan church to have an organ was the First Congregational Church in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1770.[222]

[222] Charles H. Lippy and Peter W. Williams, ed., Encylopedia of the American Religious Experience, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988), Vol. 3, 1292.

Even among the Anglicans, who often had an organ, there were some who stood against its use into the late 1700s. Dr. Tho. Bradbury Chandler, a New England Episcopalian minister, had resisted an organ against the increasing pressure of his congregation. After his farewell sermon in 1785, realizing that the end of his life was near, he told his people, "that it would not be long before he was in his grave -- he knew that before his head was cold there, they would have an Organ -- and they might do as they pleased."[225]

In America, the Baptists were among the last to give way before the rising flood of the use of organs. David Benedict (1779-1874), a New England Baptist pastor and historian, states that the first organ in a Baptist church was about 1820 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

[225] Ezra Stiles, The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, ed. Franklin Bowditch Dexter, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901), Vol. 3, 162.

The Scottish Presbyterian churches, founded by John Knox in the 16th century, maintained their no-instrumental convictions for well over three hundred years, nearly one hundred years longer than their brethren in England and America. It was not until the late 19th century that the organ began to enter the worship of the Scottish Reformed churches. The famous American revivalist team of Moody and Sankey seems to have been one means of eroding the convictions of these churches. In 1873, Dwight L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey began an evangelistic tour of the British Isles. Sankey sang solo gospel songs while accompanying himself with a portable organ.