PG Editor's Note: In addition to various other variations of grammar and spelling from that old time, the word "their" is spelled as "thier" 17 times. It has been left there as "thier". 

THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND

by

Alice Morse Earle

Seventh Edition

To the Memory of my Mother. 

Contents. 

 I. The New England Meeting-House II. The Church Militant III. By Drum and Horn and Shell IV. The Old-Fashioned Pews V. Seating the Meeting VI. The Tithingman and the Sleepers VII. The Length of the Service VIII. The Icy Temperature of the Meeting-House IX. The Noon-House X. The Deacon's Office XI. The Psalm-Book of the Pilgrims XII. The Bay Psalm-Book XIII. Sternhold and Hopkins' Version of the Psalms XIV. Other Old Psalm-Books XV. The Church Music XVI. The Interruptions of the Services XVII. The Observance of the DayXVIII. The Authority of the Church and the Ministers XIX. The Ordination of the Minister XX. The Ministers XXI. The Ministers' Pay XXII. The Plain-Speaking Puritan PulpitXXIII. The Early Congregations

The Sabbath in Puritan New England. 

I. 

The New England Meeting-House. 

When the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth they at once assigned a Lord'sDay meeting-place for the Separatist church, --"a timber fort both strongand comely, with flat roof and battlements;" and to this fort, everySunday, the men and women walked reverently, three in a row, and in it theyworshipped until they built for themselves a meeting-house in 1648. 

As soon as each successive outlying settlement was located and established, the new community built a house for the purpose of assembling therein forthe public worship of God; this house was called a meeting-house. CottonMather said distinctly that he "found no just ground in Scripture to applysuch a trope as church to a house for public assembly. " The church, in thePuritan's way of thinking, worshipped in the meeting-house, and he was asbitterly opposed to calling this edifice a church as he was to calling theSabbath Sunday. His favorite term for that day was the Lord's Day. 

The settlers were eager and glad to build their meeting-houses; for thesehouses of God were to them the visible sign of the establishment of thattheocracy which they had left their fair homes and had come to New Englandto create and perpetuate. But lest some future settlements should be slowor indifferent about doing their duty promptly, it was enacted in 1675 thata meeting-house should be erected in every town in the colony; and if thepeople failed to do so at once, the magistrates were empowered to build it, and to charge the cost of its erection to the town. The number of membersnecessary to establish a separate church was very distinctly given in thePlatform of Church Discipline: "A church ought not to be of greater numberthan can ordinarilie meet convenientlie in one place, nor ordinariliefewer than may convenientlie carry on church-work. " Each church was quiteindependent in its work and government, and had absolute power to admit, expel, control, and censure its members. 

These first meeting-houses were simple buildings enough, --square log-houseswith clay-filled chinks, surmounted by steep roofs thatched with longstraw or grass, and often with only the beaten earth for a floor. It wasconsidered a great advance and a matter of proper pride when the settlershad the meeting-house "lathed on the inside, and so daubed and whitenedover workmanlike. " The dimensions of many of these first essays at churcharchitecture are known to us, and lowly little structures they were. One, indeed, is preserved for us under cover at Salem. The first meeting-housein Dedham was thirty-six feet long, twenty feet wide, and twelve feet high"in the stud;" the one in Medford was smaller still; and the Haverhilledifice was only twenty-six feet long and twenty wide, yet "none other thanthe house of God. "

As the colonists grew in wealth and numbers, they desired and built bettersanctuaries, "good roomthy meeting-houses" they were called by JudgeSewall, the most valued and most interesting journal-keeper of the times. The rude early buildings were then converted into granaries or storehouses, or, as was the Pentucket meeting-house, into a "house of shelter or a houseto sett horses in. " As these meeting-houses had not been consecrated, andas they were town-halls, forts, or court-houses as well as meeting-houses, the humbler uses to which they were finally put were not regarded asprofanations of holy places. 

The second form or type of American church architecture was a square woodenbuilding, usually unpainted, crowned with a truncated pyramidal roof, whichwas surmounted (if the church could afford such luxury) with a belfry orturret containing a bell. The old church at Hingham, the "Old Ship" whichwas built in 1681, is still standing, a well-preserved example of thissecond style of architecture. These square meeting-houses, so much alike, soon abounded in New England; for a new church, in its contract forbuilding, would often specify that the structure should be "like in everydetaile to the Lynn meeting-house, " or like the Hadley, Milford, Boston, Danvers, or New Haven meeting-house. This form of edifice was the prototypeof the fine great First Church of Boston, a large square brick building, with three rows of windows and two galleries, which stood from the year1713 to 1808, and of which many pictures exist. 

The third form of the Puritan meeting-house, of which the Old South Churchof Boston is a typical model, has too many representatives throughout NewEngland to need any description, as have also the succeeding forms of NewEngland church architecture. 

The first meeting-houses were often built in the valleys, in the meadowlands; for the dwelling-houses must be clustered around them, since thecolonists were ordered by law to build their new homes within half a mileof the meeting-house. Soon, however, the houses became too closely crowdedfor the most convenient uses of a farming community; pasturage for thecattle had to be obtained at too great a distance from the farmhouse;firewood had to be brought from too distant woods; nearness to wateralso had to be considered. Thus the law became a dead letter, and eachnew-coming settler built on outlying and remote land, since the Indianswere no longer so deeply to be dreaded. Then the meeting-houses, havingusually to accommodate a whole township of scattered farms, were placed onremote and often highly elevated locations; sometimes at the very top of along, steep hill, --so long and so steep in some cases, especially in oneConnecticut parish, that church attendants could not ride down on horsebackfrom the pinnacled meeting-house, but were forced to scramble down, leadingtheir horses, and mount from a horse-block at the foot of the hill. Thesecond Roxbury church was set on a high hill, and the story is fairlypathetic of the aged and feeble John Eliot, the glory of New EnglandPuritanism, that once, as he toiled patiently up the long ascent to hisdearly loved meeting, he said to the person on whose supporting arm heleaned (in the Puritan fashion of teaching a lesson from any event andsurrounding): "This is very like the way to heaven; 'tis uphill. The Lordby His grace fetch us up. "

The location on a hilltop was chosen and favored for various reasons. Themeeting-house was at first a watch-house, from which to keep vigilantlookout for any possible approach of hostile or sneaking Indians; it wasalso a landmark, whose high bell-turret, or steeple, though pointing toheaven, was likewise a guide on earth, for, thus stationed on a highelevation, it could be seen for miles around by travellers journeyingthrough the woods, or in the narrow, tree-obscured bridle-paths which werethen almost the only roads. In seaside towns it could be a mark for forsailors at sea; such was the Truro meeting-house. Then, too, our Puritanancestors dearly loved a "sightly location, " and were willing to climbuphill cheerfully, even through bleak New England winters, for the sake ofhaving a meeting-house which showed off well, and was a proper source ofenvy to the neighboring villages and the country around. The studiouslyremote and painfully inaccessible locations chosen for the site of manyfine, roomy churches must astonish any observing traveller on the byroadsof New England. Too often, alas! these churches are deserted, falling down, unopened from year to year, destitute alike of minister and congregation. Sometimes, too, on high hilltops, or on lonesome roads leading through atall second growth of woods, deserted and neglected old graveyards--themost lonely and forlorn of all sad places--by their broken and fallenheadstones, which surround a half-filled-in and uncovered cellar, showthat once a meeting-house for New England Christians had stood there. Tallgrass, and a tangle of blackberry brambles cover the forgotten graves, and perhaps a spire of orange tiger-lilies, a shrub of southernwood or ofwinter-killed and dying box, may struggle feebly for life under the shadowof the "plumed ranks of tall wild cherry, " and prove that once these lonelygraves were cared for and loved for the sake of those who lie buried inthis now waste spot. No traces remain of the old meeting-house save thecellar and the narrow stone steps, sadly leading nowhere, which once werepressed by the feet of the children of the Pilgrims, but now are troddenonly by the curious and infrequent passer-by, or the epitaph-seekingantiquary. 

It is difficult often to understand the details in the descriptions ofthese early meeting-houses, the colonial spelling is so widely varied, and so cleverly ingenious. Uniformity of spelling is a strictly modernaccomplishment, a hampering innovation. "A square roofe without Dormans, with two Lucoms on each side, " means, I think, without dormer windows, andwith luthern windows. Another church paid a bill for the meeting-house roofand the "Suppolidge. " They had "turritts" and "turetts" and "turits" and"turyts" and "feriats" and "tyrryts" and "toryttes" and "turiotts" and"chyrits, " which were one and the same thing; and one church had ordersfor "juyces and rayles and nayles and bymes and tymber and gaybels and apulpyt, and three payr of stayrs, " in its meeting-house, --a liberal supplyof the now fashionable _y_'s. We read of "pinakles" and "pyks" and"shuthers" and "scaffills" and "bimes" and "lynters" and "bathyns" and"chymbers" and "bellfers;" and often in one entry the same word will bespelt in three or four different ways. Here is a portion of a contract inthe records of the Roxbury church: "Sayd John is to fence in the BuringPlas with a Fesy ston wall, sefighiattly don for Strenk and workmanshipas also to mark a Doball gatt 6 or 8 fote wid and to hing it. "_Sefighiattly_ is "sufficiently;" but who can translate "Fesy"? can itmean "facy" or faced smoothly?

The church-raising was always a great event in the town. Each citizen wasforced by law to take part in or contribute to "raring the Meeting hows. "In early days nails were scarce, --so scarce that unprincipled persons setfire to any buildings which chanced to be temporarily empty, for the sakeof obtaining the nails from the ruins; so each male inhabitant suppliedto the new church a certain "amount of nayles. " Not only were logs, andlumber, and the use of horses' and men's labor given, but a contributionwas also levied for the inevitable barrel of rum and its unintoxicatingaccompaniments. "Rhum and Cacks" are frequent entries in the account booksof early churches. No wonder that accidents were frequent, and that menfell from the scaffolding and were killed, as at the raising of theDunstable meeting-house. When the Medford people built their secondmeeting-house, they provided for the workmen and bystanders, five barrelsof rum, one barrel of good brown sugar, a box of fine lemons, and twoloaves of sugar. As a natural consequence, two thirds of the frame fell, and many were injured. In Northampton, in 1738, ten gallons of rum werebought for £8 "to raise the meeting-house"--and the village doctor got "£3for setting his bone Jonathan Strong, and £3 10s. For setting EbenezerBurt's thy" which had somehow through the rum or the raising, both gottenbroken. Sometimes, as in Pittsfield in 1671, the sum of four shillings wasraised on every acre of land in the town, and three shillings a day werepaid to every man who came early to work, while one shilling a day wasapportioned to each worker for his rum and sugar. At last no liquor wasallowed to the workmen until after the day's work was over, and thus fatalaccidents were prevented. 

The earliest meeting-houses had oiled paper in the windows to admit thelight. A Pilgrim colonist wrote to an English friend about to emigrate, "Bring oiled paper for your windows. " Higginson, however, writing in 1629, asks for "glasse for windowes. " When glass was used it was not set in thewindows as now. We find frequent entries of "glasse and nayles for it, " andin Newbury, in 1665, the church ordered that the "Glasse in the windowsbe . . . Look't to if any should happen to be loosed with winde to be nailedclose again. " The glass was in lozenge-shaped panes, set in lead in theform of two long narrow sashes opening in the middle from top to bottom, and it was many years before oblong or square panes came into common use. 

These early churches were destitute of shade, for the trees in theimmediate vicinity were always cut down on account of dread of the fiercefires which swept often through the forests and overwhelmed and destroyedthe towns. The heat and blazing light in summer were as hard to bear inthese unscreened meeting-houses as was the cold in winter. 

 "Old house of Puritanic wood, Through whose unpainted windows streamed, On seats as primitive and rude As Jacob's pillow when he dreamed, The white and undiluted day. "

We have all heard the theory advanced that it is impossible there should beany true religious feeling, any sense of sanctity, in a garish and brightlight, --"the white and undiluted day, "--but I think no one can doubt thatto the Puritans these seething, glaring, pine-smelling hothouses were trulyGod's dwelling-place, though there was no "dim, religious light" within. 

Curtains and window-blinds were unknown, and the sunlight streamed in withunobstructed and unbroken rays. Heavy shutters for protection were oftenused, but to close them at time of service would have been to plungethe church into utter darkness. Permission was sometimes given, as inHaverhill, to "sett up a shed outside of the window to keep out the heat ofthe sun there, "--a very roundabout way to accomplish a very simple end. Asyears passed on, trees sprang up and grew apace, and too often the churchesbecame overhung and heavily shadowed by dense, sombre spruce, cedar, andfir trees. A New England parson was preaching in a neighboring church whichwas thus gloomily surrounded. He gave out as his text, "Why do the wickedlive?" and as he peered in the dim light at his manuscript, he exclaimedabruptly, "I hope they will live long enough to cut down this greathemlock-tree back of the pulpit window. " Another minister, Dr. Storrs, having struggled to read his sermon in an ill-lighted, gloomy church, saidhe would never speak in that building again while it was so overshadowedwith trees. A few years later he was invited to preach to the samecongregation; but when he approached the church, and saw the greatumbrageous tree still standing, he rode away, and left the peoplesermonless in their darkness. The chill of these sunless, unheatedbuildings in winter can well be imagined. 

Strange and grotesque decorations did the outside of the earliestmeeting-houses bear, --grinning wolves' heads nailed under the windows andby the side of the door, while splashes of blood, which had drippedfrom the severed neck, reddened the logs beneath. The wolf, for hisdestructiveness, was much more dreaded by the settlers than the bear, which did not so frequently attack the flocks. Bears were plentiful enough. The history of Roxbury states that in 1725, in one week in September, twenty bears were killed within two miles of Boston. This bear storyrequires unlimited faith in Puritan probity, and confidence in Puritanrecords to credit it, but believe it, ye who can, as I do! In Salem and inIpswich, in 1640, any man who brought a living wolf to the meeting-housewas paid fifteen shillings by the town; if the wolf were dead, tenshillings. In 1664, if the wolf-killer wished to obtain the reward, he wasordered to bring the wolf's head and "nayle it to the meeting-house andgive notis thereof. " In Hampton, the inhabitants were ordered to "nayle thesame to a little red oake tree at northeast end of the meeting-house. " Oneman in Newbury, in 1665, killed seven wolves, and was paid the rewardfor so doing. This was a great number, for the wary wolf was not easilydestroyed either by musket or wolf-hook. In 1723 wolves were so abundantin Ipswich that parents would not suffer their children to go to and fromchurch and school without the attendance of some grown person. As late as1746 wolves made sad havoc in Woodbury, Connecticut; and a reward of fivedollars for each wolf's head was offered by law in that township in 1853. 

In 1718 the last public reward was paid in Salem for a wolf's head, butso late as the year 1779 the howls of wolves were heard every night inNewbury, though trophies of shrivelled wolves' heads no longer graced thewalls of the meeting-house. 

All kinds of notices and orders and regulations and "bills" were posted onthe meeting-house, often on the door, where they would greet the eye ofall who entered: prohibitions from selling guns and powder to the Indians, notices of town meetings, intentions of marriage, copies of the lawsagainst Sabbath-breaking, messages from the Quakers, warnings of "vandoos"and sales, lists of the town officers, and sometimes scandalous andinsulting libels, and libels in verse, which is worse, for our forefathersdearly loved to rhyme on all occasions. On the meeting-house green stoodthose Puritanical instruments of punishment, the stocks, whipping-post, pillory, and cage; and on lecture days the stocks and pillory wereoften occupied by wicked or careless colonists, or those everlastingpillory-replenishers, the Quakers. It is one of the unintentionally comicfeatures of absurd colonial laws and punishments in which the early legalrecords so delightfully abound, that the first man who was sentenced to andoccupied the stocks in Boston was the carpenter who made them. He was thusfitly punished for his extortionate charge to the town for the lumberhe used in their manufacture. This was rather better than "making thepunishment fit the crime, " since the Boston magistrates managed to forcethe criminal to furnish his own punishment. In Shrewsbury, also, theunhappy man who first tested the wearisome capacity and endured the publicmortication of the town's stocks was the man who made them. He "buildedbetter than he knew. " Pillories were used as a means of punishment untila comparatively recent date, --in Salem until the year 1801, and in Bostontill 1803. 

Great horse-blocks, rows of stepping-stones, or hewn logs further gracedthe meeting-house green; and occasionally one fine horse-block, such as theConcord women proudly erected, and paid for by a contribution of a pound ofbutter from each house-wife. 

The meeting-house not only was employed for the worship of God and for townmeetings, but it was a storehouse as well. Until after the RevolutionaryWar it was universally used as a powder magazine; and indeed, as no fire instove or fireplace was ever allowed within, it was a safe enough place forthe explosive material. In Hanover, the powder room was in the steeple, while in Quincy the "powder-closite" was in the beams of the roof. Wheneverthere chanced to be a thunderstorm during the time of public worship, thepeople of Beverly ran out under the trees, and in other towns they leftthe meeting-house if the storm seemed severe or near; still they built nopowder houses. Grain, too, was stored in the loft of the meeting-house forsafety; hatches were built, and often the corn paid to the minister wasplaced there. "Leantos, " or "linters, " were sometimes built by the side ofthe building for use for storage. In Springfield, Mr. Pyncheon was allowedto place his corn in the roof chamber of the meeting-house; but as thepeople were afraid that the great weight might burst the floor, he wasforbidden to store more than four hundred bushels at a time, unless he"underpropped the floor. "

In one church in the Connecticut valley, in a township where it wasforbidden that tobacco be smoked upon the public streets, the churchloft was used to dry and store the freshly cut tobacco-leaves which theinhabitants sold to the "ungodly Dutch. " Thus did greed for gain lead evenblue Connecticut Christians to profane the house of God. 

The early meeting-houses in country parishes were seldom painted, suchoutward show being thought vain and extravagant. In the middle of theeighteenth century paint became cheaper and more plentiful, and a gayrivalry in church-decoration sprang up. One meeting-house had to be as fineas its neighbor. Votes were taken, "rates were levied, " gifts were askedin every town to buy "colour" for the meeting-house. For instance, the newmeeting-house in Pomfret, Connecticut, was painted bright yellow; it proveda veritable golden apple of discord throughout the county. Windham townquickly voted that its meeting-house be "coloured something like thePomfret meeting-house. " Killingly soon ordered that the "cullering of thebody of our meeting-house should be like the Pomfret meeting-house, and theRoff shal be cullered Read. " Brooklyn church then, in 1762, ordered thatthe outside of its meeting-house be "culered" in the approved fashion. The body of the house was painted a bright orange; the doors and "bottomboards" a warm chocolate color; the "window-jets, " corner-boards, andweather-boards white. What a bright nosegay of color! As a crowning gloryBrooklyn people put up an "Eleclarick Rod" on the gorgeous edifice, andproudly boasted that--Brooklyn meeting-house was the "newest biggest andyallowest" in the county. One old writer, however, spoke scornfully of thespirit of envious emulation, extravagance, and bad taste that spread andprevailed from the example of the foolish and useless "colouring" of thePomfret meeting-house. 

Within the meeting-house all was simple enough: raftered walls, sandedfloors, rows of benches, a few pews, and the pulpit, or the "scaffold, "as John Cotton called it. The bare rafters were often profusely hung withdusty spiders' webs, and were the home also of countless swallows, thatflew in and out of the open bell-turret. Sometimes, too, mischievoussquirrels, attracted by the corn in the meeting-house loft, made theirhomes in the sanctuary; and they were so prolific and so omnivorous thatthe Bible and the pulpit cushions were not safe from their nibblingattacks. On every Sunday afternoon the Word of God and its sustainingcushion had to be removed to the safe shelter of a neighboring farmhouse ortavern, to prevent total annihilation by these Puritanical, Bible-lovingsquirrels. 

The pulpits were often pretentious, even in the plain and undecoratedmeeting-houses, and were usually high desks, to which a narrow flight ofstairs led. In the churches of the third stage of architecture, thesestairs were often inclosed in a towering hexagonal mahogany structure, which was ornamented with pillars and panels. Into this the ministerwalked, closed the door behind him, and invisibly ascended the stairs;while the children counted the seconds from the time he closed the dooruntil his head appeared through the trap-door at the top of the pulpit. Theform known as a tub-pulpit was very popular in the larger churches. Thepulpit of one old, unpainted church retained until the middle of thiscentury, as its sole decoration, an enormous, carefully painted, staringeye, a terrible and suggestive illustration to youthful wrong-doers of thegreat, all-seeing eye of God. 

As the ceiling and rafters were so open and reverberating, it was generallythought imperative to hang above the pulpit a great sounding-board, whichthreatened the minister like a giant extinguisher, and was really as devoidof utility as it was curious in ornamentation, "reflecting most part anempty ineffectual sound. " This great sound-killer was decorated with carvedand painted rosettes, as in the Shrewsbury meeting-house; with carved ivyleaves, as in Farmington; with a carved bunch of grapes or pomegranates, asin the Leicester church; with letters indicating a date, as, "M. R. H. " forMarch, in the Hadley church; with appropriate mottoes and texts, such asthe words, "Holiness is the Lords, " in the Windham church; with cords andtassels, with hanging fringes, with panels and balls; and thus formed agreat ornament to the church, and a source of honest pride to the churchmembers. The clumsy sounding-board was usually hung by a slight iron rod, which looked smaller still as it stretched up to the high, raftered roof, and always appeared to be entirely insufficient to sustain the great weightof the heavy machine. In Danvers, one of these useless though ornamentalstructures hung within eighteen inches of the preacher's nose, on a slenderbar thirty feet in length; and every Sunday the children gazed withfascinated anticipation at the slight rod and the great hexagonalextinguisher, thinking and hoping that on this day the sounding-board wouldsurely drop, and "put out" the minister. In fact, it was regarded by manya child, though this idea was hardly formulated in the little brain, asa visible means of possible punishment for any false doctrine that mightissue from the mouth of the preacher. 

Another pastime and source of interest to the children in many old churcheswas the study of the knots and veins in the unpainted wood of which thepews and galleries were made. Age had developed and darkened and renderedvisible all the natural irregularities in the wood, just as it had broughtout and strengthened the dry-woody, close, unaired, penetrating scent whichpermeated the meeting-house and gave it the distinctive "church smell. " Thechildren, and perhaps a few of the grown people, found in these clustersof knots queer similitudes of faces, strange figures and constellations, which, though conned Sunday after Sunday until known by heart, still seemedever to show in their irregular groupings a puzzling possibility of thediscovery of new configurations and monstrosities. 

The dangling, dusty spiders' webs afforded, too, an interesting sight anddiversion for the sermon-hearing, but not sermon-listening, young Puritans, who watched the cobwebs swaying, trembling, forming strange maps ofimaginary rivers with their many tributaries, or outlines of intersectingroads and lanes. And if little Yet-Once, Hate-Evil, or Shearjashub chanced, by good fortune, to be seated near a window where a crafty spider and afoolish buzzing fly could be watched through the dreary exposition andattempted reconciliation of predestination and free will, that indeed werea happy way of passing the weary hours. 

II. 

The Church Militant. 

For many years after the settlement of New England the Puritans, even inoutwardly tranquil times, went armed to meeting; and to sanctify the Sundaygun-loading they were expressly forbidden to fire off their charges atany object on that day save an Indian or a wolf, their two "greatestinconveniencies. " Trumbull, in his "Mac Fingal, " Avrites thus in jest ofthis custom of Sunday arm-bearing:--

 "So once, for fear of Indian beating, Our grandsires bore their guns to meeting, -- Each man equipped on Sunday morn With psalm-book, shot, and powder-horn, And looked in form, as all must grant, Like the ancient true church militant. "

In 1640 it was ordered in Massachusetts that in every township theattendants at church should carry a "competent number of peeces, fixedand compleat with powder and shot and swords every Lords-day to themeeting-house;" one armed man from each household was then thoughtadvisable and necessary for public safety. In 1642 six men with muskets andpowder and shot were thought sufficient for protection for each church. InConnecticut similar mandates were issued, and as the orders were neglected"by divers persones, " a law was passed in 1643 that each offender shouldforfeit twelve pence for each offence. In 1644 a fourth part of the"trayned hand" was obliged to come armed each Sabbath, and the sentinelswere ordered to keep their matches constantly lighted for use in theirmatch-locks. They were also commanded to wear armor, which consisted of"coats basted with cotton-wool, and thus made defensive against Indianarrows. " In 1650 so much dread and fear were felt of Sunday attacks fromthe red men that the Sabbath-Day guard was doubled in number. In 1692, theConnecticut Legislature ordered one fifth of the soldiers in each town tocome armed to each meeting, and that nowhere should be present as a guardat time of public worship fewer than eight soldiers and a sergeant. InHadley the guard was allowed annually from the public treasury a pound oflead and a pound of powder to each soldier. 

No details that could add to safety on the Sabbath were forgotten oroverlooked by the New Haven church; bullets were made common currency atthe value of a farthing, in order that they might be plentiful and in everyone's possession; the colonists were enjoined to determine in advance whatto do with the women and children in case of attack, "that they do not hangabout them and hinder them;" the men were ordered to bring at least sixcharges of powder and shot to meeting; the farmers were forbidden to "leavemore arms at home than men to use them;" the half-pikes were to be headedand the whole ones mended, and the swords "and all piercing weaponsfurbished up and dressed;" wood was to be placed in the watch-house; it wasordered that the "door of the meeting-house next the soldiers' seat be keptclear from women and children sitting there, that if there be occasionfor the soldiers to go suddenly forth, they may have free passage. " Thesoldiers sat on either side of the main door, a sentinel was stationedin the meeting-house turret, and armed watchers paced the streets; threecannon were mounted by the side of this "church militant, " which muststrongly have resembled a garrison. 

Military duty and military discipline and regard for the Sabbath, and forthe House of God as well, did not always make the well-equipped occupantsof these soldiers' seats in New Haven behave with the dignity and decorumbefitting such guardians of the peace and protectors in war. Seriousdisorders and disturbances among the guard were reported at the GeneralCourt on June 16, 1662. One belligerent son of Mars, as he sat in themeeting-house, threw lumps of lime--perhaps from the plastered chinks inthe log wall--at a fellow-warrior, who in turn, very naturally, kicked histormentor with much agility and force. There must have ensued quite a freefight all around in the meeting-house, for "Mrs. Goodyear's boy had hishead broke that day in meeting, on account of which a woman said shedoubted not the wrath of God was upon us. " And well might she think so, fordivers other unseemly incidents which occurred in the meeting-house at thesame time were narrated in Court, examined into, and punished. 

In spite of these events in the New Haven church (which were certainlyexceptional), the seemingly incongruous union of church and army wassuitable enough in a community that always began and ended the militaryexercises on "training day" with solemn prayer and psalm-singing; and thatused the army and encouraged a true soldier-like spirit not chiefly as aidsin war, but to help to conquer and destroy the adversaries of truth, and to"achieve greater matters by this little handful of men than the world isaware of. "

The Salem sentinels wore doubtless some of the good English armor owned bythe town, --corselets to cover the body; gorgets to guard the throat;tasses to protect the thighs; all varnished black, and costing each suit"twenty-four shillings a peece. " The sentry also wore a bandileer, a large"neat's leather" belt thrown over the right shoulder, and hanging downunder the left arm. This bandileer sustained twelve boxes of cartridges, and a well-filled bullet-bag. Each man bore either a "bastard musket witha snaphance, " a "long fowling-piece with musket bore, " a "full musket, " a"barrell with a match-cock, " or perhaps (for they were purchased by thetown) a leather gun (though these leather guns may have been cannon). Other weapons there were to choose from, mysterious in name, "sakers, minions, ffaulcons, rabinets, murthers (or murderers, as they weresometimes appropriately called) chambers, harque-busses, carbins, "--allthese and many other death-dealing machines did our forefathers bring andimport from their war-loving fatherland to assist them in establishingGod's Word, and exterminating the Indians, but not always, alas! to aidthem in converting those poor heathen. 

The armed Salem watcher, besides his firearms and ammunition, had attachedto his wrist by a cord a gun-rest, or gun-fork, which he placed uponthe ground when he wished to fire his musket, and upon which thatconstitutional kicker rested when touched off. He also carried a sword andsometimes a pike, and thus heavily burdened with multitudinous arms andcumbersome armor, could never have run after or from an Indian with muchagility or celerity; though he could stand at the church-door with hisleather gun, --an awe-inspiring figure, --and he could shoot with his"harquebuss, " or "carbin, " as we well know. 

These armed "sentinells" are always regarded as a most picturesqueaccompaniment of Puritan religious worship, and the Salem and Plymoutharmed men were imposing, though clumsy. But the New Haven soldiers, withtheir bulky garments wadded and stuffed out with thick layers of cottonwool, must have been more safety-assuring and comforting than they wereromantic or heroic; but perhaps they too wore painted tin armor, "corseletsand gorgets and tasses. "

In Concord, New Hampshire, the men, who all came armed to meeting, stackedtheir muskets around a post in the middle of the church, while the honoredpastor, who was a good shot and owned the best gun in the settlement, preached with his treasured weapon in the pulpit by his side, ready fromhis post of vantage to blaze away at any red man whom he saw sneakingwithout, or to lead, if necessary, his congregation to battle. The churchin York, Maine, until the year 1746, felt it necessary to retain the customof carrying arms to the meeting-house, so plentiful and so aggressive wereMaine Indians. 

Not only in the time of Indian wars were armed men seen in themeeting-house, but on June 17, 1775, the Provincial Congress recommendedthat the men "within twenty miles of the sea-coast carry their arms andammunition with them to meeting on the Sabbath and other days when theymeet for public worship. " And on many a Sabbath and Lecture Day, during theyears of war that followed, were proved the wisdom and foresight of thatsuggestion. 

The men in those old days of the seventeenth century, when in constantdread of attacks by Indians, always rose when the services were ended andleft the house before the women and children, thus making sure the safeexit of the latter. This custom prevailed from habit until a late date inmany churches in New England, all the men, after the benediction and theexit of the parson, walking out in advance of the women. So also the customof the men always sitting at the "head" or door of the pew arose from theearly necessity of their always being ready to seize their arms and rushunobstructed to fight. In some New England village churches to this day, the man who would move down from his end of the pew and let a woman sitat the door, even if it were a more desirable seat from which to see theclergyman, would be thought a poor sort of a creature. 

III. 

By Drum and Horn and Shell. 

At about nine o'clock on the Sabbath morning the Puritan colonistsassembled for the first public service of the holy day; they were gatheredtogether by various warning sounds. The Haverhill settlers listened for theringing toot of Abraham Tyler's horn. The Montague and South Hadley peoplewere notified that the hour of assembling had arrived by the loud blowingof a conch-shell. John Lane, a resident of the latter town, was engagedin 1750 to "blow the Cunk" on the Sabbath as "a sign for meeting. " InStockbridge a strong-lunged "praying" Indian blew the enormous shell, whichwas safely preserved until modern times, and which, when relieved fromSunday use, was for many years sounded as a week-day signal in thehay-field. Even a conch-shell was enough of an expense to the poor colonialchurches. The Montague people in 1759 paid £1 10s. For their "conk, " andalso on the purchase year gave Joseph Root 20 shillings for blowing the newshell. In 1785 the Whately church voted that "we will not improve anybodyto blow the conch, " and so the church-attendants straggled to Whatelymeeting each at his own time and pleasure. 

In East Hadley the inhabitant who "blew the kunk" (as phonetic EastHadleyites spelt it) and swept out the meeting-house was paid annually themunificent sum of three dollars for his services. Conch-blowing was notso difficult and consequently not so highly-paid an accomplishment asdrum-beating. A verse of a simple old-fashioned hymn tells thus of thegathering of the Puritan saints:--

 "New England's Sabbath day Is heaven-like still and pure, When Israel walks the way Up to the temple's door. The time we tell When there to come By beat of drum Or sounding shell. "

The drum, as highly suitable for such a military people, was often used asa signal for gathering for public worship, and was plainly the favoritemeans of notification. In 1678 Robert Stuard, of Norwalk, "ingages yt hisson James shall beate the Drumb, on the Sabbath and other ocations, " and inNorwalk the "drumb, " the "drumne, " the "drumme, " and at last the drum wasbeaten until 1704, when the Church got a bell. And the "Drumber" was paid, and well paid too for his "Cervices, " fourteen shillings a year of thetown's money, and he was furnished a "new strong drumme;" and the townsupplied to him also the flax for the drum-cords which he wore out in theservice of God. Johnson, in his "Wonder Working Providence, " tells of theCambridge Church: "Hearing the sound of a drum he was directed toward it bya broade beaten way; following this rode he demands of the next man he metwhat the signall of the drum ment; the reply was made they had as yet noBell to call men to meeting and therefore made use of the drum. " In 1638a platform was made upon the top of the Windsor meeting-house "from theLanthornc to the ridge to walk conveniently to sound a trumpet or a drum togive warning to meeting. "

Sometimes three guns were fired as a signal for "church-time. " The signalfor religious gathering, and the signal for battle were always markedlydifferent, in order to avoid unnecessary fright. 

In 1647 Robert Basset was appointed in New Haven to drum "twice upon LordesDayes and Lecture Dayes upon the meeting house that soe those who live farroff may heare the more distinkly. " Robert may have been a good drummer, buthe proved to be a most reprehensible and disreputable citizen; in the localCourt Records of August 1, 1648, we find a full report of an astoundingoccurrence in which he played an important part. Ten men, who Avere nearlyall sea-faring men, --gay, rollicking sailors, --went to Bassctt's house andasked for strong drink. The magistrates had endeavored zealously, and inthe main successfully, to prevent all intoxication in the community, and had forbidden the sale of liquor save in very small quantities. Thechurch-drummer, however, wickedly unmindful of his honored calling, furnished to the sailors six quarts of strong liquor, with which they all, host and visitors, got prodigiously drunk and correspondingly noisy. TheCourt Record says: "The miscarriage continued till betwixt tenn and elevenof the clock, to the great provocation of God, disturbance of the peace, and to such a height of disorder that strangers wondered at it. " In themidst of the carousal the master of the pinnace called the boatswain"Brother Loggerheads. " This must have been a particularly insultingepithet, which no respectable boatswain could have been expected quietly toendure, for "at once the two men fell fast to wrestling, then to blowes andtheirin grew to that feircnes that the master of the pinnace thought theboatswain would have puled out his eies; and they toumbled on the grounddown the hill into the creeke and mire shamefully wallowing theirin. "In his pain and terror the master called out, "Hoe, the Watch! Hoe, theWatch!" "The Watch made hast and for the present stopped the disorder, butin his rage and distemper the boatswaine fell a-swearinge Wounds and Hartas if he were not only angry with men but would provoke the highand blessed God. " The master of the pinnace, being freed from hisfellow-combatant, returned to Basset's house--perhaps to tell his taleof woe, perhaps to get more liquor--and was assailed by the drummer withamazing words of "anger and distemper used by drunken companions;" inshort, he was "verey offensive, his noyes and oathes being hearde tothe other side of the creeke. " For aiding and abetting this noisy anddisgraceful spree, and also for partaking in it, Drummer Basset was fined£5, which must have been more than his yearly salary, and in disgrace, andpossibly in disgust, quitted drumming the New Haven good people to meetingand moved his residence to Stamford, doubtless to the relief and delight ofboth magistrates and people of the former town. 

Another means of notification of the hour for religious service was by theuse of a flag, often in addition to the sound of the drum or bell. Thus inPlymouth, in 1697, the selectmen were ordered to "procure a flagg to be putout at the ringing of the first bell, and taken in when the last bell wasrung. " In Sutherland also a flag was used as a means of announcement of"meeting-time, " and an old goody was paid ten shillings a year for "tendingthe flagg. "

Mr. Gosse, in his "Early Bells of Massachusetts, " gives a full andinteresting account of the church-bells of the first colonial towns in thatState. Lechford, in his "Plaine Dealing, " wrote in 1641 that they cametogether in Boston on the Lord's Day by "the wringing of a bell, " and it isthought that that bell was a hand-bell. The first bells, for the lackof bell-towers, were sometimes hung on trees by the side of themeeting-houses, to the great amazement and distress of the Indians, whoregarded them with superstitious dread, thinking--to paraphrase Herbert'sbeautiful line--"when the bell did chime 't was devils' music;" but morefrequently the bells were hung in a belfry or bell-turret or "bellcony, "and from this belfry depended a long bell-rope quite to the floor; and thusin the very centre of the church the sexton stood when he rung the summonsfor lire or for meeting. This rope was of course directly in front of thepulpit; and Jonathan Edwards, who was devoid of gestures and looked alwaysstraight before him when preaching, was jokingly said to have "looked-off"the bell-rope, when it fell with a crash in the middle of his church. 

At the first sound of the drum or horn or bell the town inhabitants issuedfrom their houses in "desent order, " man and wife walking first, and thechildren in quiet procession after them. Often a man-servant and a maidwalked on either side of the heads of the family. In some communities thecongregation waited outside the church door until the minister and his wifearrived and passed into the house; then the church-attendants followed, theloitering boys always contriving to scuffle noisily in from the horse-shedsat the last moment, making much scraping and clatter with their heavy bootson the sanded floor, and tumbling clumsily up the uucarpeted, creakingstairs. 

In other churches the members of the congregation seated themselves intheir pews upon their arrival, but rose reverently when the parson, dressedin black skull-cap and Geneva cloak, entered the door; and they stood, intoken of respect, until after he entered the pulpit and was seated. 

It was also the honor-giving and deferential custom in many New Englandchurches, in the eighteenth century, for the entire congregation to remainrespectfully standing within the pews at the end of the serice until theminister had descended from his lofty pulpit, opened the door of his wife'spew, and led her with stately dignity to the church-porch, where, were heand she genial and neighborly minded souls, they in turn stood and greetedwith carefully adjusted degrees of warmth, interest, respect, or patronage, the different members of the congregation as they slowly passed out. 

IV. 

The Old-Fashioned Pews. 

In the early New England meeting-houses the seats were long, narrow, uncomfortable benches, which were made of simple, rough, hand-riven planksplaced on legs like milking-stools. They were without any support or restfor the back; and perhaps the stiff-backed Pilgrims and Puritans requiredor wished no support. Quickly, as the colonies grew in wealth and thecolonists in ambition and importance, "Spots for Pues" were sold (or"pitts" as they were sometimes called), at first to some few rich orinfluential men who wished to sit in a group together, and finally eachfamily of dignity or wealth sat in its own family-pew. Often it wasstipulated in the permission to build a pew that a separate entrance-doorshould be cut into it through the outside wall of the meeting-house, thusdetracting grievously from the external symmetry of the edifice, butobviating the necessity of a space-occupying entrance aisle within thechurch, where there was little enough sitting-room for the quicklyincreasing and universally church-going population. As these pews wereeither oblong or square, were both large and small, painted and unpainted, and as each pewholder could exercise his own "tast or disresing" in thekind of wood he used in the formation of his pew, as well as in the styleof finish, much diversity and incongruity of course resulted. A man who hada wainscoted pew was naturally and properly much respected and envied bythe entire community. These pews, erected by individual members, wereindividual and not communal property. A widow in Cape Cod had her housedestroyed by fire. She was given from the old meeting-house, which wasbeing razed, the old building materials to use in the construction of hernew home. She was not allowed, however, to remove the wood which formed thepews, as they were adjudged to be the property of the members who had builtthem, and those owners only could sell or remove the materials of whichthey were built. 

Many of the pews in the old meeting-houses had towering partition walls, which extended up so high that only the tops of the tallest heads could beseen when the occupants were seated. Permissions to build were often givenwith modifying restrictions to the aspiring pew-builders, as for instanceis recorded of the Haverhill church, "provided they would not build so highas to damnify and hinder the light of them windows, " or of the Waterburychurch, "if the pues will not progodish the hous. " Often the floor of thepews was several inches and occasionally a foot higher than the floor ofthe "alleys, " thus forming at the entrance-door of the pew one or twosteps, which were great stumbling-blocks to clumsy and to childish feet, that tripped again when within the pew over the "crickets" and foot-bencheswhich were, if the family were large, the accepted and lowly church-seatsof the little children. Occasionally one long, low foot-rest stretchedquite across one side of the pew-floor. I have seen these long bencheswith a tier of three shelves; the lower and broader shelf was used as afoot-rest, the second one was to hold the hats of the men, and the thirdand narrower shelf was for the hymn-books and Bibles. Such comfortable andluxurious pew-furnishings could never have been found in many churches. 

An old New Englander relates a funny story of his youth, in which one ofthese triple-tiered foot-benches played an important part. When he wasa boy a travelling show visited his native town, and though he was notpermitted to go within the mystic and alluring tent, he stood longingly atthe gate, and was prodigiously diverted and astonished by an exhibition oftight-rope walking, which was given outside the tent-door as a bait tolure pleasure-loving and frivolous townspeople within, and also as atantalization to the children of the saints who were not allowed to enterthe tent of the wicked. Fired by that bewildering and amazing performance, he daily, after the wonderful sight, practised walking on rails, on fences, on fallen trees, and on every narrow foothold which he could find, as acareful preparation for a final feat and triumph of skill on his mother'sclothes-line. In an evil hour, as he sat one Sunday in the corner of hisfather's pew, his eyes rested on the narrow ledge which formed the top ofthe long foot-bench. Satan can find mischief for idle boys within church aswell as without, and the desire grew stronger to try to walk on thatnarrow foothold. He looked at his father and mother, they were peacefullysleeping; so also were the grown-up occupants of the neighboring pews;the pew walls were high, the minister seldom glanced to right or left; athousand good reasons were whispered in his ear by the mischief-finder, and at last he willingly yielded, pulled off his heavy shoes, and softlymounted the foot-bench. He walked forward and back with great successtwice, thrice, but when turning for a fourth tour he suddenly lost hisbalance, and over he went with a resounding crash--hats, psalm-books, heavy bench, and all. He crushed into hopeless shapelessness his father'sgray beaver meeting-hat, a long-treasured and much-loved antique; he nearlysmashed his mother's kid-slippered foot to jelly, and the fall elicitedfrom her, in the surprise of the sudden awakening and intense pain, anear-piercing shriek, which, with the noisy crash, electrified the entiremeeting. All the grown people stood up to investigate, the children climbedon the seats to look at the guilty offender and his deeply mortifiedparents; while the minister paused in his sermon and said with cuttingseverity, "I have always regretted that the office of tithingman has beenabolished in this community, as his presence and his watchful careare sadly needed by both the grown persons and the children in thiscongregation. " The wretched boy who had caused all the commotion anddisgrace was of course uninjured by his fall, but a final settlement athome between father and son on account of this sacrilegious piece of churchdisturbance made the unhappy would-be tight-rope walker wish that he had atleast broken his arm instead of his father's hat and his mother's pride andthe peace of the congregation. 

The seats were sometimes on four sides of these pews, but oftener on threesides only, thus at least two thirds of the pew occupants did not face theminister. The pew-seats were as narrow and uncomfortable as the plebeianbenches, though more exclusive, and, with the high partition walls, quitejustified the comment of a little girl when she first attended a service inone of these old-fashioned, square-pewed churches. She exclaimed in dismay, "What! must I be shut up in a closet and sit on a shelf?" Often elderlypeople petitioned to build separate small pens of pews with a single widerseat as "through the seats being so very narrow" they could not sit incomfort. 

The seats were, until well into this century, almost universally hung onhinges, and could be turned up against the walls of the pew, thus enablingthe standing congregation to lean for support against the sides of the pewsduring the psalm-singing and the long, long prayers. 

 "And when at last the loud Amen Fell from aloft, how quickly then The seats came down with heavy rattle, Like musketry in fiercest battle. "

This noise of slamming pew-seats could easily be heard over half a mileaway from the meeting-house in the summer time, for the perverse boyscontrived always in their salute of welcome to the Amen to give vent ina most tremendous bang to a little of their pent up and ill-repressedenergies. In old church-orders such entries as this (of the Haverhillchurch) are frequently seen: "The people are to Let their Seats downwithout Such Nois. " "The boyes are not to wickedly noise down therepew-seats. " A gentleman attending the old church in Leicester heard atthe beginning of the prayer, for the first time in his life, the noise ofslamming pew-seats, as the seats were thrust up against the pew-walls. Hejumped into the aisle at the first clatter, thinking instinctively that thegallery was cracking and falling. Another stranger, a Southerner, enteringrather late at a morning service in an old church in New England, wasgreeted with the rattle of falling seats, and exclaimed in amazement, "Doyou Northern people applaud in church?"

In many meeting-houses the tops of the pews and of the high galleryrailings were ornamented with little balustrades of turned wood, which wereoften worn quite bare of paint by childish fingers that had tried them all"to find which ones would turn, " and which, alas! would also squeak. Thisfascinating occupation whiled away many a tedious hour in the drearychurch, and in spite of weekly forbidding frowns and whispered reproofs forthe shrill, ear-piercing squeaks elicited by turning the spindle-shapedbalusters, was entirely too alluring a time-killer to be abandoned, andconsequently descended, an hereditary church pastime, from generation togeneration of the children of the Puritans; and indeed it remained sostrong an instinct that many a grown person, visiting in after life achurch whose pews bore balustrades like the ones of his childhood, couldscarce keep his itching fingers from trying them each in succession "to seewhich ones would turn. "

These open balustrades also afforded fine peep-holes through which, bystanding or kneeling upon "the shelf, " a child might gaze at his neighbor;and also through which sly missiles--little balls of twisted paper--couldbe snapped, to the annoyance of some meek girl or retaliating boy, untilthe young marksman was ignominiously pulled down by his mother from hispost of attack. And through these balustrades the same boy a few yearslater could thrust sly missives, also of twisted paper, to the girl whom hehad once assailed and bombarded with his annoying paper bullets. 

Through the pillared top-rail a restless child in olden days oftenreceived, on a hot summer Sabbath from a farmer's wife or daughter in anadjoining pew, friendly and quieting gifts of sprigs of dill, or fennel, or caraway, famous anti-soporifics; and on this herbivorous food he wouldcontentedly browse as long as it lasted. An uneasy, sermon-tired littlegirl was once given through the pew-rail several stalks of caraway, andwith them a large bunch of aromatic southernwood, or "lad's-love" which hadbeen brought to meeting by the matron in the next pew, with a crudely andunconsciously aesthetic sense that where eye and ear found so little todelight them, there the pungent and spicy fragrance of the southernwoodwould be doubly grateful to the nostrils. Little Missy sat down delightedlyto nibble the caraway-seed, and her mother seeing her so quietly andabsorbingly occupied, at once fell contentedly and placidly asleep in hercorner of the pew. But five heads of caraway, though each contain manyscore of seeds, and the whole number be slowly nibbled and eaten one seedat a time, will not last through the child's eternity of a long doctrinalsermon; and when the umbels were all devoured, the young experimentalistbegan upon the stalks and stems, and they, too, slowly disappeared. Shethen attacked the sprays of southernwood, and in spite of its bitter, wormwoody flavor, having nothing else to do, she finished it, all but thetough stems, just as the long sermon was brought to a close. Her wakingmother, discovering no signs of green verdure in the pew, quickly drewforth a whispered confession of the time-killing Nebuchadnezzar-like feast, and frightened and horrified, at once bore the leaf-gorged child fromthe church, signalling in her retreat to the village doctor, who quicklyfollowed and administered to the omnivorous young New Englander a boluswhich made her loathe to her dying day, through a sympathetic associationand memory, the taste of caraway, and the scent of southernwood. 

An old gentleman, lamenting the razing of the church of his childhood, told the story of his youthful Sabbaths in rhyme, and thus refers withaffectionate enthusiasm to the old custom of bringing bunches of esculent"sallet" herbs to meeting:--

 "And when I tired and restless grew, Our next pew neighbor, Mrs. True, Reached her kind hand the top rail through To hand me dill, and fennel too, And sprigs of caraway. 

 "And as I munched the spicy seeds, I dimly felt that kindly deeds That thus supply our present needs, Though only gifts of pungent weeds, Show true religion. 

 "And often now through sermon trite And operatic singer's flight, I long for that old friendly sight, The hand with herbs of value light, To help to pass the time. "

Were the dill and "sweetest fennel" chosen Sabbath favorites for theirold-time virtues and powers?

 "Vervain and dill Hinder witches of their ill. "

And of the charmed fennel Longfellow wrote:--

 "The fennel with its yellow flowers That, in an earlier age than ours, Was gifted with the wondrous powers, Lost vision to restore. "

And traditions of mysterious powers, dream-influencing, spirit-exorcising, virtue-awakening, health-giving properties, hung vaguely around thesouthernwood and made it specially fit to be a Sabbath-day posy. Thesetraditions are softened by the influence of years into simply idealizing, in the mind of every country-bred New Englander, the peculiar refreshingscent of the southernwood as a typical Sabbath-day fragrance. Half acentury ago, the pretty feathery pale-green shrub grew in every countrydoor-yard, humble or great, throughout New England; and every church-goingwoman picked a branch or spray of it when she left her home on Sabbathmorn. To this day, on hot summer Sundays, many a staid old daughter ofthe Puritans may be seen entering the village meeting-house, clad ina lilac-sprigged lawn or a green-striped barège, --a scanty-skirted, surplice-waisted relic of past summers, --with a lace-bordered silk capeor a delicate, time-yellowed, purple and white cashmere scarf on her bentshoulders, wearing on her gray head a shirred-silk or leghorn bonnet, andcarrying in her lace-mitted hand a fresh handkerchief, her spectacle-caseand well-worn Bible, and a great sprig of the sweet, old-fashioned"lad's-love. " A rose, a bunch of mignonette would be to her too gay a posyfor the Lord's House and the Lord's Day. And balmier breath than wasever borne by blossom is the pure fragrance of green growingthings, --southernwood, mint, sweet fern, bayberry, sweetbrier. No rose ishalf so fresh, so countrified, so memory-sweet. 

The benches and the pew-seats in the old churches were never cushioned. Occasionally very old or feeble women brought cushions to meeting to situpon. It is a matter of recent tradition that Colonel Greenleaf caused anine days' talk in Newbury town at the beginning of this century whenhe cushioned his pew. The widow of Sir William Pepperell, who lived inimposing style, had her pew cushioned and lined and curtained withworsted stuff, and carpeted with a heavy bear-skin. This worn, faded, andmoth-eaten furniture remained in the Kittery church until the year 1840, just as when Lady Pepperell furnished and occupied the pew. Nor were eventhe seats of the pulpit cushioned. The "cooshoons" of velvet or leather, which were given by will to the church, and which were kept in the pulpit, and were nibbled by the squirrels, were for the Bible, not the minister, torest upon. 

In many churches--in Durham, Concord and Sandwich--the pews hadswing-shelves, "leaning shelves, " upon which a church attendant could resthis paper and his arm when taking notes from the sermon, as was at one timethe universal custom, and in which even school-boys of a century ago hadto take part. Funny stories are told of the ostentatious notes taken bypompous parishioners who could neither write nor read, but who couldscribble, and thus cut a learned figure. 

The doors of the pews were usually cut down somewhat lower than thepew-walls, and frequently had no top-rails. They sometimes bore the name ofthe pew-owner painted in large white letters. They were secured whenclosed by clumsy wooden buttons. In many country congregations the elderlymen--stiff old farmers--had a fashion of standing up in the middle of thesermon to stretch their cramped limbs, and they would lean against and hangover the pew door and stare up and down the aisle. In Andover, Vermont, old Deacon Puffer never let a summer Sunday pass without thus resting anddiverting himself. One day, having ill-secured the wooden button at thedoor of his pew, the leaning-place gave way under his weight, and out hesprawled on all-fours, with a loud clatter, into the middle of the aisle, to the amusement of the children, and the mortification of his wife. 

Thus it may be seen, as an old autobiography phrases it, "diversions wasfrequent in meeting, and the more duller the sermon, the more likely it wasthat some accident or mischief would be done to help to pass the time. "

V. 

Seating the Meeting. 

Perhaps no duty was more important and more difficult of satisfactoryperformance in the church work in early New England than "seating themeeting-house. " Our Puritan forefathers, though bitterly denouncing allforms and ceremonies, were great respecters of persons; and in nothing wasthe regard for wealth and position more fully shown than in designating theseat in which each person should sit during public worship. A committee ofdignified and influential men was appointed to assign irrevocably to eachperson his or her place, according to rank and importance. Whittier wroteof this custom:--

 "In the goodly house of worship, where in order due and fit, As by public vote directed, classed and ranked the people sit; Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire before the clown, From the brave coat, lace embroidered: to the gray frock shading down. "

In many cases the members of the committee were changed each year or ateach fresh seating, in order to obviate any of the effects of partialitythrough kinship, friendship, personal esteem, or debt. A second committeewas also appointed to seat the members of committee number one, in orderthat, as Haverhill people phrased it, "there may be no Grumbling at themfor picking and placing themselves. "

This seating committee sent to the church the list of all the attendantsand the seats assigned to them, and when the list had been twice or thriceread to the congregation, and nailed on the meeting-house door, it became alaw. Then some such order as this of the church at Watertown, Connecticut, was passed: "It is ordered that the next Sabbath Day every person shalltake his or her seat appointed to them, and not go to any other seat whereothers are placed: And if any one of the inhabitants shall act contrary, heshall for the first offence be reproved by the deacons, and for a secondpay a fine of two shillings, and a like fine for each offence everafter. " Or this of the Stratham church: "When the comety have Seatid themeeting-house every person that is Seatid shall set in those Seats or payFive Shillings Pir Day for every day they set out of There seats in aDisorderly Manner to advance themselves Higher in the meeting-house. " Thesetwo church-laws were very lenient. In many towns the punishments and fineswere much more severe. Two men of Newbury were in 1669 fined £27 4s. Each for "disorderly going and setting in seats belonging to others. " Theywere dissatisfied with the seats assigned to them by the seating committee, and openly and defiantly rebelled. Other and more peaceable citizens"entred their Decents" to the first decision of the committee and asked forreconsideration of their special cases and for promotion to a higher pewbefore the final orders were "Jsued. "

In all the Puritan meetings, as then and now in Quaker meetings, the mensat on one side of the meeting-house and the women on the other; and theyentered by separate doors. It was a great and much-contested change whenmen and women were ordered to sit together "promiscuoslie. " In front, on either side of the pulpit (or very rarely in the foremost row in thegallery), was a seat of highest dignity, known as the "foreseat, " in whichonly the persons of greatest importance in the community sat. 

Sometimes a row of square pews was built on three sides of the groundfloor, and each pew occupied by separate families, while the pulpit wason the fourth side. If any man wished such a private pew for himself andfamily, he obtained permission from the church and town, and built it athis own expense. Immediately in front of the pulpit was either a long seator a square inclosed pew for the deacons, who sat facing the congregation. This was usually a foot or two above the level of the other pews, and wasreached by two or three steep, narrow steps. On a still higher plane was apew for the ruling elders, when ruling elders there were. The magistratesalso had a pew for their special use. What we now deem the best seats, those in the middle of the church, were in olden times the free seats. 

Usually, on one side of the pulpit was a square pew for the minister'sfamily. When there were twenty-six children in the family, as at least oneNew England parson could boast, and when ministers' families of twelveor fourteen children were far from unusual, it is no wonder that we findfrequent votes to "inlarge the ministers wives pew the breadth of thealley, " or to "take in the next pue to the ministers wives pue into herpue. " The seats in the gallery were universally regarded in the earlychurches as the most exalted, in every sense, in the house, with theexception, of course, of the dignity-bearing foreseat and the few privatepews. 

It is easy to comprehend what a source of disappointed anticipation, heart-burning jealousy, offended dignity, unseemly pride, and bitterquarrelling this method of assigning scats, and ranking thereby, must havebeen in those little communities. How the goodwivcs must have hated theseating committee! Though it was expressly ordered, when the committeerendered their decision, that "the inhabitants are to rest silent andsett down satysfyed, " who can still the tongue of an envious woman or aninsulted man? Though they were Puritans, they were first of all men andwomen, and complaints and revolts were frequent. Judge Sewall records thatone indignant dame "treated Captain Osgood very roughly on account ofseating the meeting-house. " To her the difference between a seat in thefirst and one in the second row was immeasurably great. It was not alonethe Scribes and Pharisees who desired the highest seats in the synagogue. 

It was found necessary at a very early date to "dignify the meeting, "which was to make certain seats, though in different localities, equal indignity; thus could peace and contented pride be partially restored. Forinstance, the seating committee in the Sutton church used their "bestdiscresing, " and voted that "the third seat below be equal in dignity withthe foreseat in the front gallery, and the fourth seat below be equal indignity with the foreseat in the side gallery, " etc. , thus making manyseats of equal honor. Of course wives had to have seats of equal importancewith those of their husbands, and each widow retained the dignityapportioned to her in her husband's lifetime. We can well believe that much"discresing" was necessary in dignifying as well as in seating. Often, after building a new meeting-house with all the painstaking and thoughtfuljudgment that could be shown, the dissensions over the seating lasted foryears. The conciliatory fashion of "dignifying the seats" clung long in theCongregational churches of New England. In East Hartford and Windsor it wasnot abandoned until 1824. 

Many men were unwilling to serve on these seating committees, and refusedto "medle with the seating, " protesting against it on account of the odiumthat was incurred, but they were seldom "let off. " Even so influential andupright a man as Judge Sewall felt a dread of the responsibility and ofthe personal spleen he might arouse. He also feared in one case lest hisseat-decisions might, if disliked, work against the ministerial peace ofhis son, who had been recently ordained as pastor of the church. Sometimesthe difficulty was settled in this way: the entire church (or rather themale members) voted who should occupy the foreseat, or the highest pew, andthe voted-in occupants of this seat of honor formed a committee, who inturn seated the others of the congregation. 

In the town of Rowley, "age, office, and the amount paid toward buildingthe meeting-house were considered when assigning seats. " Other towns hadvery amusing and minute rules for seating. Each year of the age counted onedegree. Military service counted eight degrees. The magistrate's officecounted ten degrees. Every forty shillings paid in on the church ratecounted one degree. We can imagine the ambitious Puritan adding up hisdegrees, and paying in forty shillings more in order to sit one seat abovehis neighbor who was a year or two older. 

In Pittsfield, as early as the year 1765, the pews were sold by "vandoo"to the highest bidder, in order to stop the unceasing quarrels overthe seating. In Windham, Connecticut, in 1762, the adoption of thispacificatory measure only increased the dissension when it was discoveredthat some miserable "bachelors who never paid for more than one head anda horse" had bid in several of the best pews in the meeting-house. In NewLondon, two women, sisters-in-law, were seated side by side. Each claimedthe upper or more dignified seat, and they quarrelled so fiercely over theoccupation of it that they had to be brought before the town meeting. 

In no way could honor and respect be shown more satisfactorily in thecommunity than by the seat assigned in meeting. When Judge Sewall marriedhis second wife, he writes with much pride: "Mr. Oliver in the names of theOverseers invites my Wife to sit in the foreseat. I thought to have broughther into my pue. I thankt him and the Overseers. " His wife died in a fewmonths, and he reproached himself for his pride in this honor, and left theseat which he had in the men's foreseat. "God in his holy Sovereignty putmy wife out of the Fore Seat. I apprehended I had Cause to be ashamed of mySin and loath myself for it, and retired into my Pue, " which was of courseless dignified than the foreseat. 

Often, in thriving communities, the "pues" and benches did not affordseating room enough for the large number who wished to attend publicworship, and complaints were frequent that many were "obliged to sitsqueased on the stairs. " Persons were allowed to bring chairs and stoolsinto the meeting-house, and place them in the "alleys. " These extra seatsbecame often such encumbering nuisances that in many towns laws were passedabolishing and excluding them, or, as in Hadley, ordering them "back of thewomen's seats. " In 1759 it was ordered in that town to "clear the Alleys ofthe meeting-house of chairs and other Incumbrances. " Where the chairlesspeople went is not told; perhaps they sat in the doorway, or, in the summertime, listened outside the windows. One forward citizen of Hardwicke hadgradually moved his chair down the church alley, step by step, Sunday afterSunday, from one position of dignity to another still higher, until at lasthe boldly invaded the deacons' seat. When, in the year 1700, this honoredposition was forbidden him, in his chagrin and mortification he committedsuicide by hanging. 

The young men sat together in rows, and the young women in correspondingseats on the other side of the house. In 1677 the selectmen of Newburygave permission to a few young women to build a pew in the gallery. It isimpossible to understand why this should have roused the indignation of thebachelors of the town, but they were excited and angered to such a pitchthat they broke a window, invaded the meeting-house, and "broke the pue inpessis. " For this sacrilegious act they were fined £10 each, and sentencedto be whipped or pilloried. In consideration, however, of the fact thatmany of them had been brave soldiers, the punishment was omitted when theyconfessed and asked forgiveness. This episode is very comical; it exhibitsthe Puritan youth in such an ungallant and absurd light. When, ten yearslater, liberty was given to ten young men, who had sat in the "foure backerseats in the gallery, " to build a pew in "the hindermost seat in thegallery behind the pulpit, " it is not recorded that the Salem young womenmade any objection. In the Woburn church, the four daughters of one of themost respected families in the place received permission to build a pew inwhich to sit. Here also such indignant and violent protests were made bythe young men that the selectmen were obliged to revoke the permission. It would be interesting to know the bachelors' discourteous objections toyoung women being allowed to own a pew, but no record of their reasonsis given. Bachelors were so restricted and governed in the colonies thatperhaps they resented the thought of any independence being allowed tosingle women. Single men could not live alone, but were forced to residewith some family to whom the court assigned them, and to do in all respectsjust what the court ordered. Thus, in olden times, a man had to marry toobtain his freedom. The only clue to a knowledge of the cause of the fierceand resentful objection of New England young men to permitting the youngwomen of the various congregations to build and own a "maids pue" iscontained in the record of the church of the town of Scotland, Connecticut. "An Hurlburt, Pashants and Mary Lazelle, Younes Bingham, prudenc Hurlburtand Jerusha meachem" were empowered to build a pew "provided they buildwithin a year and raise ye pue no higher than the seat is on the Mensside. " "Never ye Less, " saith the chronicle, "ye above said have built saidpue much higher than ye order, and if they do not lower the same within onemonth from this time the society comitte shall take said pue away. " Do youwonder that the bachelors resented this towering "maids pue?" that theywould not be scornfully looked down upon every Sabbath by women-folk, especially by a girl named "meachem"? Pashants and Younes and prudenc hadto quickly come down from their unlawfully high church-perch and take amore humble seat, as befitted them; thus did their "vaulting ambitiono'erleap itself and fall on the other side. " Perhaps the Salem maids alsobuilt too high and imposing a pew. In Haverhill, in 1708, young women werepermitted to build pews, provided they did not "damnify the Stairway. " Thissomewhat profane-sounding restriction they heeded, and the Haverhill maidsoccupied their undamnifying "pue" unmolested. Medford young women, however, in 1701, when allowed only one side gallery for seats, while the young menwere assigned one side and all the front gallery, made such an uproar thatthe town had to call a meeting, and restore to them their "woman's rights"in half the front gallery. 

Infants were brought to church in their mothers' arms, and on summer daysthe young mothers often sat at the meeting-house door or in the porch, --ifporch there were, --where, listening to the word of God, they could attendalso to the wants of their babes. I have heard, too, of a little cage, orframe, which was to be seen in the early meeting-houses, for the purposeof holding children who were too young to sit alone, --poor Puritan babies!Little girls sat with their mothers or elder sisters on "crickets" withinthe pews; or if the family were over-numerous, the children and cricketsexundated into "the alley without the pues. " Often a row of littledaughters of Zion sat on three-legged stools and low seats the entirelength of the aisle, --weary, sleepy, young sentinels "without the gates. "

The boys, the Puritan boys, those wild animals who were regarded with suchsuspicion, such intense disfavor, by all elderly Puritan eyes, and who werepublicly stigmatized by the Duxbury elders as "ye wretched boys on ye LordsDay, " were herded by themselves. They usually sat on the pulpit and gallerystairs, and constables or tithingmen were appointed to watch over them andcontrol them. In Salem, in 1676, it was ordered that "all ye boyes of yetowne are and shall be appointed to sitt upon ye three pair of stairs in yemeeting-house on ye Lords Day, and Wm. Lord is appointed to look after yeboyes yt sitte upon ye pulpit stairs. Reuben Guppy is to look and order soemany of ye boyes as may be convenient, and if any are unruly, to presenttheir names, as the law directs. " Nowadays we should hardly seat boys in agroup if we wished them to be orderly and decorous, and I fear the man "bythe name of Guppy" found it no easy task to preserve order and due gravityamong the Puritan boys in Salem meeting. In fact, the rampant boys behavedthus badly for the very reason that they were seated together instead ofwith their respective families; and not until the fashion was universal ofeach family sitting in a pew or group by itself did the boys in meetingbehave like human beings rather than like mischievous and unruly monkeys. 

In Stratford, in 1668, a tithingman was "appointed to watch over the youthsof disorderly carriage, and see that they behave themselves comelie, anduse such raps and blows as in his discretion meet. "

I like to think of those rows of sober-faced Puritan boys seated on thenarrow, steep pulpit stairs, clad in knee-breeches and homespun flappedcoats, and with round, cropped heads, miniature likenesses in dress andcountenance (if not in deportment) of their grave, stern, God-fearingfathers. Though they were of the sedate Puritan blood, they were boys, andthey wriggled and twisted, and scraped their feet noisily on the sandedfloor; and I know full well that the square-toed shoes of one in whom"original sin" waxed powerful, thrust many a sly dig in the ribs and backof the luckless wight who chanced to sit in front of and below him on thepulpit stairs. Many a dried kernel of Indian corn was surreptitiouslysnapped at the head of an unwary neighbor, and many a sly word waswhispered and many a furtive but audible "snicker" elicited when the dreadtithingman was "having an eye-out" and administering "discreet raps andblows" elsewhere. 

One of these wicked youths in Andover was brought before the magistrate, and it was charged that he "Sported and played and by Indecent Gestures andWry Faces caused laughter and misbehavior in the Beholders. " The girls werenot one whit better behaved. One of "ye tything men chosen of ye town ofNorwich" reported that "Tabatha Morgus of s'd Norwich Did on ye 24th dayFebruary it being Sabbath on ye Lordes Day, prophane ye Lordes Day in yemeeting house of ye west society in ye time of ye forenoone service on s'dDay by her rude and Indecent Behaviour in Laughing and Playing in ye timeof ye s'd Service which Doinges of ye s'd Tabatha is against ye peace ofour Sovereign Lord ye King, his Crown and Dignity. " Wanton Tabatha had topay three shilings sixpence for her ill-timed mid-winter frolic. Perhapsshe laughed to try to keep warm. Those who laughed at the misdemeanors ofothers were fined as well. Deborah Bangs, a young girl, in 1755 paid a fineof five shillings for "Larfing in the Wareham Meeting House in time ofPublic Worship, " and a boy at the same time, for the same offence, paid afine of ten shillings. He may have laughed louder and longer. In a law-bookin which Jonathan Trumbull recorded the minor cases which he tried asjustice of the peace, was found this entry: "His Majesties Tithing manentered complaint against Jona. And Susan Smith, that on the Lords Dayduring Divine Service, they did _smile_. " They were found guilty, andeach was fined five shillings and costs, --poor smiling Susan and Jonathan. 

Those wretched Puritan boys, those "sons of Belial, " whittled, too, and cutthe woodwork and benches of the meeting-house in those early days, just astheir descendants have ever since hacked and cut the benches and desks incountry schoolhouses, --though how they ever eluded the vigilant eye and earof the ubiquitous tithingman long enough to whittle will ever remain anunsolved mystery of the past. This early forerunning evidence of whathas become a characteristic Yankee trait and habit was so annoyingly andextensively exhibited in Medford, in 1729, that an order was passed toprosecute and punish "all who cut the seats in the meeting-house. "

Few towns were content to have one tithingman and one staff, but orderedthat there should be a guardian set over the boys in every corner of themeeting-house. In Hanover it was ordered "That there be some sticks set upin various places in the meeting-house, and fit persons by them and _touse them_. " I doubt not that the sticks were well used, and Hanover boyswere well rapped in meeting. 

The Norwalk people come down through history shining with a halo of gentlelenity, for their tithingman was ordered to bear a short, small stick only, and he was "Desired to use it with clemency. " However, if any boy proved"incoridgable, " he could be "presented" before the elders; and perhaps hewould rather have been treated as were Hartford boys by cruel Hartfordchurch folk, who ordered that if "any boye shall be taken playing ormisbehaving himself in the time of publick worship whether in themeeting-house or about the walls he shall be examined and punished at thepresent publickly before the assembly depart. " Parson Chauncey, of Durham, when a boy misbehaved in meeting, and was "punched up" by the tithingman, often stopped in his sermon, called the godless young offender by name, and asked him to come to the parsonage the next day. Some very tender andbeautiful lessons were taught to these Durham boys at these Monday morninginterviews, and have descended to us in tradition; and the good Mr. Chauncey stands out a shining light of Christian patience and forbearanceat a time when every other New England minister, from John Cotton down, preached and practised the stern repression and sharp correction of allchildren, and chanted together in solemn chorus, "Foolishness is bound upin the heart of a child. "

One vicious tithingman invented, and was allowed to exercise on the boys, a punishment which was the refinement of cruelty. He walked up to thelaughing, sporting, or whittling boy, took him by the collar or the arm, led him ostentatiously across the meeting-house, and seated him by hisshamefaced mother on the women's side. It was as if one grandly proud inkneebreeches should be forced to walk abroad in petticoats. Far ratherwould the disgraced boy have been whacked soundly with the heavy knob ofthe tithingman's staff; for bodily pain is soon forgotten, while mortifyingabasement lingers long. 

The tithingman could also take any older youth who misbehaved or "actedunsivill" in meeting from his manly seat with the grown men, and force himto sit again with the boys; "if any over sixteen are disorderly, they shallbe ordered to said seats. " Not only could these men of authority keep theboys in order during meeting, but they also had full control during thenooning, and repressed and restrained and vigorously corrected the lucklessboys during the midday hours. When seats in the galleries grew to beregarded as inferior to seats and pews on the ground floor, the boys, whoof course must have the worst place in the house, were relegated from thepulpit stairs to pews in the gallery, and these square, shut-off pews grewto be what Dr. Porter called "the Devil's play-houses, " and turbulentoutbursts were frequent enough. 

The little boys still sat downstairs under their parents' watchful eyes. "No child under 10 alowed to go up Gailary. " In the Sutherland church, ifthe big boys (who ought to have known better) "behaved unseemly, " one ofthe tithing-men who "took turns to set in the Galary" was ordered "to bringSuch Bois out of the Galary & set them before the Deacon's Seat" with thesmall boys. In Plainfield, Connecticut, the "pestigeous" boys managed toinvent a new form of annoyance, --they "damnified the glass;" and a churchregulation had to be passed to prevent, or rather to try to prevent themfrom "opening the windows or in any way damnifying the glass. " It wasdoubtless hot work scuffling and wrestling in the close, shut-in pews highup under the roof, and they naturally wished to cool down by opening orbreaking the windows. Grown persons could not inconsiderately open thechurch windows either. "The Constables are desired to _take notic_of the persons that open the windows in the tyme of publick worship. " Norheumatic-y draughts, no bronchitis-y damps, no pure air was allowed toenter the New England meeting-house. The church doubtless took a votebefore it allowed a single window to be opened. 

In Westfield, Massachusetts, the boys became so abominably rampant that thechurch formally decided "that if there is not a Reformation Respectingthe Disorders in the Pews built on the Great Beam in the time of PublickWorship the comite can pul it down. "

The fashion of seating the boys in pews by themselves was slow ofabolishment in many of the churches. In Windsor, Connecticut, "boys' pews"were a feature of the church until 1845. As years rolled on, the tithingmenbecame restricted in their authority: they could no longer administer "rapsand blows;" they were forced to content themselves with loud rappings onthe floor, and pointing with a staff or with a condemning finger at themisdemeanant. At last the deacons usurped these functions, and if rappingand pointing did not answer the purpose of establishing order (if the boy"psisted"), led the stubborn offender out of meeting; and they had fullauthority soundly to thrash the "wretched boy" on the horse-block. Rev. Dr. Dakin tells the story that, hearing a terrible noise and disturbance whilehe was praying in a church in Quincy, he felt constrained to open his eyesto ascertain the cause thereof; and he beheld a red-haired boy firmlyclutching the railing on the front edge of the gallery, while a venerabledeacon as firmly clutched the boy. The young rebel held fast, and thecorrecting deacon held fast also, until at last the balustrade gave way, and boy, deacon, and railing fell together with a resounding crash. Then, rising from the wooden debris, the thoroughly subdued boy and thetriumphant deacon left the meeting-house to finish their little affair;and unmistakable swishing sounds, accompanied by loud wails and whiningprotestations, were soon heard from the region of the horse-sheds. Parentsnever resented such chastisings; it was expected, and even desired, that boys should be whipped freely by every school-master and person ofauthority who chose so to do. 

In some old church-orders for seating, boys were classed with negroes, and seated with them; but in nearly all towns the negroes had seats bythemselves. The black women were all seated on a long bench or in aninclosed pew labelled "B. W. , " and the negro men in one labelled "B. M. " OneWilliam Mills, a jesting soul, being asked by a pompous stranger where hecould sit in meeting, told the visitor that he was welcome to sit in BillMills's pew, and that it was marked "B. M. " The man, who chanced to beignorant of the local custom of marking the negro seats, accepted the kindinvitation, and seated himself in the black men's pew, to the delight ofBill Mills, the amusement of the boys, the scandal of the elders, and hisown disgust. 

Sometimes a little pew or short gallery was built high up among the beamsand joists over the staircase which led to the first gallery, and wascalled the "swallows' nest, " or the "roof pue, " or the "second gallery. " Itwas reached by a steep, ladder-like staircase, and was often assigned tothe negroes and Indians of the congregation. 

Often "ye seat between ye Deacons seat and ye pulpit is for persons hard ofhearing to sett in. " In nearly every meeting a bench or pew full of agedmen might be seen near the pulpit, and this seat was called, with Puritanplainness of speech, the "Deaf Pew. " Some very deaf church members (whenthe boys were herded elsewhere) sat on the pulpit stairs, and even in thepulpit, alongside the preacher, where they disconcertingly upturned theirgreat tin ear-trumpets directly in his face. The persistent joining in thepsalm-singing by these deaf old soldiers and farmers was one of the bittertrials which the leader of the choir had to endure. 

The singers' seats were usually in the galleries; sometimes upon the groundfloor, in the "hind-row on either side. " Occasionally the choir sat in tworows of seats that extended quite across the floor of the house, in frontof the deacons' seat and the pulpit. The men singers then sat facing thecongregation, while the women singers faced the pulpit. Between them ran along rack for the psalm-books. When they sang they stood up, and bawled andfugued in each other's faces. Often a square pew was built for the singers, and in the centre of this enclosure was a table, on which were laid, whenat rest, the psalm-books. When they sang, the choir thus formed a hollowsquare, as does any determined band, for strength. 

One other seat in the old Puritan meeting-house, a seat of gloom, still throws its darksome shadow down through the years, --the stool ofrepentance. "Barbarous and cruel punishments" were forbidden by thestatutes of the new colony, but on this terrible soul-rack the shrinking, sullen, or defiant form of some painfully humiliated man or woman sat, crushed, stunned, stupefied by overwhelming disgrace, through the longChristian sermon; cowering before the hard, pitiless gaze of the assembledand godly congregation, and the cold rebuke of the pious minister's avertedface; bearing on the poor sinful head a deep-branding paper inscribed in"Capitall Letters" with the name of some dark or mysterious crime, orwearing on the sleeve some strange and dread symbol, or on the breast ascarlet letter. 

Let us thank God that these soul-blasting and hope-killing exposures--sodegrading to the criminal, so demoralizing to the community, --these foul, in-human blots on our fair and dearly loved Puritan Lord's Day, were neverfrequent, nor did the form of punishment obtain for a long time. In 1681two women were sentenced to sit during service on a high stool in themiddle alley of the Salem meeting-house, having on their heads a paperbearing the name of their crime; and a woman in Agamenticus at about thesame date was ordered "to stand in a white sheet publicly two severalSabbath-Days with the mark of her offence on her forehead. " These are thelatest records of this punishment that I have chanced to see. 

Thus, from old church and town records, we plainly discover that each laic, deacon, elder, criminal, singer, and even the ungodly boy had his allotedplace as absolutely assigned to him in the old meeting-house as was thepulpit to the parson. Much has been said in semi-ridicule of this oldcustom of "seating" and "dignifying, " yet it did not in reality differ muchfrom our modern way of selling the best pews to whoever will pay the most. Perhaps the old way was the better, since, in the early churches, age, education, dignity, and reputation were considered as well as wealth. 

VI. 

The Tithingman and the Sleepers. 

The most grotesque, the most extraordinary, the most highly colored figurein the dull New England church-life was the tithingman. This fairlyburlesque creature impresses me always with a sense of unreality, ofincongruity, of strange happening, like a jesting clown in a procession ofmonks, like a strain of low comedy in the sober religious drama of earlyNew England Puritan life; so out of place, so unreal is this fussy, pompous, restless tithingman, with his fantastic wand of office fringedwith dangling foxtails, --creaking, bustling, strutting, peering around thequiet meeting-house, prodding and rapping the restless boys, waking thedrowsy sleepers; for they slept in country churches in the seventeenthcentury, notwithstanding dread of fierce correction, just as they nodand doze and softly puff, unawakened and unrebuked, in village churchesthroughout New England in the nineteenth century. 

This absurd and distorted type of the English church beadle, this colonialsleep banisher, was equipped with a long staff, heavily knobbed at one end, with which he severely and pitilessly rapped the heads of the too sleepymen, and the too wide-awake boys. From the other end of this wand of officedepended a long foxtail, or a hare's-foot, which he softly thrust in thefaces of the sleeping Priscillas, Charitys, and Hopestills, and whichgently brushed and tickled them into reverent but startled wakefulness. 

One zealous but too impetuous tithingman in his pious ardor of officeinadvertently applied the wrong end, the end with the heavy knob, themasculine end, to a drowsy matron's head; and for this severely ungallantmistake he was cautioned by the ruling elders to thereafter use "morediscresing and less heist. "

Another over-watchful Newbury "awakener" rapped on the head a nodding manwho protested indignantly that he was wide-awake, and was only bowing insolemn assent and approval of the minister's arguments. Roger Scott, ofLynn, in 1643 struck the tithingman who thus roughly and suddenly wakenedhim; and poor sleepy and bewildered Roger, who is branded through all timeas "a common sleeper at the publick exercise, " was, for this most naturallyresentful act, but also most shockingly grave offence, soundly whipped, asa warning both to keep awake and not to strike back in meeting. 

Obadiah Turner, of Lynn, gives in his Journal a sad, sad disclosure oftotal depravity which was exposed by one of these sudden church-awakenings, and the story is best told in the journalist's own vivid words:--

"June 3, 1616. --Allen Bridges hath bin chose to wake ye sleepers inmeeting. And being much proude of his place, must needs have a fox tailefixed to ye ende of a long staff wherewith he may brush ye faces of them ytwill have napps in time of discourse, likewise a sharpe thorne whereby hemay pricke such as be most sound. On ye last Lord his day, as hee struttedabout ye meeting-house, he did spy Mr. Tomlins sleeping with much comfort, hys head kept steadie by being in ye corner, and his hand grasping ye rail. And soe spying, Allen did quickly thrust his staff behind Dame Ballard andgive him a grievous prick upon ye hand. Whereupon Mr. Tomlins did springvpp mch above ye floore, and with terrible force strike hys hand againstye wall; and also, to ye great wonder of all, prophanlie exclaim in a loudvoice, curse ye wood-chuck, he dreaming so it seemed yt a wood-chuck hadseized and bit his hand. But on coming to know where he was, and ye greatescandall he had committed, he seemed much abashed, but did not speak. And Ithink he will not soon again goe to sleepe in meeting. "

How clear the picture! Can you not see it?--the warm June sunlightstreaming in through the narrow, dusty windows of the old meeting-house;the armed watcher at the door; the Puritan men and women in theirsad-colored mantles seated sternly upright on the hard narrow benches; theblack-gowned minister, the droning murmur of whose sleepy voice mingleswith the out-door sounds of the rustle of leafy branches, the song ofsummer birds, the hum of buzzing insects, and the muffled stamping ofhorses' feet; the restless boys on the pulpit-stairs; the tired, sleepingPuritan with his head thrown back in the corner of the pew; the vain, strutting, tithingman with his fantastic and thornéd staff of office; andthen--the sudden, electric wakening, and the consternation of the wholestaid and pious congregation at such terrible profanity in the house ofGod. Ah!--it was not two hundred and forty years ago; when I read thequaint words my Puritan blood stirs my drowsy brain, and I remember it allwell, just as I saw it last summer in June. 

Another catastrophe from too fierce zeal on the part of the tithingmanis recorded. An old farmer, worn out with a hard Saturday's work atsheep-washing, fell asleep ere the hour-glass had once been turned. Thoughhe was a man of dignity, for he sat in his own pew, he could not escape therod of the pragmatical tithingman. Being rudely disturbed, but not whollywakened, the bewildered sheep-farmer sprung to his feet, seized hisastonished and mortified wife by the shoulders and shook her violently, shouting at the top of his voice, "Haw back! haw back! Stand still, willye?" Poor goodman and goodwife! many years elapsed ere they recovered fromthat keen disgrace. 

The ministers encouraged and urged the tithingmen to faithfully performtheir allotted work. One early minister "did not love sleepers in yemeeting-house, and would stop short in ye exercise and call pleasantlie towake ye sleepers, and once of a warm Summer afternoon he did take hys hatoff from ye pegg in ye beam, and put it on, saying he would go home andfeed his fowles and come back again, and maybe their sleepe would be ended, and they readie to hear ye remainder of hys discourse. " Another time hesuggested that they might like better the Church of England service ofsitting down and standing up, and we can be sure that this "was competentto keepe their eyes open for a twelvemonth. "

All this was in the church of Mr. Whiting, of Lynn, a somewhat jocosePuritan, --if jocularity in a Puritan is not too anomalous an attributeto have ever existed. We can be sure that there was neither sleeping norjesting allusion to such an irreverence in Mr. Mather's, Mr. Welde's, orMr. Cotton's meetings. In many rigidly severe towns, as in Portsmouth in1662 and in Boston in 1667, it was ordered by the selectmen as a propermeans of punishment that a "cage be made or some other means invented forsuch as sleepe on the Lord's Daie. " Perhaps they woke the offender up andrudely and summarily dragged him out and caged him at once and kept himthus prisoned throughout the nooning, --a veritable jail-bird. 

A rather unconventional and eccentric preacher in Newbury awoke one sleeperin a most novel manner. The first name of the sleeping man was Mark, andthe preacher in his sermon made use of these Biblical words: "I say untoyou, mark the perfect man and behold the upright. " But in the midst of hislow, monotonous sermon-voice he roared out the word "mark" in a loud shoutthat brought the dozing Mark to his feet, bewildered but wide awake. 

Mr. Moody, of York, Maine, employed a similar device to awaken and mortifythe sleepers in meeting. He shouted "Fire, fire, fire!" and when thestartled and blinking men jumped up, calling out "Where?" he roared back inturn, "In hell, for sleeping sinners. " Rev. Mr. Phillips, of Andover, in1755, openly rebuked his congregation for "sleeping away a great part ofthe sermon;" and on the Sunday following an earthquake shock which was feltthroughout New England, he said he hoped the "Glorious Lord of the Sabbathhad given them such a shaking as would keep them awake through onesermon-time. " Other and more autocratic parsons did not hesitate to callout their sleeping parishioners plainly by name, sternly telling them alsoto "Wake up!" A minister in Brunswick, Maine, thus pointedly wakened one ofhis sweet-sleeping church-attendants, a man of some dignity and standingin the community, and received the shocking and tautological answer, "Mindyour own business, and go on with your sermon. "

The women would sometimes nap a little without being discovered. "Ye womenmay sometimes sleepe and none know by reason of their enormous bonnets. Mr. Whiting doth pleasantlie say from ye pulpit hee doth seeme to be preachingto stacks of straw with men among them. "

From this seventeenth-century comment upon the size of the women's bonnets, it may be seen that objections to women's overwhelming and obscuringheadgear in public assemblies are not entirely complaining protests ofmodern growth. Other records refer to the annoyance from the exaggeratedsize of bonnets. In 1769 the church in Andover openly "put to vote whetherthe parish Disapprove of the Female sex sitting with their Hats on in theMeeting-house in time of Divine Service as being Indecent. " The parish didDisapprove, with a capital D, for the vote passed in the affirmative. Thereis no record, however, to tell whether the Indecent fashion was abandoned, but I warrant no tithingman was powerful enough to make Andover women takeoff their proudly worn Sunday bonnets if they did not want to. Another townvoted that it was the "Town's Mind" that the women should take off theirbonnets and "hang them on the peggs, " as did the men their headgear. Butthe Town's Mind was not a Woman's Mind; and the big-bonnet wearers, vainthough they were Puritans, did as they pleased with their own bonnets. And indeed, in spite of votes and in spite of expostulations, the femaledescendants of the Puritans, through constantly recurring waves of fashion, have ever since been indecently wearing great obscuring hats and bonnets inpublic assemblies, even up to the present day. 

The tithingman had other duties than awakening the sleepers and lookingafter "the boyes that playes and rapping those boyes, "--in short, seeingthat every one was attentive in meeting except himself, --and the dutiesand powers of the office varied in different communities. Several of theseofficers were appointed in each parish. In Newbury, in 1688, there weretwenty tithingmen, and in Salem twenty-five. They were men of authority, not only on Sunday, but throughout the entire week. Each had severalneighboring families (usually ten, as the word "tithing" would signify)under his charge to watch during the week, to enforce the learning of thecatechism at home, especially by the children, and sometimes he heard them"Say their Chatachize. " These families he also watched specially on theSabbath, and reported whether all the members thereof attended publicworship. Not content with mounting guard over the boys on Sundays, he alsowatched on weekdays to keep boys and "all persons from swimming in thewater. " Do you think his duties were light in July and August, when schoolwas out, to watch the boys of ten families? One man watching one familycannot prevent such "violations of the peace" in country towns now-a-days. He sometimes inspected the "ordinaries" and made complaint of any disorderswhich he there discovered, and gave in the names of "idle tiplers andgamers, " and he could warn the tavern-keeper to sell no more liquor to anytoper whom he knew or fancied was drinking too heavily. Josselyn complainedbitterly that during his visit to New England in 1663 at "houses ofentertainment called ordinaries into which a stranger went, he waspresently followed by one appointed to that office who would thrust himselfinto his company uninvited, and if he called for more drink than theofficer thought in his judgment he could soberly bear away, he wouldpresently countermand it, and appoint the proportion beyond which he couldnot get one drop. " The tithingman had a "spetial eye-out" on all bachelors, who were also carefully spied upon by the constables, deacons, elders, and heads of families in general. He might, perhaps, help to collect theministerial rate, though his principal duty was by no means the collectingof tithes. He "worned peple out of ye towne. " This warning was not at allbecause the new-comers were objectionable or undesired, but was simply alegal form of precaution, so that the parish would never be liable for thekeeping of the "worned" ones in case they thereafter became paupers. Headministered the "oath of fidelity" to new inhabitants. The tithingmanalso watched to see that "no young people walked abroad on the eve of theSabbath, "--that is, on a Saturday night. He also marked and reported allthose "who lye at home, " and others who "prophanely behaved, lingeredwithout dores at meeting time on the Lordes Daie, " all the "sons of Belialstrutting about, setting on fences, and otherwise desecrating theday. " These last two classes of offenders were first admonished by thetithingman, then "Sett in stocks, " and then cited before the Court. Theywere also confined in the cage on the meeting-house green, with the Lord'sDay sleepers. The tithingman could arrest any who walked or rode at toofast a pace to and from meeting, and he could arrest any who "walked orrode unnecessarily on the Sabath. " Great and small alike were under hiscontrol, as this notice from the "Columbian Centinel" of December, 1789, abundantly proves. It is entitled "The President and the Tything man:"--

 "The President, on his return to New York from his late tour through Connecticut, having missed his way on Saturday, was obliged to ride a few miles on Sunday morning in order to gain the town at which he had previously proposed to have attended divine service. Before he arrived however he was met by a Tything man, who commanding him to stop, demanded the occasion of his riding; and it was not until the President had informed him of every circumstance and promised to go no further than the town intended that the Tything man would permit him to proceed on his journey. "

Various were the subterfuges to outwit the tithingman and elude hisvigilance on the Sabbath. We all remember the amusing incident in "OldtownFolks. " A similar one really happened. Two gay young sparks driving throughthe town on the Sabbath were stopped by the tithingman; one offender saidmournfully in excuse of his Sabbath travel, "My grandmother is lying deadin the next town. " Being allowed to drive on, he stood up in his wagon whenat a safe distance and impudently shouted back, "And she's been lying deadin the graveyard there for thirty years. "

Thus it may be seen that the ancient tithingman was pre-eminently a general_snook_, to use an old and expressive word, --an informer, both in andout of meeting, --a very necessary, but somewhat odious, and certainly attimes very absurd officer. He was in a degree a constable, a selectman, ateacher, a tax-collector, an inspector, a sexton, a home-watcher, and aboveall, a Puritan Bumble, whose motto was _Hie et ubique_. He was, infact, a general law-enforcer and order-keeper, whose various duties, wherever still necessary and still performed, are now apportioned toseveral individuals. The ecclesiastical functions and authority of thetithingman lingered long after the civil powers had been removed or hadgradually passed away from his office. Persons are now living who in theirearly and unruly youth were rapped at and pointed at by a New Englandtithingman when they laughed or were noisy in meeting. 

VII. 

The Length of the Service. 

Watches were unknown in the early colonial days of New England, and for along time after their introduction both watches and clocks were costly andrare. John Davenport of New Haven, who died in 1670, left a clock to hisheirs; and E. Needham, who died in 1677, left a "Striking clock, a watch, and a Larum that dus not Strike, " worth £5; these are perhaps the firstrecords of the ownership of clocks and watches in New England. The time ofthe day was indicated to our forefathers in their homes by "noon marks" onthe floor or window-seats, and by picturesque sundials; and in thecivil and religious meetings the passage of time was marked by a strongbrass-bound hour-glass, which stood on a desk below or beside the pulpit, or which was raised on a slender iron rod and standard, so that all themembers of the congregation could easily watch "the sands that ran i' theclock's behalf. " By the side of the desk sat, on the Sabbath, a sexton, clerk, or tithingman, whose duty it was to turn the hour-glass as oftenas the sands ran out. This was a very ostentatious way of reminding theclergyman how long he had preached; but if it were a hint to bring thediscourse to an end, it was never heeded; for contemporary historicalregisters tell of most painfully long sermons, reaching up through longsub-divisions and heads to "twenty-seventhly" and "twenty-eighthly. "

At the planting of the first church in Woburn, Massachusetts, the Rev. Mr. Symmes showed his godliness and endurance (and proved that of hisparishioners also) by preaching between four and five hours. Sermons whichoccupied two or three hours were customary enough. One old Scotch clergymanin Vermont, in the early years of this century, bitterly and fiercelyresented the "popish innovation and Sabbath profanation" of a Sunday-schoolfor the children, which some daring and progressive parishioners proposedto hold at the "nooning. " This canny Parson Whiteinch very craftily andsomewhat maliciously prolonged his morning sermons until they each occupiedthree hours; thus he shortened the time between the two services to abouthalf an hour, and victoriously crowded out the Sunday-school innovators, who had barely time to eat their cold lunch and care for their waitinghorses, ere it was time for the afternoon service to begin. But one mancannot stop the tide, though he may keep it for a short time from oneguarded and sheltered spot; and the rebellious Vermont congregation, aftertwo or three years of tedious three-hour sermons, arose in a body andcrowded out the purposely prolix preacher, and established the wished-forSunday-school. The vanquished parson thereafter sullenly spent the nooningsin the horse-shed, to which he ostentatiously carried the big church-Biblein order that it might not be at the service of the profaning teachers. 

An irreverent caricature of the colonial days represents a phenomenallylong-preaching clergyman as turning the hour-glass by the side of hispulpit and addressing his congregation thus, "Come! you are all goodfellows, we'll take another glass together!" It is recorded of Rev. UrianOakes that often the hour-glass was turned four times during one of hissermons. The warning legend, "Be Short, " which Cotton Mather inscribed overhis study door was not written over his pulpit; for he wrote in his diarythat at his own ordination he prayed for an hour and a quarter, andpreached for an hour and three quarters. Added to the other ordinationexercises these long Mather addresses must have been tiresome enough. Nathaniel Ward deplored at that time, "Wee have a strong weakness in NewEngland that when wee are speaking, wee know not how to conclude: wee makemany ends before wee make an end. "

Dr. Lord of Norwich always made a prayer which was one hour long; and anearly Dutch traveller who visited New England asserted that he had heardthere on Fast Day a prayer which was two hours long. These long prayerswere universal and most highly esteemed, --a "poor gift in prayer" being amost deplored and even despised clerical short-coming. Had not the Puritansleft the Church of England to escape "stinted prayers"? Whitefield prayedopenly for Parson Barrett of Hopkinton, who could pray neither freely, norwell, that "God would open this dumb dog's mouth;" and everywhere in thePuritan Church, precatory eloquence as evinced in long prayers was felt tobe the greatest glory of the minister, and the highest tribute to God. 

In nearly all the churches the assembled people stood during prayer-time(since kneeling and bowing the head savored of Romish idolatry) and in themiddle of his petition the minister usually made a long pause in order thatany who were infirm or ill might let down their slamming pew-seats and sitdown; those who were merely weary stood patiently to the long and painfullydeferred end. This custom of standing during prayer-time prevailed in theCongregational churches in New England until quite a recent date, and isnot yet obsolete in isolated communities and in solitary cases. I have seenwithin a few years, in a country church, a feeble, white-haired old deaconrise tremblingly at the preacher's solemn words "Let us unite in prayer, "and stand with bowed head throughout the long prayer; thus patheticallyclinging to the reverent custom of the olden time, he rendered tendertribute to vanished youth, gave equal tribute to eternal hope and faith, and formed a beautiful emblem of patient readiness for the last solemnsummons. 

Sometimes tedious expounding of the Scriptures and long "prophesying"lengthened out the already too long service. Judge Sewall recorded thatonce when he addressed or expounded at the Plymouth Church, "being afraidto look at the glass, ignorantly and unwittingly I stood two hours and ahalf, " which was doing pretty well for a layman. 

The members of the early churches did not dislike these long preachings andprophesyings; they would have regarded a short sermon as irreligious, and lacking in reverence, and besides, would have felt that they had notreceived in it their full due, their full money's worth. They often fellasleep and were fiercely awakened by the tithingman, and often they couldnot have understood the verbose and grandiose language of the preacher. They were in an icy-cold atmosphere in winter, and in glaring, unshadedheat in summer, and upon most uncomfortable, narrow, uncushioned seats atall seasons; but in every record and journal which I have read, throughoutwhich ministers and laymen recorded all the annoyances and opposition whichthe preachers encountered, I have never seen one entry of any complaint orill-criticism of too long praying or preaching. Indeed, when Rev. SamuelTorrey, of Weymouth, Massachusetts, prayed two hours without stopping, upona public Fast Day in 1696, it is recorded that his audience only wishedthat the prayer had been much longer. 

When we consider the training and exercise in prayer that the New Englandparsons had in their pulpits on Sundays, in their own homes on Saturdaynights, on Lecture Days and Fast Days and Training Days, and indeed uponall times and occasions, can we wonder at Parson Boardman's prowess in NewMilford in 1735? He visited a "praying" Indian's home wherein lay a sickpapoose over whom a "pow-wow" was being held by a medicine-man at therequest of the squaw-mother, who was still a heathen. The Christian warriordetermined to fight the Indian witch-doctor on his own grounds, and whilethe medicine-man was screaming and yelling and dancing in order to cast thedevil out ol the child, the parson began to pray with equal vigor and powerof lungs to cast out the devil of a medicine-man. As the prayer andpow-wow proceeded the neighboring Indians gathered around, and soon becameseriously alarmed for the success of their prophet. The battle raged forthree hours, when the pow-wow ended, and the disgusted and exhausted Indianran out of the wigwam and jumped into the Housatonic River to cool hisheated blood, leaving the Puritan minister triumphant in the belief, andindeed with positive proof, that he could pray down any man or devil. 

The colonists could not leave the meeting-house before the long sen iceswere ended, even had they wished, for the tithingman allowed no deserters. In Salem, in 1676, it was "ordered by ye Selectmen yt the three Constablesdoe attend att ye three greate doores of ye meeting-house every Lordes Dayatt ye end of ye sermon, both forenoone and afternoone, and to keep yedoores fast and suffer none to goe out before ye whole exercises beeended. " Thus Salem people had to listen to no end of praying andprophesying from their ministers and elders for they "couldn't get out. "

As the years passed on, the church attendants became less referential andmuch more impatient and fearless, and soon after the Revolutionary War oneman in Medford made a bargain with his minister--Rev. Dr. Osgood--that hewould attend regularly the church services every Sunday morning, providedhe could always leave at twelve o'clock. On each Sabbath thereafter, asthe obstinate preacher would not end his sermon one minute sooner thanhis habitual time, which was long after twelve, the equally stubbornlimited-time worshipper arose at noon, as he had stipulated, and stalkednoisily out of meeting. 

A minister about to preach in a neighboring parish was told of a customwhich prevailed there of persons who lived at a distance rising and leavingthe house ere the sermon was ended. He determined to teach them a lesson, and announced that he would preach the first part of his sermon to thesinners, and the latter part to the saints, and that the sinners would ofcourse all leave as soon as their portion had been delivered. Every soulremained until the end of the service. 

At last, when other means of entertainment and recreation than church-goingbecame common, and other forms of public addresses than sermons werefrequently given, New England church-goers became so restless andrebellious under the regime of hour-long prayers and indefinitelyprotracted sermons that the long services were gradually condensed andcurtailed, to the relief of both preacher and hearers. 

VIII. 

The Icy Temperature of the Meeting-House. 

In colonial days in New England the long and tedious services must havebeen hard to endure in the unheated churches in bitter winter weather, sobitter that, as Judge Sewall pathetically recorded, "The communion breadwas frozen pretty hard and rattled sadly into the plates. " Sadly downthrough the centuries is ringing in our ears the gloomy rattle of thatfrozen sacramental bread on the Church plate, telling to us the solemnstory of the austere and comfortless church-life of our ancestors. Wouldthat the sound could bring to our chilled hearts the same steadfast andpure Christian faith that made their gloomy, freezing services warm withGod's loving presence!

Again Judge Sewall wrote: "Extraordinary Cold Storm of Wind and Snow. Blowsmuch more as coming home at Noon, and so holds on. Bread was frozen atLord's Table. Though 't was so cold John Tuckerman was baptized. At sixo'clock my ink freezes, so that I can hardly write by a good fire in myWives chamber. Yet was very Comfortable at Meeting. " In the penultimatesentence of this quotation may be found the clue and explanation of theseemingly incredible assertion in the last sentence. The reason why he wascomfortable in church was that he was accustomed to sit in cold rooms; evenwith the great open-mouthed and open-chimneyed fireplaces full of blazinglogs, so little heat entered the rooms of colonial dwelling-houses that onecould not be warm unless fairly within the chimney-place; and thus, evenwhile sitting by the fire, his ink froze. Another entry of Judge Sewall'stells of an exceeding cold day when there was "Great Coughing" in meeting, and yet a new-born baby was brought into the icy church to be baptized. Children were always carried to the meeting-house for baptism the firstSunday after birth, even in the most bitter weather. There are no entriesin Judge Sewall's diary which exhibit him in so lovable and gentle a lightas the records of the baptism of his fourteen children, --his pride whenthe child did not cry out or shrink from the water in the freezing winterweather, thus early showing true Puritan fortitude; and also his nobleresolves and hopes for their future. On this especially cold day when ababy was baptized, the minister prayed for a mitigation of the weather, and on the same day in another town "Rev. Mr. Wigglesworth preached on thetext, Who can stand before His Cold? Then by his own and people's sicknessthree Sabbaths passed without public Worship. " February 20 he preached fromthese words: "He sends forth his word and thaws them. " And the very nextday a thaw set in which was regarded as a direct answer to his prayer andsermon. Sceptics now-a-days would suggest that he chose well the time topray for milder weather. 

Many persons now living can remember the universal and noisy turning upof great-coat collars, the swinging of arms, and knocking together of theheavy-booted feet of the listeners towards the end of a long winter sermon. Dr. Hopkins used to say, when the noisy tintamarre began, "My hearers, havea little patience, and I will soon close. "

Another clergyman was irritated beyond endurance by the stamping, clattering feet, a _supplosio pedis_ that he regarded as an irreverentprotest and complaint against the severity of the weather, rather than as ahint to him to conclude his long sermon. He suddenly and noisily closed hissermon-book, leaned forward out of his high pulpit, and thundered out theseBiblical words of rebuke at his freezing congregation, whose startled facesstared up at him through dense clouds of vapor. "Out of whose womb came theice? And the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? The waters arehid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. Knowest thou theordinance of heaven? Canst thou set the dominion thereof on the earth?Great things doth God which we cannot comprehend. He saith to the snow, Bethou on the earth. By the breath of God frost is given. He causeth it tocome, whether for correction, or for his land, or for mercy. Hearken untothis. _Stand still_, and consider the wondrous works of God. " We canbelieve that he roared out the words "stand still, " and that there was nomore noise in that meeting-house on cold Sundays during the remainder ofthat winter. 

The ministers might well argue that no one suffered more from the freezingatmosphere than they did. In many records I find that they were forced topreach and pray with their hands cased in woollen or fur mittens or heavyknit gloves; and they wore long camlet cloaks in the pulpit and coveredtheir heads with skull caps--as did Judge Sewall--and possibly wore, as hedid also, a _hood_. Many a wig-hating minister must, in the Arcticmeeting-house, have longed secretly for the grateful warmth to his head andneck of one of those "horrid Bushes of Vanity, " a full-bottomed flowingwig. 

On bitter winter days Dr. Stevens of Kittery used to send a servant to themeeting-house to find out how many of his flock had braved the piercingblasts. If only seven persons were present, the servant asked them toreturn with him to the parsonage to listen to the sermon; but if there wereeight members in the meeting-house he so reported to the Doctor, who thendonned his long worsted cloak, tied it around his waist with a greathandkerchief, and attired thus, with a fur cap pulled down over his ears, and with heavy mittens on his hands, ploughed through the deep snow tothe church, and in the same dress preached his long, knotty sermon inhis pulpit, while fierce wintry blasts rattled the windows and shook theturret, and the eight godly, shivering souls wished profoundly that one oftheir number had "lain at home in a slothfull, lazey, prophane way, " andthus permitted the seven others and the minister to have the sermon incomfort in the parsonage kitchen before the great blazing logs in the openfireplace. 

Ah, it makes one shiver even to think of those gloomy churches, growingcolder, and more congealed through weeks of heavy frost and fiercenorthwesters until they bore the chill of death itself. One can butwonder whether that fell scourge of New England, that hereditarycurse--consumption--did not have its first germs evolved and nourished inour Puritan ancestors by the Spartan custom of sitting through the longwinter services in the icy, death-like meeting-houses. 

Of the insufficient clothing of the church attendants of olden times itis unnecessary to speak with much detail. The goodmen with their heavytop-boots or jack-boots, their milled or frieze stockings, their warmperiwigs surmounted by fur caps or beaver hats or hoods; and with theirmany-caped great-coats or full round cloaks were dressed with a sufficientdegree of comfort, though they did not possess the warm woollen and silkenunderclothing which now make a man's winter attire so comfortable. Theycarried muffs too, as the advertisements of the times show. The "BostonNews Letter" of 1716 offers a reward for a man's muff lost on the Sabbathday in the street. In 1725 Dr. Prince lost his black bearskin muff, and in1740 a "sableskin man's muff" was advertised as having been lost. 

But the Puritan goodwives and maidens were dressed in a meagre and scantyfashion that when now considered seems fairly appalling. As soon asthe colonies grew in wealth and fashion, thin silk or cotton hose werefrequently worn in midwinter by the wives and daughters of well-to-docolonists; and correspondingly thin cloth or kid or silk slippers, high-channelled pumps, or low shoes with paper soles and "cross-cut" orwooden heels were the holiday and Sabbath-day covering for the feet. In wetweather clogs and pattens formed an extra and much needed protectionwhen the fair colonists walked. Linen underclothing formed the firstsuperstructure of the feminine costume and threw its penetrating chill tothe very marrow of the bones. Often in mid-winter the scant-skirted Frenchcalico gowns were made with short elbow sleeves and round, low necks, andthe throat and shoulders were lightly covered with thin lawn neckerchiefsor dimity tuckers. The flaunting hooped-petticoat of another decade wasworn with a silk or brocade sacque. A thin cloth cape or mantle or spencer, lined with sarcenet silk, was frequently the only covering for theshoulders. In examining the treasured contents of old wardrobes, trunks, and high-chests, and in reading the descriptions of women's winter attireworn throughout the eighteenth and half through the nineteenth century, Iam convinced that the only portions of Puritan female anatomy that wereclothed with anything approaching respectable regard for health in theinclement New England climate were the head and the hands. The hands of"New English dames" were carefully protected with embroidered kid orleather gloves (for the early New Englanders were great glove wearers) orwith warm knit woollen mittens, though mittens for women's wear werealways fingerless. The well-gloved hands were moreover warmly ensconced inenormous stuffed muffs of bearskin which were almost as large as aflour barrel, or in smaller muffs of rabbit-skin or mink or beaver. Thegoodwives' heads bore, besides the close caps so universally worn, mufflersand veils and hoods, --hoods of all kinds and descriptions, from the hoodsof serge and camlet and gauze and black silk that Mistress Estabrook, wifeof the Windham parson, proudly owned and wore, from the prohibited "silkand tiffany hoods" of the earliest planters down through the centuries'inflorescence of "hoods of crimson colored persian, " "wild bore and hum-humlong hoods, " "pointed velvet capuchins, " "scarlet gipsys, " "pinneredand tasselled hoods, " "shirred lustring hoods, " "hoods of rich pptuna, ""muskmelon hoods, " to the warm quilted "punkin hoods" worn within thiscentury in country churches. These "punkin-hoods" were quilted with greatrolls of woollen wadding and drawn tight between the rolls with strongcords. They formed a deafening and heating head-covering which always hadto be loosened and thrust back when the wearer was within doors. Itwas only equalled in shapeless clumsiness and unique ugliness by itssummer-sister of the same date, the green silk calash, --that funniest andquaintest of all New England feminine headgear, --a great sunshade thatcould not be called a bonnet, always made of bright green silk shirred onstrong lengths of rattan or whalebone, and extendible after the fashion ofa chaise top. It could be drawn out over the face by a little green ribbonor "bridle" that was fastened to the extreme front at the top; or it couldbe pushed in a close-gathered mass on the back of the head These calasheswere frequently a foot and a half in diameter, and thus stood well up fromthe head and did not disarrange the hair nor crush the headdress or cap. They formed a perfect and easily-adjusted shade from the sun. Masks, too, the fair Puritans wore to further protect their heads and faces, --masks ofgreen silk or black vehet, with silver mouthpieces to place within the lipsand thus enable the wearer to keep the mask firmly in place. Sometimes twolittle strings with a silver bead at one end were fastened to the mask, andseined as mouthpieces. With a string and bead at either corner of themouth the mask-wearer could talk quite freely while still retaining herface-covering in its protecting position. These masks were never wornwithin doors. In the list of goods ordered by George Washington from Europefor his fair bride Martha were several of these riding-masks, and the kindstep-father even ordered a supply of small masks for "Miss Custis, " hislittle step-daughter. 

In bitter winter weather women carried to meeting littlefoot-stoves, --metal boxes which stood on legs and were filled with hotcoals at home, and a second time during the morning from the hearthstone ofa neighboring farm-house or a noon-house. These foot-warmers helped to makeendurable to the goodwives the icy chill of the meeting-house; and roundtheir mother's foot-stove the shivering little children sat on their lowcrickets, warming their half-frozen fingers. 

Some of these foot-stoves were really pretentious church-furnishings. Ihave seen one "brassen foot-stove" which had the owner's cipher cut out ofthe sheet metal, and from the side was hung a wrought brass chain. By thischain, a century ago, the shining polished brass stove was carried intochurch in the hands of a liveried black man, who held it ostentatiously atarms' length, that neither ash nor scorch might touch his scarlet velvetbreeches. And after he had tucked it under my lady's tiny feet as she satin her pew, he retired to his freezing loft high up among the beams, --the"Nigger Pew, "--where, I am sorry to record, he more than once solaced andwarmed himself with a bottle of "kill-devil" which he had smuggled intochurch, until he fell ignominiously asleep and his drunken snores sodisturbed the minister and the congregation, that two tithingmen wereforced to climb the ladder-like staircase and pull him down and out ofthe church and to the neighboring tavern to sleep off the effects of theliquor. For being "a man and a brother" and, above all, in spite of hispetty idiosyncrasies, a very good and cherished servant, he could not bethrust out into the snow to freeze to death. 

But with the extreme Puritan contempt of comfort even foot-stoves werenot always allowed. The First Church of Roxbury, after having one churchedifice destroyed by fire in 1747, prohibited the use of footstoves inmeeting, and the Roxbury matrons sat with frozen toes in their fine newmeeting-house. The Old South Church of Boston was not so rigid, though itfelt the same dread of fire; for we find this entry on the records of thechurch under the date of January 10, 1771: "Whereas, danger is apprehendedfrom the [foot] stoves that arc frequently left in the meeting-house afterthe publick worship is over; Voted, that the Saxton make diligent search onthe Lord's Day evening and in the evening after a lecture, to see if anystoves are left in the house, and that if he find any there he take themto his own house; and it is expected that the owners of such stoves makereasonable satisfaction to the Saxton for his trouble before they take themaway. "

In Hardwicke, in 1792, it was ordered that "no stows be carried into ournew meeting-house with fire in them. " The Hardwicke women may have foundcomfort in a contrivance which is thus described in by an "old inhabitant:"

 "There to warm their feet Was seen an article now obsolete, A sort of basket tub of braided straw Or husks, in which is placed a heated stone, Which does half-frozen limbs superbly thaw. And warms the marrow of the oldest bone. "

In some of the early, poorly built log meeting-houses, fur bags made ofcoarse skins, such as wolf-skin, were nailed or tied to the edges of thebenches, and into these bags the worshippers thrust their feet for warmth. In some communities it was the custom for each family to bring on cold daysits "dogg" to meeting; where, lying at or on his master's feet, he proveda source of grateful warmth. These animal stoves became such an aboundingnuisance, however, that dog-whippers had to be appointed to serve onSundays to drive out the dogs. All through the records of the earlychurches we find such entries as this: "Whatsoever doggs come into themeeting-house in time of public worship, their owners shall each paysixpence. " Sixpence seems little, but the thrifty and poor Puritans wouldrather freeze their toes than pay sixpence for their calorific dogs. 

The church members made many rules and regulations to keep the cold out ofthe meeting-house during service-time, or perhaps we should say to keep thewind out. Thus in Woodstock, Connecticut, in 1725 it was ordered that the"several doors of the meeting-house be taken care of and kept shut in verycold and windy seasons according to the lying of the wind from time totime; and that people in such windy weather come in at the leeward doorsonly, and take care that they are easily shut both to prevent the breakingof the doors and the making of a noise. " In other churches it was orderedthat "no doors be opened to the windward and only one door to the leeward"during winter weather. 

The first church of Salem built a "cattied chimney twelve feet long" in itsmeeting-house in 1662, but five years later it was removed, perhaps throughthe colonists' dread lest the building be destroyed by a conflagrationcaused by the combustible nature of the materials of which the chimney wascomposed. Felt, in his "Annals of Salem, " asserts that the First Church ofBoston was the first New England congregation to have a stove for heatingthe meeting-house at the time of public worship; this was in 1773. Thisstatement is incorrect. Mr. Judd says the Hadley church had an iron stovein their meeting-house as early as 1734--the Hadley people were suchsybarites and novelty-lovers in those early days! The Old South Church ofBoston followed in the luxurious fashion in 1783, and the "Evening Post"of January 25, 1783, contained a poem of which these four lines show thecriticising and deprecating spirit:--

 "Extinct the sacred fire of love, Our zeal grown cold and dead, In the house of God we fix a stove To warm us in their stead. "

Other New England congregations piously froze during service-time well intothis century. The Longmeadow church, early in the field, had a stove in1810; the Salem people in 1815; and the Medford meeting in 1820. The churchin Brimfield in 1819 refused to pay for a stove, but ordered as somesacrifice to the desire for comfort, two extra doors placed on thegallery-stairs to keep out draughts; but when in that town, a few yearslater, a subscription was made to buy a church stove, one old memberrefused to contribute, saying "good preaching kept him hot enough withoutstoves. "

As all the church edifices were built without any thought of thepossibility of such comfortable furniture, they had to be adapted as bestthey might to the ungainly and unsightly great stoves which were usuallyplaced in the central aisle of the building. From these cast-iron monsters, there extended to the nearest windows and projected through them, hideousstove-pipes that too often spread, from every leaky and ill-fastenedjoint, smoke and sooty vapors, and sometimes pyroligneous drippings on thecongregation. Often tin pails to catch the drippings were hung under thestove-pipes, forming a further chaste and elegant church-decoration. Manyserious objections were made to the stoves besides the aesthetic ones. It was alleged that they would be the means of starting many destructiveconflagrations; that they caused severe headaches in the church attendants;and worst of all, that the _heat warped the ladies' tortoise-shellback-combs_. 

The church reformers contended, on the other hand, that no one couldproperly receive spiritual comfort while enduring such decided bodilydiscomfort. They hoped that with increased physical warmth, fervor inreligion would be equally augmented, --that, as Cowper wrote, --

 "The churches warmed, they would no longer hold Such frozen figures, stiff as they are cold. "

Many were the quarrels and discussions that arose in New Englandcommunities over the purchase and use of stoves, and many were the meetingsheld and votes taken upon the important subject. 

"Peter Parley"--Mr. Samuel Goodrich--gave, in his "Recollections, " a veryamusing account of the sufferings endured by the wife of an anti-stovedeacon. She came to church with a look of perfect resignation on theSabbath of the stove's introduction, and swept past the unwelcome intruderwith averted head, and into her pew. She sat there through the service, growing paler with the unaccustomed heat, until the minister's words about"heaping coals of fire" brought too keen a sense of the overwhelming andunhealthful stove-heat to her mind, and she fainted. She was carried out ofchurch, and upon recovering said languidly that it "was the heat from thestove. " A most complete and sudden resuscitation was effected, however, when she was informed of the fact that no fire had as yet been lighted inthe new church-furnishing. 

Similar chronicles exist about other New England churches, and bear astriking resemblance to each other. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher in an addressdelivered in New York on December 20, 1853, the anniversary of the Landingof the Pilgrims, referred to the opposition made to the introduction ofstoves into the old meeting-house in Litchfield, Connecticut, during theministry of his father, and gave an amusing account of the results of theintrogression. This allusion called up many reminiscences of anti-stovewars, and a writer in the "New York Enquirer" told the same story of thefainting woman in Litchfield meeting, who began to fan herself and atlength swooned, saying when she recovered "that the heat of the horridstove had caused her to faint. " A correspondent of the "Cleveland Herald"confirmed the fact that the fainting episode occurred in the Litchfieldmeeting-house. The editor of the "Hartford Daily Courant" thus added histestimony:--

 "Violent opposition had been made to the introduction of a stove in the old meeting-house, and an attempt made in vain to induce the soc to purchase one. The writer was one of seven young men who finally purchased a stove and requested permission to put it up in the meeting-house on trial. After much difficulty the committee consented. It was all arranged on Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday we took our seats in the Bass, rather earlier than usual, to see the fun. It was a warm November Sunday, in which the sun shone cheerfully and warmly on the old south steps and into the naked windows. The stove stood in the middle aisle, rather in front of the Tenor Gallery. People came in and stared. Good old Deacon Trowbridge, one of the most simple-hearted and worthy men of that generation, had, as Mr. Beecher says, been induced to give up his opposition. He shook his head, however, as he felt the heat reflected from it, and gathered up the skirts of his great as he passed up the broad aisle to the deacon's seat. Old Uncle Noah Stone, a wealthy farmer of the West End, who sat near, scowled and muttered at the effects of the heat, but waited until noon to utter his maledictions over his nut-cakes and cheese at the intermission. There had in fact been _no fire in the stove_, the day being too warm. We were too much upon the broad grin to be very devotional, and smiled rather loudly at the funny things we saw. But when the editor of the village paper, Mr. Bunce, came in (who was a believer in stoves in churches) and with a most satisfactory air warmed his hands by the stove, keeping the skirts of his great-coat carefully between his knees, we could stand it no longer but dropped invisible behind the breastwork. But the climax of the whole was (as the Cleveland man says) when Mrs. Peck went out in the middle of the service. It was, however, the means of reconciling the whole society; for after that first day we heard no more opposition to the warm stove in the meeting-house. "

With all this corroborative evidence I think it is fully proved that theevent really happened in Litchfield, and that the honor was stolen forother towns by unveracious chroniclers; otherwise we must believe in anamazing unanimity of church-joking and sham-fainting all over New England. 

The very nature, the stern, pleasure-hating and trial-glorying Puritannature, which made our forefathers leave their English homes to come, forthe love of God and the freedom of conscience, to these wild, barren, andunwelcoming shores, made them also endure with fortitude and almost withsatisfaction all personal discomforts, and caused them to cling withpersistent firmness to such outward symbols of austere contempt ofluxury, and such narrow-minded signs of love of simplicity as the lack ofcomfortable warmth during the time of public worship. The religion whichthey had endured such bitter hardships to establish, did not, in theirminds, need any shielding and coddling to keep it alive, but thrived farbetter on Spartan severity and simplicity; hence, it took two centuries ofgradual and most tardy softening and modifying of character to prepare thePuritan mind for so advanced a reform and luxury as proper warmth in themeeting-houses in winter. 

IX. 

The Noon-House. 

There might have been seen a hundred years ago, by the side of many an oldmeeting-house in New England, a long, low, mean, stable-like building, witha rough stone chimney at one end. This was the "noon-house, " or "Sabba-dayhouse, " or "horse-hows, " as it was variously called. It was a place ofrefuge in the winter time, at the noon interval between the two services, for the half-frozen members of the pious congregation, who found there thegrateful warmth which the house of God denied. They built in the rude stonefireplace a great fire of logs, and in front of the blazing wood ate theirnoon-day meal of cold pie, of doughnuts, of pork and peas, or of brownbread with cheese, which they had brought safely packed in their capacioussaddlebags. The dining-place smelt to heaven of horses, for often at thefurther end of the noon-house were stabled the patient steeds that, doublyburdened, had borne the Puritans and their wives to meeting; but thisstable-odor did not hinder appetite, nor did the warm equine breaths thathelped to temper the atmosphere of the noon-house offend the senses of thesturdy Puritans. From the blazing fire in this "life-saving station" thewomen replenished their little foot-stoves with fresh, hot coals, and thushelped to make endurable the icy rigor of the long afternoon service. 

If the winter Sabbath Day were specially severe, a "hired-man, " or one ofthe grown sons of the family, was sent at an early hour to the noon-housein advance of the other church-attendants, and he started in the roughfireplace a fire for their welcome after their long, cold, morning ride;and before its cheerful blaze they thoroughly warmed themselves beforeentering the icy meeting-house. The embers were carefully covered overand left to start a second blaze at the nooning, covered again during theafternoon service, and kindled up still a third time to warm the chilledworshippers ere they started for their cold ride home in the wintertwilight. And when the horses were saddled, or were harnessed and hitchedinto the great box-sleighs or "pungs, " and when the good Puritans were wellwrapped up, the dying coals were raked out for safety and the noon-housewas left as quiet and as cold as the deserted meeting-house until thefollowing Sabbath or Lecture day. 

If the meeting-house chanced to stand in the middle of the town (as wasthe universal custom in the earliest colonial days) of course a noon-housewould be rarely built, for it would plainly not be needed. Nor was a"Sabba-day house" always seen in more lonely situations, if the sanctuarywere placed near the substantial farm-house of a hospitable farmer; for tothat friendly shelter the whole congregation would at noon-time repair andabsorb to the fullest degree the welcome cider and warmth. 

In Lexington for many years after the Revolutionary War, the winterchurch-goers who came from any distance spent the nooning at the DudleyTavern, where a roaring fire was built in the inn-parlor, and there thewomen and children ate their midday lunch. The men gathered in the bar-roomand drank flip, and ate the tavern gingerbread and cheese, and talked overthe horrors and glories of the war. In Haverhill, Derby, and many othertowns, the school-house, which was built on the village green beside thechurch, was used for a noon-house by the church members, though not bytheir horses. The house of learning was never chimneyless and fireless, aswas the house of God. 

As churches and towns multiplied, a meeting-house was often built toaccommodate two little settlements or villages (and thus was convenient forneither), and was frequently placed in an isolated or inconvenient place, the top of a high hill being perhaps the most inconvenient and the mostfavored site. Thus a noon-house became an absolute necessity to Puritanhealth and existence, and often two or three were built near onemeeting-house; while in some towns, as in Bristol, a whole row ofdisfiguring little "Sabba-day houses" stood on the meeting-house green, and in them the farmers (as they quaintly expressed in their petitions forpermission to erect the buildings) "kept their duds and horses. "

In Derby, after several petitions had been granted to build noon-houses, itwas found necessary, in 1764, to place some restrictions as to the locationof the buildings, which had hitherto evidently been placed with thecharacteristically Puritanical indifference to general convenience orappearance. While the town still permitted the little log-huts to beerected, and though they could be placed on either side of the highway, itwas ordered that the builders must not so locate them as to "incommode anyhighways. " As early as 1690 the thoughtful Stonington people built a house"14 foot square and seven foot posts" with a chimney at one side, for theexpress purpose of having a place where their minister, Rev. Mr. Noyes, could thaw out between services. The New Canaan Church built on the greenbeside their meeting-house a fine "Society House, " twenty-one feet longand sixteen feet wide, with a big chimney and fireplace. The horses wereplainly "not in society" in New Canaan, for they were excluded from theoccupancy and privileges of the Society House. 

"James June & all that lives at Larences" were allowed to build a"Sabbath-House" on the green near the New Britain meeting-house "as aCommodate for their conveniency of comeing to meeting on the Sabbath;" atthe same time James Slason of the same village was given permission to "setyp a house for ye advantage of his having a place to go to" on the Sabbath. Frequently the petitions "to build a Sabbath Day House" or a "Housel forShelter for Horss" were made in company by several farmers for their jointuse and comfort, as shown by entries in the town and church records ofNorwalk, New Milford, Durham, and Hartford. 

Noon-houses were much more frequent in Connecticut than in Massachusetts, and in several small towns in the former State they were used weeklybetween Sunday services until within the memory of persons now living;and some of the buildings still exist, though changed into granaries orstables. There was one also in use for many years and until recent years inTopsfield, in Massachusetts. We chanced upon one still standing on a lonelyNarragansett road. A little enclosed burial-place, with moss-grown andweather-smoothed head-stones and neglected graves, was by the side of afilled-in cellar, upon which a church evidently had once stood. At a shortdistance from the church-site was a long, low, gray, weather-beaten woodenbuilding, with a coarse stone-and-mortar chimney at one end, and a greatdoor at the other. Two small windows, destitute of glass, permitted usto peer into the interior of this dilapidated old structure, and we sawwithin, a floor of beaten earth, a rough stone fireplace, and a few rudehorse-stalls. We felt sure that this tumble-down building had been neithera dwelling-house nor a stable, but a noon-house; and the occupants of aneighboring farm-house confirmed our decision. Too worthless to destroy, too out of the way to be of any use to any person, that old noon-house, through neglect and isolation, has remained standing until to-day. 

It was not until the use of chaises and wagons became universal, and thenew means of conveyance crowded out the old-fashioned saddle and pillion, and the trotting horse superseded the once fashionable but quickly despisedpacer, that the great stretches of horse-sheds were built which nowsurround and disfigure all our country churches. These sheds protect, of course, both horse and carriage from wind and rain. Few churches hadhorse-sheds until after the War of the Revolution, and some not until afterthe War of 1812. In 1796 the Longmeadow Church had "liberty to erect aHorse House in the Meeting House Lane. " This horse house was a horse-shed. 

The "wretched boys" were not permitted even in these noon-houses to talk, much less to "sporte and playe. " In some parishes it was ordered by theminister and the deacons that the Bible should be read and expoundedto them, or a sermon be read to keep them quiet during the nooning. Occasionally some old patriarch would explain to them the notes that hehad taken during the morning sermon. More unbearable still, the boys weresometimes ordered to explain the notes which they had taken themselves. Iwould I had heard some of those explanations! Thus they literally, as waswritten in 1774, throve on the "Good Fare of Brown Bread and the Gospell. "

In Andover, Judge Phillips left in his will a silver flagon to the churchas an expression of interest and hope that the "laudable practice ofreading between services may be continued so long as even a small numbershall be disposed to attend the exercise. " Mr. Abbott left another silverflagon to the Andover Church to encourage reading between services; thoughhow this piece of plate encouraged personally, since neither the deaconsnor the boys got it as a prize, cannot be precisely understood. Thenoon-house in Andover was a large building with a great chimney and openfireplace at either end. It has always seemed to me a piece of gratuitousposthumous cruelty in Judge Phillips and Mr. Abbott to try to cheat thoseAndover boys of their noon-time rest and relaxation, and to expect them, wriggling and twisting with repressed vitality, to listen to a long extrasermon, read perhaps by some unskilled reader, or explained by someincapable expounder. The Sabbath-school did not then exist, and was not ingeneral favor until the noon-houses had begun to disappear. The ReverendJedediah Morse, father of the inventor of the electric telegraph, wasalmost the first New England clergyman who approved of Sabbath-schools andestablished them in his parish. In Salem they were opened in 1808, and thescholars came at half-past six on Sunday mornings. Fancy the chill andgloom of the unheated, ill-lighted churches at that hour on wintermornings. The "Salem Gazette" openly characterized Sunday-schools, whenfirst suggested, as profanations of the Sabbath, and for years they werenot allowed in many Congregational churches. When the Sabbath-schoolswere universally established, and thus the attention and interest of thechildren was gained during the noon interval (the time the schools wereusually held in country churches), and when each family sat in its own pew, and thus the boys were separated, and each under his parents' guardianship, the "wretched boys" of the Puritan Sabbath disappeared, and well-behaved, quiet, orderly boys were seen instead in the New England churches. 

This fashion of sermon-reading at the nooning happily did not obtain inall parts of New England. In many villages the meetings in the societynoon-houses were to the townspeople what a Sunday newspaper is to Sundayreaders now-a-days, an advertisement and exposition of all the news of thepast week, and also a suggestion of events to come. At noon they discussedand wondered at the announcements and publishings which were tacked onthe door of the meeting-house or the notices that had been read from thepulpit. The men talked in loud voices of the points of the sermon, of thedoctrines of predestination pedobaptism and antipedobaptism, of originalsin, and that most fascinating mystery, the unpardonable sin, and in lowervoices of wolf and bear killing, of the town-meeting, the taxes, the cropsand cattle; and they examined with keen interest one another's horses, and many a sly bargain in horse-flesh or exchange of cows and pigs wassuggested, bargained over, and clinched in the "Sabba'-day house. " Many apiece of village electioneering was also discussed and "worked" between theservices. The shivering women crowded around the blazing and welcome fire, and seated themselves on rude benches and log seats while they ate andexchanged doughnuts, slices of rusk, or pieces of "pumpkin and Indian mixt"pie, and also gave to each other receipts therefor; and they discoursedin low voices of their spinning and weaving, of their candle-dippingor candle-running, of their success or failure in that yearly trial ofpatience and skill--their soap-making, of their patterns in quilt-piecing, and sometimes they slyly exchanged quilt-patterns. A sentence in an oldletter reads thus: "Anne Bradford gave to me last Sabbath in the Noon Housea peecing of the Blazing Star; tis much Finer than the Irish Chain or theTwin Sisters. I want yelloe peeces for the first joins, small peeces willdo. I will send some of my lilac flowered print for some peeces of Cicelysyelloe India bed vallants, new peeces not washed peeces. " They gave oneanother medical advice and prescriptions of "roots and yarbs" for their"rheumatiz, " "neuralgy, " and "tissick;" and some took snuff together, whilean ancient dame smoked a quiet pipe. And perhaps (since they were women aswell as Puritans) they glanced with envy, admiration, or disapproval, orat any rate with close scrutiny, at one another's gowns and bonnets andcloaks, which the high-walled pews within the meeting-house had carefullyconcealed from any inquisitive, neighborly view. 

The wood for these beneficent noon-house fires was given by the farmersof the congregation, a load by each well-to-do land-owner, if it were a"society-house, " and occasionally an apple-growing farmer gave a barrel of"cyder" to supply internal instead of external warmth. Cider sold in 1782for six shillings "Old Tenor" a barrel, so it was worth about the sameas the wood both in money value and calorific qualities. A hundred yearspreviously--in 1679--cider was worth ten shillings a barrel. In 1650, whenfirst made in America, it was a costly luxury, selling for £4 4s. A barrel. That this thawed-out Sunday barrel of cider would prove invariably a sourceof much refreshment, inspiration, solace, tongue-loosing, and blood-warmingto the chilled and shivering deacons, elders, and farmers who gathered inthe noon-house, any one who has imbibed that all-potent and intoxicatingbeverage, oft-frozen "hard" cider, can fervently testify. 

Sometimes a very opulent farmer having built a noon-house for his own andhis family's exclusive use, would keep in it as part of his "duds" a fewsimple cooking utensils in which his wife or daughters would re-heat orpartially cook his noon-day Sabbath meal, and mix for him a hot toddy orpunch, or a mug of that "most insinuating drink"--flip. Flip was made ofhome-brewed beer, sugar, and a liberal dash of Jamaica rum, and was mixedwith a "logger-head"--a great iron "stirring-stick" which was heated in thefire until red hot and then thrust into the liquid. This seething iron madethe flip boil and bubble and imparted to it a burnt, bitter taste which wasits most attractive attribute. I doubt not that many a "loggerhead" waskept in New England noon-houses and left heating and gathering insinuatinggoodness in the glowing coals, while the pious owner sat freezing in themeeting-house, also gathering goodness, but internally keeping warm at thethought of the bitter nectar he should speedily brew and gladly imbibe atthe close of the long service. 

The comfort of a hot midday dinner on the Sabbath was not regarded withmuch favor, though perhaps with secret envy, by the neighbors of theluxury-loving farmer, who saw in it too close an approach to "profanationof the Sabbath. " The heating and boiling of the flip with the red hot"loggerhead" hardly came under the head of "unnecessary Sabbath cooking"even in the minds of the most straight-laced descendants of the Puritans. 

When stoves were placed and used in the New England meeting-houses, thenoon-day lunches were eaten within the pews inside the sanctuary, and thenoon-houses, no longer being needed, followed the law of cause and effect, and like many other institutions of the olden times quickly disappeared. 

X. 

The Deacon's Office. 

The deacons in the early New England churches had, besides their regularduties on the Lord's Day, and their special duties on communion Sabbaths, the charge of prudential concerns, and of providing for the poor of thechurch. They also "dispensed the word" on Sabbaths to the congregationduring the absence of the ordained minister. Judge Sewall thus describesin his diary under the date of November, 1685, the method at that time ofappointing or ordaining a deacon:--

 "In afternoon Mr. Willard ordained our Brother Theophilus Frary to the office of a Deacon. Declared his acceptance January 11th first now again. Propounded him to the congregation at Noon. Then in even propounded him if any of the church of other had to object they might speak. Then took the Church's Vote, then call'd him up to the Pulpit, laid his Hand on's head, and said I ordain Thee, etc. , etc. , gave him his charge, then Prayed & sung 2nd Part of 84th Psalm. "

The deacons always sat near the pulpit in a pew, which was generallyraised a foot or two above the level of the meeting-house floor, and whichcontained, usually, several high-backed chairs and a table or a broadswinging-shelf for use at the communion service. These venerable men werea group of awe-inspiring figures, who, next to the parson, received therespect of the community. In Bristol, Connecticut, the deacons worestarched white linen caps in the meeting-house to indicate their office, --asingular local custom. One of their duties in many communities wasnaturally to furnish the sacramental wines, and the money for the paymentthereof was allowed to them from the church-rates, or was raised by specialtaxation. In Farmington, Connecticut, in 1669, each male inhabitant wasordered to pay a peck of wheat or one shilling to the deacons of the churchto defray the expenses of the sacrament. In Groton church, in 1759, "4Coppers for every Sacrament for 1 year" was demanded from each communicant. In Springfield the "deacon's rate" was paid in "wampam, "--sixpence in"wampam" or a peck of Indian corn from each family in the town. Thisspecial tax was somewhat modified in case a man had no wife, or if he werenot a church-member, but in the latter case he still had to pay some dues, though of course he could not take part in the communion service. In 1734the Milton church ordered the deacons to procure "good Canary Wine forthe Communion Table. " Abuses sometimes arose, --abominably poor wines werefurnished, though full rates were paid for the purchase of wine ofgood quality; and in Newbury the man who was appointed to furnish thesacramental wines, sold, under that religious cover, wine and liquors atretail. 

The deacons also had charge of the vessels used in the communion service. These vessels were frequently stored, when not in use, under the pulpit ina little closet which opened into "the Ministers wives pue, " and which wasfabled to be at the disposal of the tithingmen and deacons for the darksomeincarceration of unruly and Sabbath-breaking boys. The communion vesselswere not always of valuable metal; John Cotton's first church had woodenchalices; the wealthier churches owned pieces of silver which had beengiven to them, one piece at a time, by members or friends of the church;but communion services of pewter were often seen. 

The church in Hanover, Massachusetts, bought a pewter service in 1728, andthe record of the purchase still exists. It runs thus:--

 3 Pewter Tankards marked C. T. 10 shillings. 5 " Beakers " C. E. 6 sh. 6d. Each. 2 " Platters " C. P. 5 sh. Each. 1 " Basin for Baptisms. 

This pewter service is still owned by the Hanover church, a highly prizedrelic. Until 1753 the church in Andover used a pewter communion service, but when a silver service was given to it, the Andover church sent thevessels of baser metal to a sister church in Methuen. In Haverhill the willof a church-member named White gave to the church absolutely the pewterdishes which were used at the sacrament, and which had been his personalproperty. The "ffirst church" of Hartford had "one Puter fflagon, ffowerpewter dishes, and a bason" left to it by the bequest of one of itsmembers. When the Danvers church was burned in 1805, the pewter communionvessels were saved while the silver ones were either burnt or stolen. Aspewter was, in the early days of New England, far from being a despisedmetal, and as pewter dishes and plates were seen on the tables of thewealthiest families, were left by will as precious possessions, wereengraved with initials and stamped with coats of arms, and polished withas much care as were silver vessels, a communion service of pewter wasdoubtless felt to be a thoroughly satisfactory acquisition and appointmentto a Puritan church. 

The deacons of course took charge of the church contributions. Lechford, in his "Plaine Dealing, " thus describes the manner of giving in the Bostonchurch in 1641:--

 "Baptism being ended, follows the contribution, one of the deacons saying, 'Brethren of the Congregation, now there is time left for contribution, whereof as God has prospered you so freely offer. ' The Magistrates and chief gentlemen first, and then the Elders and all the Congregation of them, and most of them that are not of the church, all single persons, widows and women in absence of their husbands, came up one after another one way, and bring their offering to the deacon at his seat, and put it into a box of wood for the purpose, if it be money or papers. If it be any other Chattel they set or lay it down before the deacons; and so pass on another way to their seats again; which money and goods the Deacons dispose towards the maintenance of the Minister, and the poor of the Church, and the Churches occasions without making account ordinarily. "

Lechford also said he saw a "faire gilt cup" given at the publiccontribution; and other gifts of value to the church and minister wereoften made. Libellous verses too were thrown into the contribution boxes, and warning and gloomy messages from the Quakers; and John Rogers, in derision of a pompous New London minister, threw in the insultingcontribution of an old periwig. One Puritan goodwife, sternly unforgiving, never saw a contribution taken for proselyting the Indians withoutdepositing in the contribution-box a number of leaden bullets, the onlytokens she wished to see ever dispersed among the red men. 

Even our pious forefathers were not always quite honest in their churchcontributions, and had to be publicly warned, as the records show, thatthey must deposit "wampum without break or deforming spots, " or "passablepeage without breaches. " The New Haven church was particularly tormented bycanny Puritans who thus managed to dispose of their broken and worthlesscurrency with apparent Christian generosity. In 1650 the New Haven "deaconsinformed the Court that the wampum which is putt into the Church Treasuryis generally so bad that the Elders to whom they pay it cannot pay itaway. "

In 1651, as the bad wampum was still paid in by the pious New HavenPuritans, it was ordered that "no money save silver or bills" be acceptedby the deacons. After this order the deacons and elders found tremendousdifficulty in getting any contributions at all, and many are the records ofthe actions and decisions of the church in regard to the perplexing matter. It should be said, in justice to the New Haven colonists, though they werethe most opulent of the New England planters, save the wealthy settlersof Narragansett, that money of all kinds was scarce, and that the Indianmoney, wampum-peag, being made of a comparatively frail sea-shell, was moreeasily disfigured and broken than was metal coin; and that there was littletransferable wealth in the community anyway, even in "Country Pay. " Thebroken-wampum-giver of the seventeenth century, who contributed with intentto defraud and deceive the infant struggling church was the direct andlineal ancestor of the sanctimonious button-giver of nineteenth-centurycountry churches. 

In Revolutionary times, after the divine service, special contributionswere taken for the benefit of the Continental Army. In New England largequantities of valuable articles were thus collected. Not only money, butfinger-rings, earrings, watches, and other jewelry, all kinds of maleattire, --stockings, hats, coats, breeches, shoes, --produce and groceries ofall kinds, were brought to the meeting-house to give to the soldiers. Eventhe leaden weights were taken out of the window-sashes, made into bullets, and brought to meeting. On one occasion Madam Faith Trumbull rose up inLebanon meeting-house in Connecticut, when a collection was being made forthe army, took from her shoulders a magnificent scarlet cloak, which hadbeen a present to her from Count Rochambeau, the commander-in-chief of theFrench allied army, and advancing to the altar, gave it as her offering tothe gallant men, who were fighting not only the British army, but terriblewant and suffering. The fine cloak was cut into narrow strips and used asred trimmings for the uniforms of the soldiers. The romantic impressivenessof Madam Trumbull's patriotic act kindled warm enthusiasm in thecongregation, and an enormous collection was taken, packed carefully, andsent to the army. 

One early duty of the deacons which was religiously and severely performedwas to watch that no one but an accepted communicant should partake of theholy sacrament. One stern old Puritan, having been officially expelled fromchurch-membership for some temporal rather than spiritual offence, thoughignored by the all-powerful deacon, still refused to consider himselfexcommunicated, and calmly and doggedly attended the communion servicebearing his own wine and bread, and in the solitude of his own pew communedwith God, if not with his fellow-men. For nearly twenty years did thisaustere man rigidly go through this lonely and sad ceremonial, until heconquered by sheer obstinacy and determination, and was again admitted tochurch-fellowship. 

A very extraordinary custom prevailed in several New England churches. Through it the deacons were assigned a strange and serious duty whichappeared to make them all-important and possibly self-important, andwhich must have weighed heavily upon them, were they truly godly, andconscientious in the performance of it. In the rocky little town of Pelhamin the heart of Massachusetts, toward the close of the eighteenth centuryand during the pastorate of the notorious thief, counterfeiter, and forger, Rev. Stephen Burroughs, that remarkable rogue organized and introduced tohis parishioners the custom of giving during the month a metal check toeach worthy and truly virtuous church-member, on presentation of which thecheck-bearer was entitled to partake of the communion, and without which hewas temporarily excommunicated. The duty of the deacon in this matter wasto walk up and down the aisles of the church at the close of each serviceand deliver to the proper persons (proper in the deacon's halting humanjudgment) the significant checks. The deacon had also to see that thisreligionistic ticket was presented on the communion Sabbath. Great musthave been the disgrace of one who found himself checkless at the end of themonth, and greater even than the heart-burnings over seating the meetingmust have been the jealousies and church quarrels that arose over thecommunion-checks. And yet no records of the protests or complaints ofindignant or grieving parishioners can be found, and the existence ofthe too worldly, too business-like custom is known to us only throughtradition. 

Many of the little chips called "Presbyterian checks" are, however, stillin existence. They are oblong discs of pewter, about an inch and a halflong, bearing the initials "P. P. , " which stand, it is said, for "PelhamPresbyterian. " I could not but reflect, as I looked at the simple littlestamped slips of metal, that in a community so successful in the difficultwork of counterfeiting coin, it would have been very easy to form a mouldand cast from it spurious checks with which to circumvent the deacons andpreserve due dignity in the meeting. 

The Presbyterian checks have never been attributed in Massachusetts toother than the Pelham church, and are usually found in towns in thevicinity of Pelham; and there the story of their purpose and use isuniversally and implicitly believed. A clergyman of the Pelham church gaveto many of his friends these Presbyterian checks, which he had found amongthe disused and valueless church-properties, and the little relics of theold-time deacons and services have been carefully preserved. 

In New Hampshire, however, a similar custom prevailed in the churches ofLondonderry and the neighboring towns. . The Londonderry settlers wereScotch-Irish Presbyterians (and the Pelham planters were an off-shoot ofthe Londonderry settlement), and they followed the custom of the ScotchPresbyterians in convening the churches twice a year to partake of theLord's Supper. This assembly was always held in Londonderry, and ministersand congregations gathered from all the towns around. Preparatory serviceswere held on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Long tables were placed inthe aisles of the church on the Sabbath; and after a protracted and solemnaddress upon the deep meaning of the celebration and the duties of thechurch-members, the oldest members of the congregation were seated at thetable and partook of the sacrament. Thin cakes of unleavened bread werespecially prepared for this sacred service. Again and again were the tablesrefilled with communicants, for often seven hundred church-members werepresent. Thus the services were prolonged from early morning untilnightfall. When so many were to partake of the Lord's Supper, it seemednecessary to take means to prevent any unworthy or improper person frompresenting himself. Hence the tables were fenced off, and each communicantwas obliged to present a "token. " These tokens were similar to the"Presbyterian checks;" they were little strips of lead or pewter stampedwith the initials "L. D. , " which may have stood for "Londonderry" or"Lord's Day. " They were presented during the year by the deacons and eldersto worthy and pious church-members. This bi-annual celebration of theLord's Supper--this gathering of old friends and neighbors from the rockywilds of New Hampshire to join, in holy communion--was followed on Mondayby cheerful thanksgiving and social intercourse, in which, as in everyfeast, our old friend, New England rum, played no unimportant part. Thethree days previous to the communion Sabbath were, however, solemnlydevoted to the worship of God; a Londonderry man was reproved andprosecuted for spreading grain upon a Thursday preceding a communionSunday, just as he would have been for doing similar work upon the Sabbath. The use of these "tokens" in the Londonderry church continued until theyear 1830. 

In the coin collection of the American Antiquarian Society are littlepewter communion-checks, or tokens, stamped with a heart. These were usedin the Presbyterian church in Philadelphia, and were delivered to piouschurch-members at the Friday evening prayer-meeting preceding the communionSabbath. Long tables were set in the aisles, as at Londonderry. Inpractice, belief, and origin, the New Hampshire and Pennsylvania churcheswere sisters. 

The deacons had many minor duties to perform in the different parishes. Some of these duties they shared with the tithingman. They visited thehomes of the church-members to hear the children say the catechism, theyvisited and prayed with the sick, and they also reported petty offences, though they were not accorded quite so powerful legal authority as thetithingmen and constables. 

It was much desired by several of the first-settled ministers that thereshould be deaconesses in the New England Puritan church, and many goodreasons were given for making such appointments. It was believed thatfor the special duty of visiting the sick and afflicted in the communitydeaconesses would be more useful than deacons. There had been an ageddeaconess in the Puritan church in Holland, who with a "little birchenrod" had kept the children in awe and order in meeting, and who had alsoexercised "her guifts" in speaking; but when she died no New Englandsuccessor was appointed to fill her place. 

XI. 

The Psalm-Book of the Pilgrims. 

We read in "The Courtship of Miles Standish, " of the fair Priscilla, whenJohn Alden came to woo her for his friend, the warlike little captain, that

 "Open wide on her lap lay the well-worn psalm-book of Ainsworth, Printed in Amsterdam, the words and the music together; Rough-hewn, angular notes, like stones in the wall of a churchyard, Darkened and overhung by the running vine of the verses. Such was the book from whose pages she sang the old Puritan anthem. "

One of these "well-worn psalm-books of Ainsworth" lies now before me, perhaps the very one from which the lonely Priscilla sang as she sata-spinning. 

There is something especially dear to the lover and dreamer of the oldentime, to the book-lover and antiquary as well, in an old, worn psalm orhymn book. It speaks quite as eloquently as does an old Bible of lovingdaily use, and adds the charm of interest in the quaint verse to reverencefor the sacred word. A world of tender fancies springs into life as I turnover the pages of any old psalm-book "reading between the lines, " and asI decipher the faded script on the titlepage. But this "psalm-book ofAinsworth, " this book loved and used by the Pilgrims, brought over in oneof those early ships, perhaps in the "Mayflower" itself, this book sosymbolic of those early struggling days in New England, has a romance, acharm, an interest which thrills every drop of Puritan blood in my veins. 

It is pleasing, too, this "Ainsworth's Version, " aside from any thought ofits historic associations; its square pages of diversified type are wellprinted, and have a quaint unfamiliar look which is intensely attractive, and to which the odd, irregular notes of music, the curiously ornamentedhead and tail pieces, and the occasional Hebrew or Greek letters add theirundefinable charm. 

It is a square quarto of three hundred and forty-eight closely printedpages, bound in time-stained but well-preserved parchment, and even theparchment itself is interesting, and lovely to the touch. The titlepage ismissing, but I know that this is the edition printed, as was Priscilla's, in Amsterdam in 1612 (not "in England in 1600" as a note written in thelast blank page states). The full title was "The Book of Psalms. Englishedboth in Prose and Metre. With annotations opening the words and sentencesby conference with other Scriptures. Eph. V: 18, 19. Bee yee filled withthe Spirit speaking to yourselves in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual-Songssinging and making melodie in your hearts to the Lord. " The book containsbesides the Psalms and Annotations, on its first pages, a "Prefacedeclaring the reason and use of the Book;" and at the last pages a "Tabledirecting to some principal things observed in the Annotations of thePsalms, " a list of "Hebrew phrases observed which are somewhat hard andfigurative, " and also some "General Observations touching the Psalms. "

I can well imagine what a pious delight this book was to our PilgrimFathers; and what a still greater delight it was to our Pilgrim Mothers, in that day and country of few books. They possessed in it, not only awonderful new metrical version of the Psalms for singing, but a proseversion for comparison as well; and the deeply learned and profoundlyworded annotations placed at the end of each Psalm were doubtless ofspecial interest to such "scripturists with all their hearts" as they were. 

There were also, "for the use and edification of the saints, " printed aboveeach psalm the airs of appropriate tunes. The "rough-hewn, angular notes"are irregularly lozenge-shaped, like the notes or "pricks" in QueenElizabeth's "Virginal-Book, " and are placed on the staff without bars. Ainsworth, in his preface, says, "Tunes for the Psalms I find none set ofGod: so that ech people is to use the most grave decent and comfortablemanner that they know how, according to the general rule. The singing notesI have most taken from our Englished psalms when they will fit the mesureof the verse: and for the other long verses I have also taken (for the mostpart) the gravest and easiest tunes of the French and Dutch psalmes. " Easythe tunes certainly are, to the utmost degree of simplicity. 

Great diversity too of type did the Pilgrims find in their Psalm-book:Roman type, Italics, black-letter, all were used; the verse was printed inItalics, the prose in Roman type, and the annotation in black-letter andsmall Roman text with close-spaced lines. This variety though picturesquemakes the text rather difficult to read; for while one can decipherblack-letter readily enough when reading whole pages of it, when it isinterspersed with other type it makes the print somewhat confusing to theunaccustomed eye. 

One curious characteristic of the typography is the frequent use of thehyphen, compound words or rather compound phrases being formed apparentlywithout English rule or reason. Such combinations as these are given asinstances: "highly-him-preferre, " "renowned-name, " "repose-me-quietlie, ""in-mind-uplay, " "turn-to-ashes, " "my-alonely-soul, " "beat-them-final, ""pouring-out-them-hard, " "inveyers-mak-streight, " and "condemn-thou-them-as-guilty, "--which certainly would make fit verses to be sung to theaccompaniment of Master Mace's "excellent-large-plump-lusty-fullspeaking-organ. "

Ainsworth's Version when read proves to be a scholarly book, exhibiting farbetter grammar and punctuation and more uniformity of spelling than "TheNew England Psalm-book, " which at a later date displaced Ainsworth in theaffections and religious services of the New England Puritans and Pilgrims. Both versions are somewhat confused in sense, and of uncouth and grotesqueversification; though the metre of Ainsworth is better than the rhyme. Itis all written in "common metre, " nearly all in lines of eight and sixsyllables alternately. 

The name of the author of this version was Henry Ainsworth; he was thegreatest of all the Holland Separatists, a typical Elizabethan Puritan, who left the church in which he was educated and attached himself to theSeparatists, or Brownists, as they were called. He went into exile inAmsterdam in 1593, and worked for some time as a porter in a book-seller'sshop, living (as Roger Williams wrote) "upon ninepence in the weeke withroots boyled. " He established, with the Reverend Mr. Johnson, the newchurch in Holland; and when it was divided by dissension, he became thepastor of the "Ainsworthian Brownists" and so remained for twelve years. He was a most accomplished scholar, and was called the "rabbi of his age. "Governor Bradford, in his "Dialogue, " written in 1648, says of Ainsworth, "He had not his better for the Hebrew tongue in the University nor scarcein Europe. " Hence, naturally, he was constantly engaged upon some work oftranslating or commentating, and still so highly prized is some of his workthat it has been reprinted during this century. He also, being a skilfuldisputant, wrote innumerable controversial pamphlets and books, manyof which still exist. It is said that he once had a long and spiritedcontroversy with a brother divine as to whether the ephod of Aaron wereblue or green. I fear we of to-day have lost much that the final, decisivejudgment from so learned scholars and students as to the correct color hasnot descended to us, and now, if we wish to know, we shall have to fight itall over again. 

In spite of his power of argument (or perhaps on account of it) the mostprominent part which Ainsworth seemed to take in Amsterdam for many yearswas that of peacemaker, as many of his contemporaries testify: for theyquarrelled fiercely among themselves in the exiled church, though theyhad such sore need of unity and good fellowship; and they had many churcharguments and judgments and lawsuits. They quarrelled over the exercise ofpower in the church; over the true meaning of the text Matthew xviii. 17;whether the members of the congregation should be allowed to look on theirBibles during the preaching or on their Psalm-books during the singing;whether they should sing at all in their meetings; over the power of theoffice of ruling elder (a fruitful source of dissension and disruption inthe New England congregations likewise) and above all, they quarrelled longand bitterly over the unseemly and gay dress of the parson's wife, MadamJohnson. These were the terrible accusations that were brought against thatbedizened Puritan: that she wore "her bodies tied to the petticote withpoints as men do their doublets and hose; contrary to I Thess. V: 22, conferred with Deut. Xx: 11;" that she also wore "lawn coives, " and"busks, " and "whalebones in the petticote bodies, " and a "veluet hoode, "and a "long white brest;" and that she "stood gazing bracing and vauntingin the shop dores;" and that "men called her a bounceing girl" (as ifshe could help that!). And one of her worst and most bitterly condemnedoffences was that she wore "a topish hat. " This her husband vehementlydenied; and long discussions and explanations followed on the hat'stopishness, --"Mr. Ainsworth dilating much upon a greeke worde" (as ofcourse so learned a man would). For the benefit of unlearned modernchildren of the Puritans let me give the old Puritan's precise explanationand classification of topishness. "Though veluet in its nature were nottopish, yet if common mariners should weare such it would be a sign ofpride and topishness in them. Also a gilded raper and a feather are nottopish in their nature, neither in a captain to weare them, and yet if aminister should weare them they would be signs of great vanity topishnessand lightness. " I wonder that topish hat had not undone the whole Puritanchurch in Holland. 

In settling all these and many other disputes, in translating, commentating, and versifying, did Henry Ainsworth pass his days; until, worn out by hard labor, and succumbing to long continued weakness, he diedin 1623. This romantic story of his death is told by Neal. "It was suddenand not without suspicion of violence; for it is reported that, havingfound a diamond of very great value in the streets of Amsterdam, headvertised it in print; and when the owner, who was a Jew, came to demandit, he offered him any acknowledgment he would desire, but Ainsworth thoughpoor would accept of nothing but conference with some of his rabbis uponthe prophecies of the Old Testament relating to the Messiah, which theother promised, but not having interest enough to obtain it he waspoisoned. " This rather ambiguous sentence means that Ainsworth waspoisoned, not the Jew. Brooks's account of the story is that the conferencetook place, the Jews were vanquished, and in revenge poisoned the championof Christianity afterwards. Dexter most unromantically throws cold water onthis poisoning story, and adduces much circumstantial testimony to proveits improbability; but it could hardly have been invented in cold blood bythe Puritan historians, and must have had some foundation in truth. Andsince he is dead, and the thought cannot harm him, I may acknowledge that Ifirmly believe and I like to believe that he died in so romantic a way. 

The Puritans were psalm-singers ever; and in Holland the Brownist divisionof the church came under strong influences from Geneva and Wittenberg, thebirth-places of psalm-singing, that made them doubly fond of "worship insong. " Hence the Pilgrim Fathers, Brewster, Bradford, Carver, and Standish, for love of music as well as in affectionate testimony to their old pastorand friend, brought to the New World copies of his version of the Psalmsand sang from it with delight and profit to themselves, if not with easeand elegance. 

Dexter says very mildly of Ainsworth's literary work that "there arediversities of gifts, and it is no offence to his memory to conclude thathe shone more as an exegete than as a poet. " Poesy is a gift of the godsand cometh not from deep Hebrew study nor from vast learning, and we mustaccept Ainsworth's pious enthusiasm in the place of poetic fervor. Of thequality of his work, however, it is best to judge for one's self. Here ishis rendition of the Nineteenth Psalm, so well known to us in verse byAddison's glorious "The spacious firmament on high. " The prose version isprinted in one column and the verse by its side. 

 1. To the Mayster of the Musik: A Psalm of David

 2. The heavens, doo tel the glory of God: and the out-spred firmament shevveth; the work of his hand. 

 3. Day unto day uttereth speech: and night unto night manifesteth knowledge:

 4. No speech, and no words: not heard is their voice

 5. Through all the earth, gone-forth is their line: and unto the utmost-end of the world their speakings: he hath put a tent in them for the sun. 

 6. And he; as a bridegroom, going-forth out of his privy-chamber: joyes as a mighty-man to run a race

 7. From the utmost end of the heavens is his egress; and his compassing-regress is unto the utmost-ends of them: and none _is_ hidd, from his heat. 

 2. The heav'ne, doo tel the glory of God and his firmament dooth preach. 

 3. Work of his hands. Day unto day dooth largely-utter speach and night unto night dooth knowledge shew

 4. No speach, and words are none. 

 5. Thier voice it-is not heard. Thier line through all the earth is gone: and to the worlds end, thier speakings: in them he did dispose, 6. Tent for the Sun. Who-bride-groom-like out of his chamber goes: joyes strong-man-like, to run a race

 7. From heav'ns end, his egress: and his regress to the end of them hidd from his heat, none is:

In order to show the proportion of annotation in the book, and to indicatethe mental traits of the author, let me state that this psalm, in bothprose and metrical versions, occupies about one page; while the closelyprinted annotations fill over three pages; which is hardly "explaining withbrevitie, " as Ainsworth says in his preface. With this psalm the notescommence thus:--

"2. (the out-spred-firmament) the whole cope of heaven, with the aier whichthough it be soft and liquid and spred over the Earth, yet it is fast andfirm and therefore called of us according to the common Greek version afirmament: the holy Ghost expresseth it by another term Mid-heaven. This out-spred-firmament of expansion God made amidds the waters for aseparation and named it Heaven, which of David is said to be stretched outas courtayn and elsewhere is said to be as firm as moulten glass. So underthis name firmament be commised the orbs of the heav'ns and the aier andthe whole spacious country above the earth. "

These annotations must have formed to the Pilgrims not only a dictionarybut a perfect encyclopædia of useful knowledge. Things spiritual and thingstemporal were explained therein. Scientific, historic, and religiousinformation were dispensed impartially. Much and varied instruction wasgiven in Natural History, though viewed of course from a strictly religiouspoint of view. The little Pilgrims learned from their Psalm-Book that the"Leviathan is the great whalefish or seadragon, so called of the fastjoyning together of his scales as he is described Job 40: 20, 41 andis used to resemble great tyrants. " They also learned that "Lions ofsundry-kinds have sundry-names. Tear-in-pieces like a lion. That he ravinnot, make-a-prey; called a plueker Renter or Tearer, and elsewhere Labythat is, Harty and couragious; Kphir, this lurking, Couchant. The reasonof thier names is shewed, as The renting-lion as greedy to tear, and thelurking-Lion as biding in covert places. Other names are also given to thiskind as Shachal, of ramping, of fierce nature; and Lajith of subduing hisprey. Psalm LVI Lions called here Lebain, harty, stowt couragious, Lions. Lions are mentioned in the Scriptures for the stowtness of thier hart, boldnes, and grimnes of thier countenance. "

Here are other annotations taken at hap-hazard. The lines, "Al they that doo upon me look a scoff at me doe make they with the lip do make-a-mow the head they scornful-shake, "

Ainsworth thus explains: "Make-a-mow, making-an-opening with the lipwhich may be taken both for mowing and thrusting out of the lip and forlicentious opening thereof to speak reproach. " The expression "Keep thou meas the black of the apple of the eye" is thus annotated: "The black, thatis, the sight in the midds of the eye wherein appeareth the resemblance ofa little man, and thereupon seemeth to be called in Hebrew Ishon which is aman. And as that part is blackish so this word is also used for other blackthings as the blackness of night. The apple so we call that which theHebrew here calleth bath and babath that is the babie or little imageappearing in the eye. " Anger receives this definition: "ire, outward inthe face, grauue, grimnes or fiercenes of countenance. The original Aphsignifieth both the nose by which one breatheth, and Anger which appearethin the snuffing or breathing of the nose. "

Before the Holland exiles had this version of Ainsworth's to sing from, they used the book known as "Sternhold and Hopkins' Psalms. " They gave itup gladly to show honor to the work of their loved pastor, and perhaps alsowith a sense of pleasure in not having to sing any verses which had beenused and authorized by the Church of England. In doing this they had toabandon, however, such spirited lines as Sternhold's--

 "The earth did shake, for feare did quake the hills their bases shook. Removed they were, in place most fayre at God's right fearfull looks. 

 "He rode on hye, and did soe flye Upon the cherubins He came in sight and made his flight Upon the winges of windes. "

They sung instead, --

 "And th' earth did shake and quake and styrred bee grounds of the mount: & shook for wroth was hee Smoke mounted, in his wrath, fyre did eat out of his mouth: from it burned-with heat. "

Alas, poor Priscilla! how could she sing with ease or reverence suchconfused verses? The tune, too, set in the psalm-book seems absolutelyunfitted to the metre. I fear when she sang from the pages "the old Puritananthem" that she was forced to turn it into a chant, else the irregularlines could never have been brought within the compass of the melody; andyet, the metre is certainly better than the sense. 

It may be thought that these selections of the Psalms have been chosen fortheir crudeness and grotesqueness. I have tried in vain to find othersomethat would show more elegant finish or more of the spirit of poetry; themost poetical lines I can discover are these, which are beautiful for thereason that the noble thoughts of the Psalmist cannot be hidden, even bythe wording of the learned Puritan minister:--

 1. Jehovah feedeth me: I shall not lack

 2. In grassy fields, he downe dooth make me lye: he gently-leads mee, quiet-Waters by. 

 3. He dooth return my soul: for his name-sake in paths of justice leads-me-quietly. 

 4. Yea, though I walk in dale of deadly-shade ile fear none yll, for with me thou wilt be thy rod, thy staff eke, they shall comfort mee. 

But few of these psalm-books of Ainsworth are now in existence; but fewindeed came to New England. Elder Brewster owned one, as is shown bythe inventory of the books in his library. Not every member of thecongregation, not every family possessed one; many were too poor, many"lacked skill to read, " and in some communities only one psalm-book wasowned in the entire church. Hence arose the odious custom of "deaconing" or"lining" the psalm, by which each line was read separately by the deacon orelder and then sung by the congregation. There is no doubt, however, that this Ainsworth's Version was used in many of the early New Englandmeetings. Reverend Thomas Symmes, in his "Joco-Serious Dialogue, " printedin 1723, wrote: "Furthermore the Church of Plymouth made use of AinsworthsVersion of the Psalms until the year 1692. For altho' our New Englandversion of the Psalms was compiled by sundry hands and completed byPresident Dunster about the year 1640; yet that church did not use it, itseems, 'till two and fifty years after but stuck to Ainsworth; and untilabout 1682 their excellent custom was to sing without reading the lines. "

John Cotton's account of the Salem church written in 1760, says, "On June19, 1692, the pastor propounded to the church that seeing many of thepsalms in Mr. Ainsworth's translation which had hitherto been sung in thecongregation had such difficult tunes that none in the church could set, they would consider of some expedient that they might sing all the psalms. After some time of consideration on August 7 following, the church votedthat when the tunes were difficult in the translation then used, theywould make use of the New England psalm-book, long before received inthe churches of the Massachusetts colony, not one brother opposing theconclusion. But finding it inconvenient to use two psalm-books, they atlength, in June 1696 agreed wholly to lay aside Ainsworth and with generalconsent introduced the other which is used to this day, 1760. And here itwill be proper to observe that it was their practice until the beginning ofOctober, 1681 to sing the psalms without reading the lines; but then, atthe motion of a brother who otherwise could not join in the ordinance [Isuppose because he could not read] they altered the custom, and readingwas introduced, the elder performing that service after the pastor hadfirst expounded the psalm, which were usually sung in course. "

On the blank leaf of the copy of Ainsworth now lying before me are writtenthese words, "This was used in Salem half-a-century from the firstsettlement. " In a record of the Salem church is this entry of a churchmeeting: "4 of 5th month, 1667. The pastor having formerly propoundedand given reason for the use of the Bay Psalm Book in regard to the_difficulty of the tunes_ and that we could not sing them so wellas formerly and _that there was a singularity in our using Ainsworthstunes_: but especially because we had not the liberty of singing all thescripture Psalms according to Col. Iii. 16. He did not again propound thesame, and after several brethren had spoken, there was at last a unanimousconsent with respect to the last reason mentioned, that the Bay Psalm Bookshould be used together with Ainsworth to supply the defects of it. "

It is significant enough of the "low state of the musik in the meetings"when we find that the simple tunes written in Ainsworth's Version were toodifficult for the colonists to sing. To such a condition had church-musicbeen reduced by "lining the psalm" and by the lack of musical instrumentsto guide and control the singers. It was not much better in old England;for we find in the preface of Rous' Psalms (which were published in1643 and authorized to be used in the English Church) references to the"difficulty of Ainsworth's tunes. "

Hood says, "There is almost a certainty that no other version thanAinsworth was ever used in the colonies until the New England Version waspublished. But if any one was used in one or two of the churches it wasSternhold and Hopkins. " I cannot feel convinced of this, but believe thatboth Ravenscroft's and Sternhold and Hopkins' Versions were used at firstin many of the Bay settlements. Salem church had a peculiar connection inits origin with the church of Plymouth, which would account, doubtless, for its protracted use of the version so loved by the Pilgrims; but thePuritans of the Bay, coming directly from England, must have brought withthem the version which they had used in England, that of Sternhold andHopkins; and they would hardly have wished, nor would it have been possiblefor them to acquire speedily in the new land the Ainsworth's Version usedby the Pilgrims from Holland. 

The second edition of Ainsworth's Version was printed in 1617, a thirdin 1618; the fourth, in London in 1639, was a folio; and the sixth, inAmsterdam in 1644, was an octavo. A little 24mo copy is in the EssexInstitute in Salem, and an octavo is in the Prince Library, now in thecustody of the Public Library of the City of Boston. The latter copy hasa note in it written by the Rev. Thomas Prince: "Plymouth, May 1, 1732. Ihave seen an edition of this version of 1618; and this version was sungin Plymouth Colony and I suppose in the rest of New England 'till the NewEngland Version was printed. "

There is a copy of the first edition of Ainsworth in the Bodleian Libraryand one in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. The American AntiquarianSociety and the Lenox Library are the only public libraries in America thatpossess copies, so far as I know. The one in the library of the AmericanAntiquarian Society was presented to it in 1815 by the Rev. William Bentleyof Salem, Massachusetts, to whom also belonged the copy of the Bay PsalmBook now in the library at Worcester. He was a divine and a bibliophile andan antiquary, but there also ran in his veins blood of warmer flow. Duringthe war of 1812, when the report came, in meeting-time, that the frigate"Constitution" was being chased into Marblehead harbor, the loyal parsonBentley locked up his church, and tucked up his gown, and sallied forthwith his whole flock of parishioners to march to Marblehead with thesoldiers, ready to "fight unto death" if necessary. Being short and fat, and the mercury standing at eighty-five degrees, the doctor's physicalstrength gave out, and he had to be hoisted up astride a cannon to ride tothe scene of conflict, --martial in spirit though weak in the legs. 

But this association with the old book is comparatively of our own day; andthe most pleasing fancy which the "psalm-book of Ainsworth" brings to mymind, the most sacred and reverenced thought, is of a far more remote, amore peaceful and quiet scene; though men of warlike blood and fightingstock were there present and took part therein. It is with that Sabbath Daybefore the Landing at Plymouth which was spent by the Pilgrims, as Mathersays, "in the devout and pious exercises of a sacred rest. " And thoughMatthew Arnold thought that the Mayflower voyagers would have beenintolerable company for Shakespeare and Virgil, yet in that quiet day ofdevout prayer and praise they show a calm religious peace and trust thatis, perhaps, the highest spiritual type of "sweetness and light. " And fromthis quaint old book their lips found words and music to express in songtheir pure and holy faith. 

XII. 

The Bay Psalm-Book. 

It seems most proper that the first book printed in New England should benow its rarest one, and such is the case. It was also meet that the firstbook published by the Puritan theocracy should be a psalm-book. This NewEngland psalm-book, being printed by the colony at Massachusetts Bay, isfamiliarly known as "The Bay Psalm-Book, " and was published two hundredand fifty years ago with this wording on the titlepage: "The Whole Book ofPsalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre. Whereunto is prefixed adiscourse declaring not only the lawfullnes, but also the necessity of theHeavenly Ordinance of Singing Psalmes in the Churches of God. 

"Coll. III. Let the word of God dwell plenteously in you in all wisdome, teaching, and exhorting one another in Psalmes, Himnes, and spirituallSongs, singing to the Lord with grace in your hearts. 

"James V. If any be afflicted, let him pray; and if any be merry let himsing psalmes. Imprinted 1640. "

The words "For the Use, Edification, and Comfort of the Saints in Publickand Private especially in New England, " though given in Thomas's "Historyof Printing, " Lowndes's "Bibliographers Manual, " Hood's "History of Musicin New England, " and many reliable books of reference, as part of thecorrect title, were in fact not printed upon the titlepage of this firstedition, but appeared on subsequent ones. Mr. Thomas, at the time he wrotehis history, knew of but one copy of the first edition; "an entire copyexcept the title-page is now in the possession of rev. Mr. Bentley ofSalem. " The titlepage being missing, he probably fell into the error ofcopying the title of a later edition, and other cataloguers and manualistshave blindly followed him. 

There were in 1638 thirty ministers in New England, all men of intelligenceand education; and to three of them, Richard Mather, Thomas Welde, and JohnEliot was entrusted the literary part of the pious work. They managed toproduce one of the greatest literary curiosities in existence. The bookwas printed in the house of President Dunster of Harvard College upon a"printery, " or printing-press, which had cost £50, and was the gift offriends in Holland to the new community in 1638, the name-year of HarvardCollege. Governor Winthrop in his journal tells us that the first sheetprinted on this press was the Freeman's Oath, certainly a characteristicproduction; the second an almanac for New England, and the third, "The BayPsalm-Book. " Some, who deem an almanac a book, call this psalm-book thesecond book printed in British America. 

A printer named Steeven Daye was brought over from England to do theprinting on this new press. Now Steeven must have been given entire chargeof the matter, and could not have been a very literate fellow (as weknow positively he was a most reprehensible one), or the three reverendversifiers must have been most uncommonly careless proof-readers, forcertainly a worse piece of printer's work than "The Bay Psalm Book" couldhardly have been struck off. Diversity and grotesqueness of spelling wereof course to be expected, and paper might have been coarse without reproof, in that new and poor country; but the type was good and clear, the paperstrong and firm, and with ordinary care a very presentable book might havebeen issued. The punctuation was horrible. A few commas and periods anda larger number of colons were "pepered and salted" _à la_ TimothyDexter, apparently quite by chance, among the words. Periods were placedin the middle of sentences; words of one syllable were divided by hyphens;capitals and italics were used after the fashion of the time, apparentlyquite at random; and inverted letters were common enough. The pages wereunnumbered, and on every left-hand page the word "Psalm" in the title wasspelled correctly, while on the right-hand page it is uniformly spelled"Psalme. " But after all, these typographical blemishes might be forgiven ifthe substance, the psalms themselves, were worthy; but the versificationwas certainly the most villainous of all the many defects, though thesense was so confused that many portions were unintelligible save withthe friendly aid of the prose version of the Bible; and the grammaticalconstruction, especially in the use of pronouns, was also far from correct. Such amazing verses as these may be found:--

 "And sayd He would not them waste: had not Moses stood (whom He chose) 'fore him i' th' breach; to turne his wrath lest that he should waste those. "

Cotton Mather, in his "Magnalia, " gives thus the full story of theproduction of "The Bay Psalm-book":--

 "About the year 1639, the New-English reformers, considering that their churches enjoyed the other ordinances of Heaven in their scriptural purity were willing that the 'The singing of Psalms' should be restored among them unto a share of that _purity_. Though they blessed God for the religious endeavours of them who translated the Psalms into the _meetre _usually annexed at the end of the Bible, yet they beheld in the translation so many _detractions _from, _additions _to, and _variations _of, not only the text, but the very _sense _of the psalmist, that it was an offense unto them. Resolving then upon a new translation, the chief divines in the country took each of them a portion to be translated; among whom were Mr. Welds and Mr. Eliot of Eoxbury, and Mr. Mather of Dorchester. These like the rest were so very different a _genius_ for their poetry that Mr. Shephard, of Cambridge, on the occasion addressed them to this purpose:

 You Roxb'ry poets keep clear of the crime Of missing to give us very good rhime. And you of Dorchester, your verses lengthen And with the text's own words, you will them strengthen. 

 The Psalms thus turned into _meetre_ were printed at Cambridge, in the year 1640. But afterwards it was thought that a little more of art was to be employed upon them; and for that cause they were committed unto Mr. Dunster, who revised and refined this translation; and (with some assistance from Mr. Richard Lyon who being sent over by Sir Henry Mildmay as an attendant unto his, son, then a student at Harvard College, now resided in Mr. Dunster's house:) he brought it the condition wherein our churches have since used it. Now though I heartily join with those gentlemen who wish that the _poetry_ thereof were mended, yet I must confess, that the Psalms have never yet seen a _translation_ that I know of nearer to the Hebrew original; and I am willing to receive the excuse which our translators themselves do offer us when they say: 'If the verses are not always so elegant as some desire or expect, let them consider that God's altar needs not our pollishings; we have respected rather a plain translation, than to smooth our verses with the sweetness of any paraphrase. We have attended conscience rather than elegance, fidelity rather than ingenuity, that so we may sing in Zion the Lord's songs of praise, according unto his own will, until he bid us enter into our Master's joy to sing eternal hallelujahs. '"

I have never liked Cotton Mather so well as after reading this calmand kindly account of the production of "The Bay-Psalm-Book. " He was ascholarly man, and doubtless felt keenly and groaned inwardly at theinelegance, the appalling and unscholarly errors in the New Englandversion; and yet all he mildly said was that "it was thought that a littlemore of art was to be employed upon them, " and that he "wishes the poetryhereof was mended. " Such justice, such self-repression, such fairnessmake me almost forgive him for riding around the scaffold on which hisfellow-clergyman was being executed for witchcraft, and urging the crowdnot to listen to the poor martyr's dying words. I can even almost overlookthe mysterious fables, the outrageous yarns which he imposed upon us underthe guise of history. 

The three reverend versifiers who turned out such questionable poetry areknown to have been writers of clear, scholarly, and vigorous prose. Theywere all graduated at Emanuel College, Cambridge, the nursery of Puritans. Mr. Welde soon returned to England and published there two intelligenttracts vindicating the purity of the New England worship. Richard Matherwas the general prose-scribe for the community; he drafted the "CambridgePlatform" and other important papers, and was clear and scholarly enoughin all his work _except_ the "Bay Psalm-Book. " From his pen came thetedious, prolix preface to the work; and the first draft of it in his ownhandwriting is preserved in the Prince Library. The other co-worker wasJohn Eliot, that glory of New England Puritanism, the apostle to theIndians. His name heads my list of the saints of the Puritan calendar; butI confess that when I consider his work in "The Bay Psalm-Book, " I havesad misgivings lest the hymns which he wrote and published in the Indianlanguage may not have proved to the poor Massachusetts Indians all that ourloving and venerating fancy has painted them. It is said also that FrancisQuarles, the Puritan author of "Divine Emblems, " sent across the Atlanticsome of his metrical versions of the psalms as a pious contribution to thenew version of the new church in the new land. 

The "little more of art" which was bestowed by the improving PresidentDunster left the psalms still improvable, as may be seen by opening atrandom at any page of the revised editions. Mr. Lyon conferred also uponthe New England church the inestimable boon of a number of hymns or"Scripture-Songs placed in order as in the Bible. " They were printed inthat order from the third until at least the sixteenth edition, but insubsequent editions the hymns were all placed at the end of the book afterthe psalms. I doubt not that the Puritan youth, debarred of merry catchesand roundelays, found keen delight in these rather astonishing renditionsof the songs of Solomon, portions of Isaiah, etc. Those Scripture-Songsshould be read quite through to be fully appreciated, as no modernChristian could be full enough of grace to sing them. Here is a portion ofthe song of Deborah and Barak:--

 24. Jael the Kenite Hebers wife 'bove women blest shall be: Above the women in the tent a blessed one is she. 25. He water ask'd: she gave him milk him butter forth she fetch'd 26. In lordly dish: then to the nail she forth her left hand stretched. 

 Her right the workman's hammer held and Sisera struck dead: She pierced and struck his temple through and then smote off his head. 27. He at her feet bow'd, fell, lay down he at her feet bow'd, where He fell: ev'n where he bowed down he fell destroyed there. 

 28. Out of a window Sisera his mother looked and said The lattess through in coming why so long his chariot staid? His chariot wheels why tarry they? 29. Her wise dames, answered Yea she turned answer to herself 30. And what have they not sped?

 31. The prey by poll; a maid or twain what parted have not they? Have they not parted, Sisera, a party-colour'd prey A party-colour'd neildwork prey of neildwork on each side That's party-colour'd meet for necks of them that spoils divide?

Our Pilgrim Fathers accepted these absurd, tautological verses gladly, andsang them gratefully; but we know the spirit of poesy could never haveexisted in them, else they would have fought hard against abandoning suchmajestic psalms as Sternhold's--

 "The Lord descended from above and bow'd the heavens hye And underneath his feete he cast the darkness of the skye. 

 "On cherubs and on cherubines full royally he road And on the winges of all the windes came flying all abroad. "

They gave up these lines of simple grandeur, to which they were accustomed, for such wretched verses as these of the New England version:--

 9. Likewise the heavens he downe-bow'd and he descended, & there was under his feet a gloomy cloud 10. And he on cherub rode and flew; yea, he flew on the wings of winde. 11. His secret place hee darkness made his covert that him round confide. 

I cannot understand why they did not sing the psalms of David just asthey were printed in the English Bible; it would certainly be quite aspracticable as to sing this latter selection. 

President Dunster's improving hand and brain evolved this rendition:--

 "Likewise the heavens he down-bow'd and he descended: also there Was at his feet a gloomy cloud and he on cherubs rode apace. Yea on the wings of wind he flew he darkness made his secret place His covert round about him drew. "

Though the grotesque wording and droll errors of these old psalm-books can, after the lapse of centuries, be pointed out and must be smiled at, thereis after all something so pathetic in the thought of those good, scholarlyold New England saints, hampered by poverty, in dread of attack of Indians, burdened with hard work, harassed by "eighty-two pestilent heresies, " stilllaboring faithfully and diligently in their strange new home at theirunsuited work, --something so pathetic, so grand, so truly Christian, thatwhen I point out any of the absurdities or failures in their work, I dreadlest the shades of Cotton, of Sewall, of Mather, of Eliot, brand me as ofold, "in capitall letters, " as "AN OPEN AND OBSTINATE CONTEMNER OF GOD'SHOLY ORDINANCES, " or worse still, with that mysterious, that dread name, "AWANTON GOSPELLER. "

The second edition of the "New England Psalm-Book" was published in 1647;the one copy known to exist has sold for four hundred and thirty-fivedollars. The third edition was the one revised by President Dunster andMr. Lyon, and was printed in 1650. In 1691 the unfortunate book was again"pollished" by a committee of ministers, who thus altered the last twostanzas of the Song of Deborah and Barak:--

 28. Out of a window Sisera His mother look'd and said The lattess through in coming why So long's chariot staid? His chariot-wheels why tarry they? Her ladies wise reply'd 29. Yea to herself the answer made, 30. Have they not speed? she cry'd. 

 31. The prey to each a maid or twain Divided have not they? To Sisera have they not shar'd A divers-colour'd prey? Of divers-colour'd needle-work Wrought curious on each side Of various colours meet for necks Of those who spoils divide?

Rev. Elias Nason wittily says of "The Bay Psalm-Book, " "Welde, Eliot, andMather mounted the restive steed Pegasus, Hebrew psalter in hand, andtrotted in warm haste over the rough roads of Shemitic roots and metricalpsalmody. Other divines rode behind, and after cutting and slashing, mending and patching, twisting and turning, finally produced what must everremain the most unique specimen of poetical tinkering in our literature. "

Other editions quickly followed these "pollishings" until, in 1709, sixteenhad been printed. Mr. Hood stated that at least seventy editions in allwere brought out. Some of these were printed in England and Scotland, inexceedingly fine and illegible print, and were intended to be bound up withthe Bible; and occasionally duodecimo Bibles were sent from Scotland toNew England with "The Bay Psalm-Book" bound at the back part of the book. Strange as it may seem, the poor, halting New England version was used insome of the English dissenting congregations and Scotch kirks, instead ofthe smoother verses composed in England for the English churches. 

The Reverend Thomas Prince, after two years of careful work thereon, published in 1758 a revised edition of the much-published book, and it wasadopted by his church, the Old South, of Boston, the week previous to hisdeath. It was used by his congregation until 1786. He clung closely to theform of the old editions, changing only an occasional word. In his prefaceDr. Prince says that "The Bay Psalm-Book" "had the honor of being thefirst book printed in North America, and as far as I can find, in thisNew World. " We have fuller means of information now-a-days than had thereverend reviser, and we know that as early as 1535 a book called "TheBook of St. John Climacus or The Spiritual Ladder" had been printed in theSpanish tongue, in Mexico; and no less than one hundred and sixteen otherSpanish works in the sixteenth century, as the "Bibliografia Mexicana"testifies. 

If the printing of all these various editions was poor, and the dictionworse, the binding certainly was good and could be copied in modern timesto much advantage. No flimsy cloth or pasteboard covers, no weak paperbacks, no ill-pasted leaves, no sham-work of any kind was given; securelysewed, firmly glued, with covers of good strong leather, parchment, kid, orcalfskin, these psalm-books endured constant _daily_ (not weekly) usefor years, for decades, for a century, and are still whole and firm. They were carried about in pockets, in saddle-bags, and were opened, andhandled, and conned, as often as were the Puritan Bibles, and they bore theusage well. They were distinctively characteristic of the unornamental, sternly pious, eminently honest, and sturdily useful race that producedthem. 

Judge Sewall makes frequent mention in his famous diary of "the New PsalmBook. " He bought one "bound neatly in Kids Leather" for "3 shillings &sixpence" and gave it to a widow whom he was wooing. Rather a seriouslover's gift, but characteristic of the giver, and not so gloomy as"Dr. Mathers Vials of Wrath, " "Dr. Sibbs Bowels, " "Dr. Preston's ChurchCarriage, " and "Dr. Williard's Fountains opened, " all of which he likewisepresented to her. 

The Judge frequently gave a copy as a bridal gift, after singing from it"Myrrh aloes, " to the gloomy tune of Windsor, at the wedding. 

 8. Myrrh Aloes and Cussias _smell_ all of thy garments _had_ Out of the yvory pallaces whereby they made thee glad:

 9. Amongst thine honourable maids kings daughters present were The Queen is set at thy right hand in fine gold of Ophir. 

But his most frequent mention of the "new psalm-book" is in his "Humbellacknowledgement" made to God of the "great comfort and merciful kindnessreceived through singing of His Psalmes;" and the pages of the diary bearample testimony that whatever the book may appear to us now, it was to theearly colonists the very Word of God. 

As years passed on, however, and singing-schools multiplied, it became muchdesired, and even imperative that there should be a better style and mannerof singing, and open dissatisfaction arose with "The Bay Psalm-Book;" theyounger members of the congregations wished to adopt the new and smootherversions of Tate and Brady, and of Watts. Petitions were frequently made inthe churches to abolish the century-used book. Here is an opening sentenceof one church-letter which is still in existence; it was presented to theministers and elders of the Roxbury church September 11th, 1737, and wassigned by many of the church members:--

"The New England Version of Psalms however useful it may formerly havebeen, has now become through the natural variableness of Language, not onlyvery uncouth but in many Places unintelligible; whereby the mind insteadof being Raised and spirited in Singing The Praises of Almighty God andthereby being prepared to Attend to other Parts of Divine Service is Dampedand made Spiritless in the Performance of the Duty at least such is theTendency of the use of that Version, " etc. , etc. 

Great controversy arose over the abolition of the accustomed book, andchurch-quarrels were rife; but the end of the century saw the dearly lovedold version consigned to desuetude, uever again to be opened, alas! but bycritical or inquisitive readers. 

There is owned by the American Antiquarian Society, and kept carefullylocked in the iron safe in the building of that Society in Worcester, acopy of the first edition of "The Bay Psalm Book. " It is a quarto (notoctavo, as Thomas described it in his "History of Printing") and is in verygood condition, save that the titlepage is missing. It is in the originallight-colored, time-stained parchment binding, and contains the autographof Stephen Sewall. It also bears on the inside of the front cover thebook-plate of Isaiah Thomas, and at the back, in the veteran printer'sclear and beautiful handwriting, this statement: "After advertising foranother copy of this book and making enquiry in many places in New England&c. I was not able to obtain or even hear of another. This copy istherefore invaluable and must be preserved with the greatest care. IsaiahThomas, Sep. 20. 1820. " His "History of Printing, " was published in 1810, and the Society had acquired through the gift of "the rev. Mr. Bentley" thecopy which Thomas mentioned in his book. 

It is strange that Thomas should have been ignorant of the existence ofother copies of the first edition of "The Bay Psalm-Book, " for there wereat that time six copies belonging to the Prince Library in the possessionof the Old South Church of Boston. One would fancy that the Prince Librarywould have been one of his first objective points of search, save that adense cloud of indifference had overshadowed that collection for so longa time. Five of those copies remained in the custody of the deacons andpastor of the Old South Church until 1860, and they were at one time alldeposited in the Public Library of the City of Boston. Two still remain inthat suitable place of deposit; they are almost complete in paging, but arein modern bindings. The other three copies were surrendered by Lieut-Gov. Samuel Armstrong (who, as one of the deacons of the Old South Church, had joint custody of the Prince Library), severally, to Mr. EdwardCrowninshield of Boston, Dr. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff of Boston, and Mr. George Livermore of Cambridge. Governor Armstrong surrendered these threebooks in consideration of certain modern books being given to the PrinceLibrary, and of the modern bindings bestowed on the two other copies; whichseems to us hardly a brilliant or judicious exchange. 

In Dr. Shurtleff "The Bay Psalm-Book" found a congenial and loving owner;and under his careful superintendence an exact reprint was published in1862 in the Riverside Press at Cambridge. He wrote for it a preface. It waspublished by subscription; one copy on India paper, fifteen on thick paper, and fifty on common paper. Copies on the last named paper have sold readilyfor thirty dollars each. All the typographical errors of the original werecarefully reproduced in this reprint. 

At Dr. Shurtleffs death, his "Bay Psalm-Book" was catalogued with the restof his library, which was to be sold on Dec. 2, 1875; but an injunction wasobtained by the deacons of the Old South Church, to prevent the sale of theold psalm-book. They were rather late in the day however, to try to obtainagain the too easily parted with book, and the ownership of it was adjudgedto the estate. The book was sold Oct. 12, 1876, at the Library salesroom, Beacon Street, Boston, for one thousand and fifty dollars. It is now in thelibrary of Mrs. John Carter Brown, of Providence, Rhode Island. Specialinterest attaches to this copy, because it was "Richard Mather, His Book"as several autographs in it testify; and the author's own copy is always ofextra value. Cotton Mather, a grandson of Richard, was the close friend ofthe Reverend Thomas Prince, who founded the Prince Library, and who left itby will to the Old South Church in 1758. Mr. Prince's book-plate is on thereverse of the titlepage of this copy of "The Bay Psalm-Book, " and is initself a rarity. It reads thus:--

 "This Book belongs to The New England Library Begun to be collected by Thomas Prince upon his ent'ring Harvard-College July 6 1703, and was given by said Prince, to remain therein forever. "

There was a sixth copy of "The Bay Psalm-Book" in the Prince Library in1830 when Dr. Wisner wrote his four sermons on the Old South Church ofBoston, --a copy annotated by Dr. Prince and used by him while he wasengaged on his revision. It has disappeared, together with many otherimportant books and manuscripts belonging to the same library. Thevicissitudes through which this most valuable collection has passed--lyingneglected for years on shelves, in boxes, and in barrels in thesteeple-room of the Old South Church, depleted to use for lighting fires, injured by British soldiery, but injured still more by the neglect andindifference of its custodians--are too painful to contemplate or relate. They contribute to the scholarly standing and honor of neither pastors norcongregations during those years. It is enough to state, however, that itis to the noble and ill-requited forethought of Dr. Prince that we owe allbut three of the copies of the Bay Psalm-Book which are now known to be inexistence. 

There is also a perfect copy of the first edition of the old book in theLenox Library in New York, and the manner in which it was acquired (andalso some further accounts of two of our old friends of the Prince Library, the acquisitions of Messrs. Crowninshield and Liverraore) is told soentertainingly by Henry Stevens, of Vermont, in his charming book, "Recollections of Mr. James Lenox" that it is best to quote his account infull:--

 "For nearly ten years Mr. Lenox had entertained a longing de to possess a perfect copy of 'The Bay Psalm Book. ' He gave me to understand that if an opportunity occurred of securing a copy for him I might go as far as one hundred guineas. Accordingly from 1847 till his death, six years later, my good friend William Pickering and I put our heads and book-hunting forces together to run down this rarity. The only copy we knew of on this side the Atlantic was a spotless one in the Bodleian Library, which had lain there unrecognized for ages, and even in the printed catalogue of 1843 its title was recorded without distinction among the common herd of Psalms in verse. I had handled it several times with great reverence, and noted its many peculiar points, but, as agreed with Mr. Pickering, without making any sign or imparting any information to our good and obliging friend Dr. Bandinel, Bodley's Librarian. We thought that when we had secured a copy for oursel it would be time enough to acquaint the learned Doctor that he was entertaining unawares this angel of the New World. 

 "Under these circumstances, therefore, only an experienced collector can judge of my surprise and inward satisfaction, when on the 12 January, 1855, at Sotheby's, at one of the sales of Pickering's stock, after untying parcel after parcel to see what I might chance to see, and keeping ahead of the auctioneer, Mr. Wilkinson, on resolving to prospect in one parcel more before he overtook me, my eye rested an instant only on the long-lost Benjamin, clean and unspotted. I instantly closed the parcel (which was described in the Catalogue as Lot '531 Psalmes, other editions, 1630 to 1675 black letter, a parcel') and tightened the string just as Alfred came to lay it on the table. A cool-blooded coolness seized me, and advancing to the table behind Mr. Lilly I quietly bid, in a perfectly natural tone, 'Sixpence, ' and so the bids went on increasing by sixpence until half a crown was reached, and Mr. Lilly had loosened the string. Taking up this very volume he turned to me and remarked that 'This looks a rare edition, Mr. Stevens, don't you think so? I do not remember having seen it before, ' and raised the bid to five shillings. I replied that I had little doubt of its rarity though comparatively a late edition of the Psalms, at the same time gave Mr. Wilkinson a six-penny nod. Thenceforth a 'spirited competition' arose between Mr. Lilly and myself, until finally the lot was knocked down to 'Stevens' for nineteen shillings. I then called out with perhaps more energy than discretion, 'Delivered!' On pocketing this volume, leaving the other seven to take the usual course, Mr. Lilly and others inquired with some curiosity, 'What rarity have you got now?' 'Oh, nothing, ' said I, 'but the first English book printed in America. ' There was a pause in the sale, while all had a good look at the little stranger. Some said jocularly, 'There has evidently been a mistake; put up the lot again. ' Mr. Stevens, with the book again safely in his pocket, said, 'Nay, if Mr. Pickering, whose cost mark of [3s] did not recognize the prize he had won, certainly the cataloguer might be excused for throwing it away into the hands of the right person to rescue, appreciate, and preserve it. I am now fully rewarded for my long and silent hunt of seven years. '

 "On reaching Morley's I eagerly collated the volume, and at first found it right witli all the _usual_ signatures correct. The leaves were not paged or folioed. But on further collation I missed sundry of the Psalms, enough to fill four leaves. The puzzle was finally solved when it was discovered that the inexperienced printer had marked the sheet with the signature w after v, which is very unusual. 

 "This was a very disheartening disappointment, but I held my tongue, and knowing that my old friend and correspondent, George Liverm of Cambridge, N. E. , possessed an imperfect copy, which he and Mr. Crowninshield, after the noble example of the 'Lincoln Nosegay, ' had won from the Committee of the 'Old South' together with another and perfect copy, I proposed an advantageous exchange and obtained four missing leaves. Mr. Crowninshield strongly advised Mr. Livermore against parting with his four leaves, because, as he said, 'They would enable Stevens to complete his copy and to place it in the library of Mr. Lenox, who would then crow over us because he also had a perfect copy of "The Bay-Psalm Book. "'

 "Having thus completed my copy and had it bound by Francis Bedford in his best style, I sent it to Mr. Lenox for £80. Five years later I bought the Crowninshield Library in Boston for $10, 000, mainly to obtain his perfect copy of 'The Bay Psalm Book, ' and brought the whole library to London. This second copy, after being held several months, was at the suggestion of Mr. Thomas Watts, offered to the British Museum for £150. The Keeper of the Printed Books, however, never had the courage to send it before the Trustees for approval and payment; so after waiting five or six years longer the volume was withdrawn, bound by Bedford, taken to America in 1868, and sold to Mr. George Brinley for 150 guineas. At the Brinley sale, in March, 1878, it was bought by Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt for $1200, or more than three times the cost of my first copy to Mr. Lenox. "

We hear the expression of a book being "worth its weight in gold. " "The BayPsalm-Book, " in the Library of the American Antiquarian Society, weighsnine ounces, hence Mr. Vanderbilt paid at least seven times its weight ingold for his precious book. Lowndes's "Bibliographers' Manual" says, "Thisvolume, which is extremely rare and would at an auction in America producefrom four to six thousand dollars, is familiarly termed 'The Bay PsalmBook. '" This must have been intended to be printed four to six hundreddollars, and is about as correct as the remainder of the description inthat manual. 

The copy which is spoken of by Mr. Stevens as being in the Bodleian Libraryat Oxford was once the property of Bishop Tanner, the famous antiquary. Thus it is seen that there are seven copies at least of the first editionof "The Bay Psalm-Book" now in existence in America, instead of "five orat the most six, " as a recent writer in "The Magazine of American History"states. 

And of all the manifold later editions of the New England Psalm-Bookcomparatively few copies now remain. Occasionally one is discovered in anold church library or seen in the collection of an antiquary. It is usuallyfound to bear on its titlepage the name of its early owner, and often, also, in a different handwriting, the simple record and date of his death. Tender little memorial postils are frequently written on the margins ofthe pages: "Sung this the day Betty was baptized"--"This Psalm was sung atMothers Funeral" "Gods Grace help me to heed this word. " Sometimes we seeon the blank pages, in a fine, cramped handwriting, the record of thebirths and deaths of an entire family. More frequently still we find thefamiliar and hackneyed verses of ancient titlepage lore, such as areusually seen on the blank leaves of old Bibles. This script was written ina "Bay Psalm-Book" of the sixteenth edition, and with the characteristicindifference of our New England forefathers for tiresome repetition, orpossibly with their disdain of novelty, was seen on each and every blankpage of the book:--

 "Israel Balch, His Book, God give him Grace theirin to look And when the Bell for him doth toal May God have mearcy on his Sole. "

What the diction lacked in variety is quite made up, however, in thespelling, which was painstakingly different on each page. 

Another Psalm-Book bore, inscribed in an elegant, minute handwriting, theselines, which were probably intended for verse, since the first word of eachline commenced with a capital letter:--

 "Abednego Prime His Book When he withein these pages looks May he find Grace to sing therein Seventeen hundred and forty-seven. "

This is certainly pretty bad poetry, --bad enough to be worthy a place in"The Bay Psalm Book, "--but is also a most noble, laudable, and necessaryaspiration; for power of Grace was plainly needed to enable Abednego or anyone else to sing from those pages; and our pious New England forefathersmust have been under special covenant of grace when they persevered againstsuch obstacles and under such overwhelming disadvantages in having singingin their meetings. 

Another copy of the old New England Psalm-Book was thus inscribed:--

 "Elam Noyes His Book You children of the name of Noyes Make Jesus Christ your only choyse. "

The early members of the Noyes family all seemed to be exceedingly andproperly proud of this rhyming couplet; it formed a sort of patent ofnobility. They wrote the pious injunction to their descendants in theirPsalm-Books and their Bibles, in their wills, their letters; and they, with the greatest unanimity of feeling, had it cut upon their severaltombstones. It was their own family motto, --their totem, so to speak. 

In a New England Psalm-Book in the possession of the American AntiquarianSociety there is written in the distinct handwriting of Isaiah Thomas theseexplanatory words:--

"This was the Pocket Psalm-book of John Symmons who died at Salem at100 years. He was born at North Salem went a-fishing in his youth was aprisoner with the Indians in Nova Scotia afterwards followed his labours ina Shipyard and till great old age laboured upon his lands and diedwithout pain Aet 100. 31 October, 1791. He was a worthy conscientious andwell-informed man and agreeable until the last hour of his life. "

I can think of no pleasanter tribute to be given to the character of anyone than the simple words, "He was agreeable until the last hour of hislife. " What share in the production and maintenance of that amiable andenviable condition of disposition may be attributed to the ever-presentinfluence of the Pocket Psalm-Book cannot be known; but the constantstudy of the holy though clumsy verses may have largely caused that sweetagreeability which so characterized John Symmons. 

There lies now before me a copy of one of the early editions of "The BayPsalm-Book. " As I open the little dingy octavo volume, with its wornand torn edges, I am conscious of that distinctive, penetrating, _old-booky_ smell, --that ancient, that fairly _obsolete_ odor thatnever is exhaled save from some old, infrequently opened, leather-boundvolume, which has once in years far past been much used and handled. A bookwhich has never been familiarly used and loved cannot have quite the sameantique perfume. The mouldering, rusty, flaky leather comes off in ayellow-brown powder on my fingers as I take up the book; and the covernearly breaks off as I open it, though with tender, book-loving usage. Theleather, though strong and honest, has rotted or disintegrated until it hasalmost fallen into dust. Across the yellow, ill-printed pages there runs, zig-zagging sideways and backwards crab-fashion on his crooked brown legs, one of those pigmy book-spiders, --those ugly little bibliophiles that seemflatter even than the close-pressed pages that form their home. 

Fair Puritan hands once held this dingy little book, honest Puritan eyesstudied its ill-expressed words, and sweet Puritan lips sang haltingly butlovingly from its pages. This was "Cicely Morse Her Book" in the year 1710, and bears on many a page her name and the simple little couplet:--

 "In youth I praise And walk thy ways. "

And pretty it were to see Cicely in her praiseful and godly-walking youth, as she stood primly clad in her sad-colored gown and long apron, with aquoif or ciffer covering her smooth hair, and a red whittle on her slendershoulders, a-singing in the old New England meeting-house through thelong, tedious psalms, which were made longer and more tedious still by thedrawling singing and the deacons' "lining. " Truly that were a pretty sightfor our eyes, and for other eyes than ours, without doubt. Staid Puritanyouth may have glanced soberly across the old meeting-house at the fairgirl as she sung the Song of Solomon, with its ardent wording, without anyvery deep thought of its symbolic meaning:--

 "Let him with kisses of his mouth be pleased me to kiss, Because much better than the wine thy loving-kindness is. To troops of horse in Pharoahs coach, my love, I thee compare, Thy neck with chains, with jewels new, thy cheeks full comely are. Borders of gold with silver studs for thee make up we will, Whilst that the king at's table sits my spikenard yields her smell. 

 Like as of myrrh a bundle is my well-belov'd to be, Through all the night betwixt my breasts his lodging-place shall be; My love as in Engedis vines like camphire-bunch to me, So fair, my love, thou fair thou art thine eyes as doves eyes be. "

Love and music were ever close companions; and the singing-school--thatsafety-valve of young New England life--had not then been established oreven thought of, and I doubt not many a warm and far from Puritanicallove-glance was cast from the "doves-eyes" across the "alley" of the oldmeeting-house at Cicely as she sung. 

But Cicely vas not young when she last used the old psalm-book. She mayhave been stately and prosperous and seated in the dignified "foreseat;"she may have been feeble and infirm in her place in the "Deaf Pue;" and shemay have been careworn and sad, tired of fighting against poverty, wornwith dread of fierce Indians, weary of the howls of the wolves in the denseforests so near, and home-sick and longing for the yonderland, her "faireEnglishe home;" but were she sad or careworn or heartsick, in her treasuredpsalm-book she found comfort, --comfort in the halting verses as well asin the noble thoughts of the Psalmist. And the glamour of eternal, sweet-voiced youth hangs around the gentle Cicely, through the power of theinscription in the old psalm-book, --

 "In youth I praise And walk thy ways, "--

the romance of the time when Cicely, the Puritan commonwealth, the wholeNew World was young. 

XIII. 

Sternhold and Hopkins' Version of the Psalms. 

The metrical translation of the Psalms known as Sternhold and Hopkins'Version was doubtless used in the public worship of God in many of theearly New England settlements, especially those of the Connecticut RiverValley, though the old register of the town of Ipswich is the only localrecord that gives positive proof of its use in the Puritan church. In1693 an edition of Sternhold and Hopkins was printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was not a day nor a land where a whole edition of such abook would be printed for reference or comparison only; and to thus publishthe work of the English psalmists in the very teeth of the popularity of"The Bay Psalm Book" is to me a proof that Sternhold and Hopkins' Versionwas employed far more extensively in the colonial churches and homes thanwe now have records of, and than many of our church historians now fancy. Certainly the familiar English psalm-books must have been brought acrossthe ocean and used temporarily until the newly landed colonists couldacquire the version of Ainsworth or of the New England divines. 

An everlasting interest attaches to this metrical arrangement of thePsalms, to Americans as well as to Englishmen, because it was the earliestto be adopted in public worship in England. According to Strype, in hisMemorial, the singing of psalms was allowed in England as early as 1548, but it was not until 1562 that the versified psalms of Sternhold andHopkins were appended to the Book of Common Prayer. Sternhold and Hopkins'Version was also the first to give all the psalms of David in English verseto the English public. 

Very little is known of the authors of this version. Sternhold was educatedat Oxford; was Groom of the Robes to Henry VIII. And Edward VI. , was a"bold and busy Calvinist, " and died in 1549. The little of interest toldof John Hopkins is that he was a minister and schoolmaster, and that heassisted the work of Sternhold. 

The full reason for Sternhold's pious work is thus given by an old Englishauthor, Wood: "Being a most zealous reformer and a very strict liver hebecame so scandalyzed at the loose amorous songs used in the court that heforsooth turned into English metre fifty-one of Davids Psalms, and causedmusical notes to be set to them, thinking thereby that the courtierswould sing them instead of their sonnets; but they did not, only some fewexcepted. " The preface printed in the book stated Sternhold's wish andintention that the verses should be sung by Englishmen, not only in church, but "moreover in private houses for their godly solace and comfort; layingapart all ungodly Songs & Ballads which tend only to the nourishment ofvice & corrupting of youth. "

The first edition contained nineteen psalms only, which were all versifiedby Sternhold. It was published in 1548 or 1549, under this title, "CertaynPsalmes chosen out of the Psalter of Daid and drawen into English Metre byThomas Sternhold Groom of ye Kynges Maiesties Roobes. " I believe no copy ofthis edition is now known to exist. 

The praise which Sternhold received for his pious rhymes had the sameeffect upon him as did similar encomiums upon his predecessor, the Frenchpsalm-writer Marot, --it encouraged him to write more psalm-verses. 

The second edition was printed in 1549, and contained thirty-seven psalmsby Sternhold and seven by Hopkins. It bore this title, "Al such Psalmes ofDavid as Thomas Sternehold late grome of his maiesties robes did in hislyfe tyme drawe into English metre. " It was a well-printed book and copiesare still preserved in the British Museum and the Public Library ofCambridge, England. This second and enlarged edition was dedicated, in afour-page preface, to King Edward VI. , and a pretty story is told of theyoung king's interest in the verses. The delicate and gentle boy of twelveheard Sternhold when "singing them to his organ" as Strype says, andwandered in to hear the music and listen to the words. So great was hisawakened interest in the sacred songs that Sternhold resolved to write inverse for him still further of the psalms. The dedication reads: "Seeingthat your tender and godly zeale dooth more delight in the holye songs ofveritie than in any fayncd rymes of vanytie, I am encouraged to travaylefurther in the said booke of Psalmes. " This young king restored to theEnglish people the free reading of the Bible, which his wicked father, Henry VIII. , had forbidden them, and he was of a sincerely religiousnature. He also was a music-lover, and encouraged the art as much as hisshort life and troubled reign permitted. 

Hopkins also wrote a preface for his share of the work, in which he spokewith much modesty of himself and much praise of Sternhold. He said his ownverses were not "in any parte to bee compared with his [Sternhold's] mostexquisite dooynges. " He thinks, however, that his owne are "fruitfullthough they bee not fyne. "

The third edition, in 1556, contained fifty-one psalms; the fourth, in1560, had sixty-seven psalms; the fifth, in 1561, increased the number toeighty-seven; and in 1562 or 1563 the whole book of psalms appeared. Otherauthors had some share in this work: Norton, Whyttyngham (a Puritan divinewho married Calvin's sister), Kethe, who wrote the 100th Psalm, "All peoplethat on earth do dwell, " which is still seen in some of our hymn-books. Ofall these men, sly old Thomas Fuller truthfully and quaintly said, "Theywere men whose piety was better than their poetry, and they had drunk moreof Jordan than of Helicon. "

For over one hundred years from the first publication there was a steadyoutpour of editions of these Psalms. Before the year 1600 there wereseventy-four editions, --a most astonishing number for the times; and from1600 to 1700 two hundred and thirty-five editions. In 1868 six hundred andone editions were known, including twenty-one in this nineteenth centuryand doubtless there were still others uncatalogued and forgotten. Amongother editions this version had in the time of Charles II. Two inshorthand, one printed by "Thos. Cockerill at the Three Legs and Bible inthe Poultry. " Two copies of these editions are in the British Museum. Theyare tiny little 64mos, of which half a dozen could be laid side by side onthe palm of the hand. Sternhold and Hopkins' Version had also in 1694 thehonor of having arranged for it a Concordance. 

Upon no production of the religious Muse in the English tongue has greaterdiversity of criticism been displayed or more extraordinary or variedjudgment been rendered than upon Sternhold and Hopkins' Psalms. A world oftestimony could be adduced to fortify any view which one chose to takeof them. At the time of their early publication they induced a swarm ofstinging lampoons and sneering comments, that often evince most plainlythat a difference in religious belief or scorn for an opposing sect broughtthem forth. The poetry of that and the succeeding century abounds inallusions to them. Phillips wrote:--

 "Singing with woful noise Like a crack'd saints bell jarring in the steeple, Tom Sternhold's wretched prick-song for the people. "

Another poet, a courtier, wrote:--

 "Sternhold and Hopkins had great qualms When they translated David's psalms. "

But I see no signs of qualmishness; they show to me rather a healthysturdiness as one of their strongest characteristics. 

Pope at a later day wrote:--

 "Not but there are who merit other palms Hopkins and Sternhold glad the heart with psalms. The boys and girls whom charity maintains Implore your help in these pathetic strains. How could devotion touch the country pews Unless the gods bestowed a proper muse. "

Wesley sneered at this version, saying, "When it is seasonable to singpraises to God we do it, not in the scandalous doggrel of Hopkins andSternhold, but in psalms and hymns which are both sense and poetry, suchas would provoke a _critic_ to turn _Christian_ rather than a_Christian_ to turn _critic_. "

The edition of 1562 was printed with the notes of melodies that were thencalled Church Tunes. They formed the basis of all future collections ofpsalm-music for over a century. They soon were published in harmony in fourparts, "which may be sung to all musical instrumentes set forth for theencrease of vertue and abolyshing of other vayne and tryfling ballads. " In1592 a very important collection of psalm-tunes was published to use withSternhold and Hopkins' words. It is called "The Whole Booke of Psalmes:with their wonted tunes as they are sung in Churches composed into fourparts. " This book is noteworthy because in it the tunes are for the firsttime named after places, as is still the custom. The music contained squareor oblong notes and also lozenge-shaped notes. The square note was a"semy-brave, " the lozenge-shaped note was a "prycke" or a "mynymme, " and"when there is a prycke by the square note, that prycke is half as much asthe note that goeth before. "

Music at that time was said to be pricked, not printed, --the word beingderived from the prick or dot which formed the head of the note. Any songwhich was printed in various parts was called a prick-song, to distinguishit from one sung extemporaneously or by ear. The word prick-song occurs notonly in all the musical books, but in the literature of the time, and inShakespeare. "Tom Sternhold's" songs were entitled to be called prick-songsbecause they had notes of music printed with them. Many of the tunesin this collection were taken from the Genevan Psalter and Luther'sPsalm-Book, or from Marot and Beza's French Book of Psalms. Hence they wereirreverently called "Genevan Jiggs, " and "Beza's Ballets. "

There is much difference shown in the wording of these various editions ofSternhold and Hopkins' Psalms. The earlier ones were printed as Sternholdwrote them; but with the Genevan editions began great and astonishingalterations. Warton, who was no lover of Sternhold and Hopkins' verses, calling them "the disgrace of sacred poetry, " said of these attemptedimprovements, with vehemence, that "many stanzas already too naked and weaklike a plain old Gothic edifice stripped of its signatures of antiquity, have lost that little and almost only strength and support which theyderived from ancient phrases. " Other old critics thought that Sternhold, could he return to life, would hardly know his own verses. 

This is Sternhold's rendering of the Psalm in the edition of 1549:--

 1. The heavens & the fyrmamente do wondersly declare The glory of God omnipotent his workes and what they are. 

 2. Ech daye declareth by his course an other daye to come And By the night we know lykwise a nightly course to run. 

 3. There is no laguage tong or speche where theyr sound is not heard, In al the earth and coastes thereof theyr knowledge is conferd. 

 4. In them the lord made royally a settle for the sunne Where lyke a Gyant joyfully he myght his iourney runne. 

 5. And all the skye from ende to ende he compast round about No man can hyde hym from his heate but he wll fynd hym out

In order to show the liberties taken with the text we can compare with itthe Genevan edition printed in 1556. The second verse of that presumptuousrendering reads, --

 "The wonderous works of God appears by every days success The nyghts which likewise their race runne the selfe same thinges expresse. "

The fourth, --

 "In them the lorde made for the sunne a place of great renoune Who like a bridegrome rady-trimed doth from his chamber come. "

The expression "rady-trimed, " meaning close-shaven, is often instanced asone of the inelegancies of Sternhold, but he surely ought not to be heldresponsible for the "improvements" of the Genevan edition published afterhis death. 

The Genevan editors also invented and inserted an extra verse:--

 "And as a valiant champion who for to get a prize With joye doth hast to take in hande some noble enterprise. "

The fifth verse is thus altered:--

 "And al the skye from ende to ende he compasseth about, Nothing can hyde it from his heate but he wil finde it out. "

I cannot express the indignation with which I read these belittling andweakening alterations and interpolations; they are so unjust andso degrading to the reputation of Sternhold. It seems worse thanforgery--worse than piracy; for instead of stealing from the defencelessdead poet, it foists upon him a spurious and degrading progeny; there is noword to express this tinkering libellous literary crime. 

Cromwell had a prime favorite among these psalms; it was the one hundredand ninth and is known as the "cursing psalm. " Here are a few lines fromit:--

 "As he did cursing love, it shall betide unto him so, And as he did not blessing love it shall be farre him fro, As he with cursing clad himselfe so it like water shall Into his bowels and like oyl Into his bones befall. As garments let it be to him to cover him for aye And as a girdle wherewith he may girded be alway. "

Another authority gives the "cursing psalm" as the nineteenth of KingJames's version; but there is nothing in "The heavens declare the glory ofGod, " &c. To justify the nickname of "cursing. "

It is said when the tyrannical ruler Andros visited New Haven and attendedchurch there that (Sternhold and Hopkins' Version being used) the fearlessminister very inhospitably gave out the fifty-second psalm to be sung. Theangry governor, who took it as a direct insult, had to listen to the liningand singing of these words, and I have no doubt they were roared out with alusty will:--

 1. Why dost thou tyrant boast thyself thy wicked deeds to praise Dost thou not know there is a God whose mercies last alwaies?

 2. Why doth thy mind yet still deuise such wisked wiles to warp? Thy tongue untrue, in forging lies is like a razer sharp. 

 * * * * *

 4. Thou dost delight in fraude & guilt in mischief bloude and wrong: Thy lips have learned the flattering stile O false deceitful tongue. 

 5. Therefore shall God for eye confounde and pluck thee from thy place. Thy seed and root from out the grounde and so shall thee deface;

 6. The just when they behold thy fall with feare will praise the Lord: And in reproach of thee withall cry out with one accord. 

When the unhappy King Charles fled from Oxford to a camp of troops he alsowas insulted by having the same psalm given out in his presence by theboorish chaplain of the troops. After the cruel words were ended theheartsick king rose and asked the soldiers to sing the fifty-sixth psalm. Whenever I read the beautiful and pathetic words, as peculiarly appropriateas if they had been written for that occasion only, I can see it all beforeme, --the great camp, the angry minister, the wretched but truly royal king;and I can hear the simple and noble song as it pours from the lips ofhundreds of rude soldiers:

 1. Have mercy Lord on mee I pray for man would mee devour. He fighteth with me day by day and troubleth me each hour. 

 2. Mine enemies daily enterprise to swallow mee outright To fight against me many rise O thou most high of might

 * * * * *

 5. What things I either did or spake they wrest them at thier wil: And all the councel that they take is how to work me il. 

 6. They all consent themselves to hide close watch for me to lay: They spie my pathes, and snares have layd to take my life away. 

 7. Shall they thus scape on mischief set, thou God on them wilt frowne: For in his wrath he will not let to throw whole kingdomes downe. 

It would perhaps be neither just nor conducive to proper judgment to gatheronly a florilege of noble verses from Sternhold and Hopkins' Version andpoint out none of the "weedy-trophies, " the quaint and even uncouth lineswhich disfigure the work. We must, however, in considering and judgingthem, remember that many words and even phrases which at presentseem rather ludicrous or undignified had, in the sixteenth century, significations which have now become obsolete, and which were then neithervulgar nor unpoetical. I also have been forced to take my selections froma copy of Sternhold and Hopkins printed in 1599, and bound up with a"Breeches Bible;" for I have access to no earlier edition. Sternholdand Hopkins themselves may not be in truth responsible for many ofthe crudities. Hopkins, in his rendition of the 12th verse of theseventy-fourth Psalm, thus addresses the Deity:--

 "Why doost withdraw thy hand abacke and hide it in thy lappe? O pluck it out and bee not slacke to give thy foes a rap. "

"Rap" may have meant a heavier, a mightier blow then than it doesnow-a-days. 

Here is another curious verse from the seventieth psalm, --

 "Confounde them that apply and seeke to make my shame And at my harme doe laugh & crye So So there goeth the game. "

The sixth verse of the fifty-eighth psalm is rendered thus:--

 "O God breake thou thier teeth at once within thier mouthes throughout; The tuskes that in thier great jawbones like Lions whelpes hang out. "

Another verse reads thus:--

 "The earth did quake, the raine pourde down Heard men great claps of thunder And Mount Sinai shooke in such state As it would cleeve in sunder. "

One verse of the thirty-fifth psalm reads thus:--

 "The belly-gods and flattering traine that all good things deride At me doe grin with greate disdaine and pluck thier mouths aside. Lord when wilt thou amend this geare why dost thou stay & pause? O rid my soul, my onely deare, out of these Lions clawes. "

The word tush occurs frequently and quaintly: "Tush I an sure to fail;""Tush God forgetteth this. "

 "And with a blast doth puff against such as would him correct Tush Tush saith he I have no dread. "

Here are some of the curious expressions used:--

 "Though gripes of grief and pangs full sore shall lodge with us all night. "

 "For why their hearts were nothing lent to Him nor to His trade. "

 "Our soul in God hath joy and game. "

 "They are so fed that even for fat thier eyes oft-times out start. "

 "They grin they mow they nod thier heads. "

 "While they have war within thier hearts. " as butter are thier words. "

 "Divide them Lord & from them pul thier devilish double-tongue. "

 "My silly soul uptake. "

 "And rained down Manna for them to eat a food of mickle-wonder. "

 "For joy I have both gaped & breathed. "

But it is useless to multiply these selections, which, viewed individually, are certainly absurd and inelegant. They often indicate, however, the exactthought of the Psalmist, and are as well expressed as the desire to beliteral as well as poetic will permit them to be. Sternhold's versescompare quite favorably, when looked at either as a whole or with regard toindividual lines, with those of other poets of his day, for Chaucer was theonly great poet who preceded him. 

I must acknowledge quite frankly in the face of critics of both this andthe past century that I always read Sternhold and Hopkins' Psalms with adelight, a satisfaction that I can hardly give reasons for. Many of therenderings, though unmelodious and uneven, have a rough vigor and asweeping swing that is to me wonderfully impressive, far more so than manyof the elegant and polished methods of modern versifiers. And they are sothoroughly antique, so devoid of any resemblance to modern poems, that Ilove them for their penetrating savor of the olden times; and they seem nomore to be compared and contrasted with modern verses than should an oldcastle tower be compared with a fine new city house. We prefer the latterfor a habitation, it is infinitely better in every way, but we can admirealso the rough grandeur of the old ruin. 

XIV. 

Other Old Psalm-Books. 

There are occasionally found in New England on the shelves of oldlibraries, in the collections of antiquaries, or in the attics of oldfarm-houses, hidden in ancient hair-trunks or painted sea-chests or among apile of dusty books in a barrel, --there are found dingy, mouldy, tatteredpsalm-books of other versions than the ones which we know were commonlyused in the New England churches. Perhaps these books were never employedin public worship in the new land; they may have been brought over by somecolonist, in affectionate remembrance of the church of his youth, and sungfrom only with tender reminiscent longing in his own home. But when groupsof settlers who were neighbors and friends in their old homes came toAmerica and formed little segregated communities by themselves, there is nodoubt that they sung for a time from the psalm-books that they brought withthem. 

A rare copy is sometimes seen of Marot and Beza's French Psalm-book, brought to America doubtless by French Huguenot settlers, and used by themuntil (and perhaps after) the owners had learned the new tongue. Some ofthe Huguenots became members of the Puritan churches in America, otherswere Episcopalians. In Boston the Fancuils, Baudoins, Boutineaus, Sigourneys, and Johannots were all Huguenots, and attended the little brickchurch built on School Street in 1704, which was afterwards occupied bythe Twelfth Congregational Society of Boston, and in 1788 became a RomanCatholic church. 

The pocket psalm-book of Gabriel Bernon, the builder of the old French Fortat Oxford, is one of Marot and Beza's Version, and is still preserved andowned by one of his descendants; other New England families of Frenchlineage cherish as precious relics the French psalm-books of their Huguenotancestors. There has been in France no such incessant production of newmetrical versions of the psalms as in England. From the time of thepublication of the first versified psalms in 1540, through nearly threecenturies the psalm-book of all French Protestants has been that of Marotand Beza. This French version of the psalms is of special interest to allthoughtful students of the history of Protestantism, because it was thefirst metrical translation of the psalms ever sung and used by the people;and it was without doubt one of the most powerful influences that assistedin the religious awakening of the Reformation. 

Clement Marot was the "Valet of the Bed-chamber to King Francis I. , " andwas one of the greatest French poets of his time; in fact, he gave hisname to a new school of poetry, --"Marotique. " He had tried his hand atan immense variety of profane verse, he had written ballades, chansons, pastourelles, vers équivoques, eclogues, laments, complaints, epitaphs, chants-royals, blasons, contreblasons, dizains, huitains, envois; he hadbeen, Warton says, "the inventor of the rondeau and the restorer of themadrigal;" and yet, in spite of his well-known ingenuity and versatility, it occasioned much surprise and even amusement when it was known that thegay poet had written psalm-songs and proposed to substitute them for thelove-songs of the French court. I doubt if Marot thought very deeply of thereligious influence of his new songs, in spite of Mr. Morley's belief inthe versifier's serious intent. He was doubtless interested and perhapssomewhat infected by "Lutheranisme, " though perhaps he was more of afree-thinker than a Protestant. He himself said of his faith:--

 "I am not a Lutherist Nor Zuinglian and less Anabaptist, I am of God through his son Jesus Christ. I am one who has many works devised From which none could extract a single line Opposing itself to the law divine. "

And again:--

 "Luther did not come down from heaven for me Luther was not nailed to the cross to be My Saviour; for my sins to suffer shame, And I was not baptized in Luther's name. The name I was baptized in sounds so sweet That at the sound of it, what we entreat The Eternal Father gives. "

In the year 1540, at the instigation of King Francis, Marot presented amanuscript copy of his thirty new psalm-songs to Charles V. , king of Spain, receiving therefor two hundred gold doubloons. Francis encouraged him byfurther gifts, and so praised his work that the author soon published thethirty in a book which he dedicated to the king; and to which he alsoprefixed a metrical address to the ladies of France, bidding these fairdames to place their

 "doigts sur les espinettes Pour dire sainctes chansonnettes. "

These "sainctes chansonnettes" became at once the rage; courtiers andprinces, lords and ladies, ever ready for some new excitement, seized atonce upon the novel psalm-songs, and having no special or serious music forthem, cheerfully sang the sacred words to the ballad-tunes of the times, and to their gailliards and measures, without apparently any very deepthought of their religious meaning. Disraeli says that each of the royalfamily and each nobleman chose for his favorite song a psalm expressive ofhis own feeling or sentiments. The Dauphin, as became a brave huntsman, chose

 "Ainsi qu'on vit le cerf bruyre, "

 "As the hart panteth after the water-brook, "

and he gayly and noisily sang it when he went to the chase. The Queen chose

 "Ne vueilles pas, ô sire, Me reprendre en ton ire. "

 "Rebuke me not in thine indignation. "

Antony, king of Navarre, sung

 "Revenge moy prens la querelle, "

 "Stand up, O Lord! to revenge my quarrel, "

to the air of a dance of Poitou. Diane de Poictiers chose

 "Du fond de ma pensée. "

 "From the depth of my heart. "

But when from interest in her psalm-song she wished to further read andstudy the Bible, she was warned from the danger with horror by the Cardinalof Lorraine. This religious awakening and inquiry was of course deprecatedand dreaded by the Romish Church; to the Sorbonne all this rage forpsalm-singing was alarming enough. What right had the people to sing God'sword, "I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall be continuallyin my mouth"? The new psalm-songs were soon added to the list of "HereticalBooks" forbidden by the Church, and Marot fled to Geneva in 1543. He hadere this been under ban of the Church, even under condemnation of death;had been proclaimed a heretic at all the cross-ways throughout the kingdom, and had been imprisoned. But he had been too good a poet and courtier to belost, and the king had then interested himself and obtained the release ofthe versatile song writer. The fickle king abandoned for a second time thepsalm versifier, who never again returned to France. 

The austere and far-seeing Calvin at once adopted Marot's version of thePsalms, now enlarged to the number of fifty, and added them to the GenevanConfession of Faith, --recommending however that they be sung with the graveand suitable strains written, for them by Guillaume Frane. 

The collection was completed with the assistance of Theodore Beza, thegreat theologian, and the demand for the books was so great that theprinters could not supply them quickly enough. Ten thousand copies weresold at once, --a vast number for the times. 

But Marot was not happy in Geneva with Calvin and the Calvinists, as we canwell understand. Beza, in his "History of the French Reformed Churches"said, "He (Marot) had always been bred up in a very bad school, and couldnot live in subjection to the reformation of the Gospel, and thereforewent and spent the rest of his days in Piedmont, which was then in thepossession of the king, where he lived in some security under the favor ofthe governor. " He lived less than a year, however, dying in 1544. 

These psalms of Marot's passed through a great number and variety ofeditions. In addition to the Genevan publications, an immense number wereprinted in England. Nearly all the early editions were elegant books;carefully printed on rich paper, beautifully bound in rich moroccos andleathers, often emblazoned with gold on the covers, and with corners andclasps of precious metals, --they show the wealth and fashion of the owners. When, however, it came to be held an infallible sign of "Lutheranisme" tobe a singer of psalms, simpler and cheaper bindings appear; hence the dressof the French Psalm-Book found in New England is often dull enough, butinvariably firm and substantial. 

These psalms of Marot's are written in a great variety of song-measures, which seem scarcely as solemn and religious as the more dignified and evenmetres used by the early English writers. Some are graceful and smooth, however, and are canorous though never sonorous. They are pleasing to readwith their quaint old spelling and lettering. 

In the old Sigourney psalm-book the nineteenth psalm was thus rendered:--

 "Les cieux en chaque lieu La puissance de Dieu Racourent aux humains Ce grand entour espars Publie en toutes parts L'ouvrage de ses mains. 

 "Iour apres iour coulant Du Saigneur va parlant Par longue experience. La nuict suivant la nuict, Nous presche et nous instruicst De sa grád sapience"

Another much-employed metre was this, of the hundred and thirty-thirdpsalm:--

 "Asais aux bors do ce superbe fleuve Que de Babel les campagnes abreuve, Nos tristes coeurs ne pensoient qu' à Sion. Chacun, helas, dans cette affliction Les yeux en pleurs la morte peinte au visage Pendit sa harpe aux saules du rivage. "

A third and favorite metre was this:--

 "Mais sa montagne est un sainct lieu: Qui viendra done au mont de Dieu? Qui est-ce qui là tiendra place? Le homine de mains et coeur lavé, En vanité non éslevé Et qui n'a juré en fallace. "

Marot wrote in his preface to the psalms:--

 "Thrice happy they who shall behold And listen in that age of gold As by the plough the laborer strays And carman 'mid the public ways And tradesman in his shop shall swell The voice in psalm and canticle, Sing to solace toil; again From woods shall come a sweeter strain, Shepherd and shepherdess shall vie In many a tender Psalmody, And the Creator's name prolong As rock and stream return their song. "

Though these words seem prophetic, the gay and volatile Marot could neverhave foreseen what has proved one of the most curious facts in religioushistory, --that from the airy and unsubstantial seed sown by the Frenchcourtier in such a careless, thoughtless manner, would spring thegreat-spreading and deep-rooted tree of sacred song. 

Little volumes of the metrical rendering of the Psalms, known as "Tate andBrady's Version, " are frequently found in New England. It was the firstEnglish collection of psalms containing any smoothly flowing verses. Manyof the descendants of the Puritans clung with affection to the more literalrenderings of the "New England Psalm-Book, " and thought the new verses were"tasteless, bombastic, and irreverent. " The authors of the new book werecertainly not great poets, though Nahum Tate was an English Poet-Laureate. It is said of him that he was so extremely modest that he was never ableto make his fortune or to raise himself above necessity. He was not toomodest, however, to dare to make a metrical version of the Psalms, to writean improvement of King Lear, and a continuation of Absalom and Achitophel. Brady--equally modest--translated the Aeneid in rivalry of Dryden. "Thistranslation, " says Johnson, "when dragged into the world did not live longenough to cry. "

Such commonplace authors could hardly compose a version that would have astable foundation or promise of long existence. But few of Tate and Brady'shymns are now seen in our church-collections of Hymns and Psalms. To themwe owe, however, these noble lines, which were written thus:--

 "Be thou, O God, exalted High, And as thy glory fills the Skie So let it be on Earth displaid Till thou art here as There obeyed. "

The hymn commencing, --

 "My soul for help on God relies, From him alone my safety flows, "

is also of their composition. 

The first edition of these psalms was printed in 1696, and bore thistitle, "The Book of Psalms, a new version in metre fitted to the tunes usedin Churches. By N. Tate and N. Brady. " It was dedicated to King William, and though its use was permitted in English churches, it never supplantedSternhold and Hopkins' Version. In New England Tate and Brady's Psalmsbecame more universally popular, --not, however, without fierce opposingstruggles from the older church-members at giving up the venerated "BayPsalm-Book. "

Another version of Psalms which is occasionally found in New England isknown as "Patrick's Version. " The title is "The Psalms of David in MetreFitted to the Tunes used in Parish Churches by John Patrick, D. D. Precentorto the Charter House London. " A curious feature of this octavo edition of1701, which I have, is, "An Explication of Some Words of less CommonUse For the Benefit of the Common People. " Here are a few of the"explications:"--

 "Celebrate--Make renown'd. Climes--Countries differing in length of days. Detracting--Lessening one's credit. Fluid--Yielding. Infest--Annoy. Theam--Matter of Discourse. Uncessant--Never ceasing. Stupemlious--Astonishing. "

Baxter said of Patrick, "His holy affection and harmony hath so farreconciled the Nonconformists that diverse of them use his Psalms intheir congregation. " I doubt if the version were used in New EnglandNonconformist congregations. Some of his verses read thus:--

 "Lord hear the pray'rs and mournfull cries Of mine afflicted estate, And with thy Comforts chear my soul, Before it is too late. 

 "My days consume away like Smoak Mine anguish is so great, My bones are not unlike a hearth Parched & dry with heat. 

 "Such is my grief I little else Can do but sigh and groan. So wasted is my flesh I'm left Nothing but skin and bone. 

 "Like th' Owl and Pelican that dwell In desarts out of sight, I sadly do bemoan myself, In solitude delight. 

 "The wakeful bird that on Housetops Sits without company And spends the night in mournful cries Leads such a life as I. 

 "The Ashes I rowl in when I eat Are tasted with my bread, And with my Drink are mixed the tears I plentifully shed. "

A version of the Psalms which seems to have demanded and deserved moreattention than it received was written by Cotton Mather. He was doomed todisappointment in seeing his version adopted by the New England churchesjust as his ambitions and hopes were disappointed in many other ways. Thisbook was published in 1718. It was called "Psalterium Americanum. A Bookof Psalms in a translation exactly conformed unto the Original; but allin blank verse. Fitted unto the tunes commonly used in the Church. " By acurious arrangement of brackets and the use of two kinds of print thesepsalms could be divided into two separate metres and could be sung totunes of either long or short metre. After each psalm were introducedexplanations written in Mather's characteristic manner, --a manner bothscholarly and bombastic. I have read the "Psalterium Americanum" with care, and am impressed with its elegance, finish, and dignity. It is so popular, however, even now-a-days, to jibe at poor Cotton Mather, that his Psalterdoes not escape the thrusts of laughing critics. Mr. Glass, the Englishcritic, holds up these lines as "one of the rich things:"--

 "As the Hart makes a panting cry For cooling streams of water, So my soul makes a panting cry For thee--O Mighty God. "

I have read these lines over and over again, and fail to see anything veryludicrous in them, though they might be slightly altered to advantage. Still they may be very absurd and laughable from an English point of view. 

So superior was Cotton Mather's version to the miserable verses given in"The Bay Psalm-Book" that one wonders it was not eagerly accepted by theNew England churches. Doubtless they preferred rhyme--even the atrociousrhyme of "The Bay Psalm Book. " And the fact that the "PsalteriumAmericanum" contained no musical notes or directions also militated againstits use. 

Other American clergymen prepared metrical versions of the psalms that weremuch loved and loudly sung by the respective congregations of the writers. The work of those worthy, painstaking saints we will neither quote norcriticise, --saying only of each reverend versifier, "Truly, I wouldthe gods had made thee poetical. " Rev. John Barnard, who preached forfifty-four years in Marblehead, published at the age of seventy years apsalm-book for his people. Though it appeared in 1752, a time when "The BayPsalm Book" was being shoved out of the New England churches, Barnard'sVersion of the Psalms was never used outside of Marblehead. Rev. AbijahDavis published another book of psalms in which he copied whole pages fromWatts without a word of thanks or of due credit, which was apparentlyneither Christian, clerical nor manly behavior. 

Watts's monosyllabic Hymns, which were not universally used in Americauntil after the Revolution, are too well known and are still too frequentlyseen to need more than mention. Within the last century a flood of newbooks of psalms of varying merit and existence has poured out upon the NewEngland churches, and filled the church libraries and church, pews, thesecond-hand book shops, the missionary boxes, and the paper-mills. 

XV. 

The Church Music. 

Of all the dismal accompaniments of public worship in the early days of NewEngland, the music was the most hopelessly forlorn, --not alone from theconfused versifications of the Psalms which were used, but from themournful monotony of the few known tunes and the horrible manner in whichthose tunes were sung. It was not much better in old England. In 1676Master Mace wrote of the singing in English churches, "'T is sad tohear what whining, toling, yelling or shreaking there is in our countrycongregations. "

A few feeble efforts were made in America at the beginning of theeighteenth century to attempt to guide the singing. The edition of 1698 of"The Bay Psalm-Book" had "Some few Directions" regarding the singing addedon the last pages of the book, and simple enough they were in matter if notin form. They commence, "_First_, observe how many note-compass thetune is next the place of your first note, and how many notes above andbelow that so as you may begin the tune of your first note, as the rest maybe sung in the compass of your and the peoples voices without Squeakingabove or Grumbling below. "

This "Squeaking above and Grumbling below" had become far too frequent inthe churches; Judge Sewall writes often with much self-reproach of hisfailure in "setting the tune, " and also records with pride when he "set thepsalm well. " Here is his pathetic record of one of his mistakes: "He spaketo me to set the tune. I intended Windsor and fell into High Dutch, andthen essaying to set another tune went into a Key much to high. So I pray'dto Mr. White to set it which he did well. Litchfield Tune. The Lord Humbleme and Instruct me that I should be the occasion of any interruption in theworship of God. "

The singing at the time must have been bad beyond belief; how much of itsatrocity was attributable to the use of "The Bay Psalm-Book, " cannot nowbe known. The great length of many of the psalms in that book was a fatalbarrier to any successful effort to have good singing. Some of them wereone hundred and thirty lines long, and occupied, when lined and sung, afull half-hour, during which the patient congregation stood. It is told ofDr. West, who preached in Dartmouth in 1726, that he forgot one Sabbath Dayto bring his sermon to meeting. He gave out a psalm, walked a quarter of amile to his house, got his sermon, and was back in his pulpit long beforethe psalm was finished. The irregularity of the rhythm in "The Bay PsalmBook" must also have been a serious difficulty to overcome. Here is therendering given of the 133d Psalm:--

 1. How good and sweet to see i'ts for bretheren to dwell together in unitee:

 2. Its like choice oyle that fell the head upon that down did flow the beard unto beard of Aron: The skirts of his garment that unto them went down:

 3. Like Hermons dews descent Sions mountains upon for there to bee the Lords blessing life aye lasting commandeth hee. 

How this contorted song could have been sung even to the simplest tune byunskilled singers who possessed no guiding notes of music is difficultto comprehend. Small wonder that Judge Sewall was forced to enter in hisdiary, "In the morning I set York tune and in the second going over, thegallery carried it irresistibly to St. Davids which discouraged me verymuch. " We can fancy him stamping his foot, beating time, and roaring Yorkat the top of his old lungs, and being overcome by the strong-voicedgallery, and at last sadly succumbing to St. David's. Again he writes: "Iset York tune and the Congregation went out of it into St. Davids in thevery 2nd going over. They did the same 3 weeks before. This is the 2ndSign. It seems to me an intimation for me to resign the Praecentor's Placeto a better Voice. I have through the Divine Long suffering and Favour doneit for 24 years and now God in his Providence seems to call me off, myvoice being enfeebled. " Still a third time he "set Windsor tune;" they "ranover into Oxford do what I would. " These unseemly "running overs" becameso common that ere long each singer "set the tune" at his own will and theloudest-voiced carried the day. A writer of the time, Rev. Thomas Walter, says of this reign of _concordia discors_: "The tunes are nowmiserably tortured and twisted and quavered, in some Churches, into ahorrid Medly of confused and disorderly Voices. Our tunes are left to theMercy of every unskilful Throat to chop and alter, to twist and change, according to their infinitely divers and no less Odd Humours and Fancies. I have myself paused twice in one note to take breath. No two Men in theCongregation quaver alike or together, it sounds in the Ears of a GoodJudge like five hundred different Tunes roared out at the same Time, withperpetual Interfearings with one another. "

Still, confused and poor as was the singing, it was a source of pure andunceasing delight to the Puritan colonists, --one of the rare pleasures theypossessed, --a foretaste of heaven;

 "for all we know Of what the blessed do above Is that they sing and that they love. "

And to even that remnant of music--their few jumbled cacophonousmelodies--they clung with a devotion almost phenomenal. 

Nor should we underrate the cohesive power that psalm-singing proved in theearly communities; it was one of the most potent influences in gatheringand holding the colonists together in love. And they reverenced their poorhalting tunes in a way quite beyond our modern power of fathoming. Whenevera Puritan, even in road or field, heard at a distance the sound of apsalm-tune, though the sacred words might be quite undistinguishable, hedoffed his hat and bowed his head in the true presence of God. We fain mustbelieve, as Arthur Hugh Clough says, --

 "There is some great truth, partial, very likely, but needful, Lodged, I am strangely sure, in the tones of an English psalm-tune. "

Judge Sewall often writes with tender and simple pathos of his being movedto tears by the singing, --sometimes by the music, sometimes by the words. "The song of the 5th Revelation was sung. I was ready to burst into tearsat the words, _bought with thy blood_. " He also, with a vehemence oflanguage most unusual in him and which showed his deep feeling, wrote thathe had an intense passion for music. And yet, the only tunes he or any ofhis fellow-colonists knew were the simple ones called Oxford, Litchfield, Low Dutch, York, Windsor, Cambridge, St. David's and Martyrs. 

About the year 1714 Rev. John Tufts, of Newbury, who had previouslyprepared "A very Plain and Easy Introduction to the Art of SingingPsalm-tunes, " issued a collection of tunes in three parts. Thesethirty-seven tunes, all of which but one were in common metre, were boundoften with "The Bay Psalm-Book. " They were reprinted from Playford's "Bookof Psalms" and the notes of the staff were replaced with letters and dots, and the bars marking the measures were omitted. To the Puritans, this greatnumber of new tunes appeared fairly monstrous, and formed the signal forbitter objections and fierce quarrels. 

In 1647 a tract had appeared on church-singing which had attracted muchattention. It was written by Rev John Cotton to attempt to influence theadoption and universal use of "The Bay Psalm-Book. " This tract thoroughlyconsidered the duty of singing, the matter sung, the singers, and themanner of singing, and, like all the literature of the time, was full ofBiblical allusion and quotation. It had been said that "man should singonely and not the women. Because it is not permitted to a woman to speakein the Church, how then shall they sing? Much lesse is it permitted to themto prophecy in the church and singing of Psalms is a kind of Prophecying. "Cotton fully answered and contradicted these false reasoners, who wouldhave had to face a revolution had they attempted to keep the Puritan womenfrom singing in meeting. The tract abounds in quaint expressions, such as, "they have scoffed at Puritan Ministers as calling the people to sing oneof _Hopkins-Jiggs_ and so _hop_ into the pulpit. " Though he wrotethis tract to encourage good singing in meeting, his endorsement of "liningthe Psalm" gave support to the very element that soon ruined the singing. His reasons, however, were temporarily good, "because many wanted books andskill to read. " At that time, and for a century later, many congregationshad but one or two psalm-books, one of which was often bound with thechurch Bible and from which the deacon lined the psalm. 

So villanous had church-singing at last become that the clergymen arose ina body and demanded better performances; while a desperate and disgustedparty was also formed which was opposed to all singing. Still another bandof old fogies was strong in force who wished to cling to the same way ofsinging that they were accustomed to; and they gave many objections to thenew-fangled idea of singing by note, the chief item on the list being theeverlasting objection of all such old fossils, that "the old way was goodenough for our fathers, " &c. They also asserted that "_the names ofthe notes were blasphemous_;" that it was "popish;" that it was acontrivance to get money; that it would bring musical instruments into thechurches; and that "no one could learn the tunes any way. " A writer in the"New England Chronicle" wrote in 1723, "Truly I have a great jealousythat if we begin to _sing_ by _rule_, the next thing will beto _pray_ by rule and _preach_ by rule and _then comes popery_. "

It is impossible to overestimate the excitement, the animosity, and thecontention which arose in the New England colonies from these discussionsover "singing by rule" or "singing by rote. " Many prominent clergymen wroteessays and tracts upon the subject; of these essays "The Reasonableness ofRegular Singing, " also a "Joco-serious Dialogue on Singing, " by ReverendMr. Symmes; "Cases of Conscience, " compiled by several ministers; "TheAccomplished Singer, " by Cotton Mather, were the most important. "SingingLectures" also were given in many parts of New England by various prominentministers. So high was party feud that a "Pacificatory Letter" wasnecessary, which was probably written by Cotton Mather, and which soothedthe troubled waters. The people who thought the "old way was the best" wereentirely satisfied when they were convinced that the oldest way of all was, of course, by note and not by rote. 

This naive extract from the records of the First Church of Windsor, Connecticut, will show the way in which the question of "singing by rule"was often settled in the churches, and it also gives a very amusing glimpseof the colonial manner of conducting a meeting:--

"July 2. 1736. At a Society meeting at which Capt. Pelatiah AllynModerator. The business of the meeting proceeded in the following mannerViz. The Moderator proposed as to the consideration of the meeting in the1st Place what should be done respecting that part of publick Woishipcalled Singing viz. Whether in their Publick meetings as on Sabbath day, Lectures &c they would sing the way that Deacon Marshall usually sung inhis lifetime commonly called the 'Old Way' or whether they would sing theway taught by Mr. Beal commonly called 'Singing by Rule, ' and when theSociety had discoursed the matter the Moderator pioposed to vote for saidtwo ways as followeth viz. That those that were for singing in publick inthe way practiced by Deacon Marshall should hold up their hands and becounted, and then that those that were desirous to sing in Mr. Beals waycalled 'by Rule' would after show their minds by the same sign which methodwas proceeded upon accordingly. But when the vote was passed there beingmany voters it was difficult to take the exact number of votes in order todetermine on which side the major vote was; whereupon the Moderator orderedall the voters to go out of the seats and stand in the alleys and thenthose that were for Deacon Marshalls way should go into the mens seats andthose that were for Mr. Beals way should go into the womens seat andafter much objections made against that way, which prevailed not with theModerator, it was complied with, and then the Moderator desired that thosethat were of the mind that the way to be practiced for singing for thefuture on the Sabbath &c should be the way sung by Deacon Marshall asaforesaid would signify the same by holding up their hands and be counted, and then the Moderator and myself went and counted the voters and theModerator asked me how many there was. I answered 42 and he said there was63 or 64 and then we both counted again and agreed the number being 43. Then the Moderator was about to count the number of votes for Mr. Bealsway of Singing called 'by Rule' but it was offered whether it would not bebetter to order the voters to pass out of the Meeting House door and therebe counted who did accordingly and their number was 44 or 45. Then theModerator proceeded and desired that those who were for singing in Publicthe way that Mr. Beal taught would draw out of their seats and pass out ofthe door and be counted. They replied they were ready to show their mindsin any proper way where they were if they might be directed thereto butwould not go out of the door to do the same and desired that they might beled to a vote where they were and they were ready to show their minds whichthe Moderator refused to do and thereupon declared that it was voted thatDeacon Marshalls way of singing called the 'Old Way' should be sung inPublick for the future and ordered me to record the same as the vote of theSaid Society which I refused to do under the circumstances thereof and haverecorded the facts and proceedings. "

Good old lining, droning Deacon Marshall! though you were dead and gone, you and your years of psalm-singings were not forgotten. You lived, anidealized memory of pure and pious harmony, in the hearts of your oldchurch friends. Warmly did they fight for your "way of singing;" withmost undeniable and open partiality, with most dubious ingenuousness andrectitude, did your old neighbor, Captain Pelatiah Allyn, conduct that hotJuly music-meeting, counting up boldly sixty-three votes in favor of yourway, when there were only forty-three voters on your side of the alley, andcrowding a final decision in your favor. It is sad to read that when icywinter chilled the blood, warm partisanship of old friends also cooled, andinnovative Windsor youth carried the day and the music vote, and your goodold way was abandoned for half the Sunday services, to allow the upstartnew fashion to take control. 

One happy result arose throughout New England from the victory of theardent advocates of the "singing by rule, "--the establishment of the NewEngland "singing-school, "--that outlet for the pent-up, amusement-lackinglives of young people in colonial times. What that innocent andhappy gathering was in the monotonous existence of our ancestors andancestresses, we of the present pleasure-filled days can hardly comprehend. 

Extracts from the records of various colonial churches will show how soonthe respective communities yielded to the march of improvement and "seatedthe taught singers" together, thus forming choirs. In 1762 the churchat Rowley, Massachusetts, voted "that those who have learned the art ofSinging may have liberty to sit in the front gallery. " In 1780 the sameparish "requested Jonathan Chaplin and Lieutenant Spefford to assist thedeacons in Raising the tune in the meeting house. " In Sutton, in 1791, theCompany of Singers were allowed to sit together, and $13 was voted to payfor "larning to sing by Rule. " The Roxbury "First Church" voted in 1770"three seats in the back gallery for those inclined to sit together forthe purpose of singing" The church in Hanover, in 1742, took a vote tosee whether the "church will sing in the new way" and appoint a tuner. InWoodbury, Connecticut, in 1750 the singers "may sitt up Galery all day ifthey please but to keep to there own seat & not to Infringe on the WomenPues. " In 1763, in the Ipswich First Parish, the singers were allowed tosit "two back on each side of the front alley. " Similar entries may befound in nearly every record of New England churches in the middle orlatter part of that century. 

The musical battle was not finished, however, when the singing was at lasttaught by rule, and the singers were allowed to sit together and form achoir. There still existed the odious custom of "lining" or "deaconing"the psalm. To this fashion may be attributed the depraved condition ofchurch-singing of which Walters so forcibly wrote, and while it continuedthe case seemed hopeless, in spite of singing-schools and singing-teachers. It would be trying to the continued uniformity of pitch of an ordinarychurch choir, even now-a-days, to have to stop for several seconds betweeneach line to listen to a reading and sometimes to an explanation of thefollowing line. 

The Westminster Assembly had suggested in 1664 the alternate reading andsinging of each line of the psalm to those churches that were not wellsupplied with psalm-books. The suggestion had not been adopted withoutdiscussion, It was in 1680 much talked over in the church in Plymouth, andwas adopted only after getting the opinion of each male church member. When once taken into general use the custom continued everywhere, throughcarelessness and obstinacy, long after the churches possessed plenty ofpsalm-books. An early complaint against it was made by Dr. Watts in thepreface of his hymns, which were published by Benjamin Franklin in 1741. AsWatts' Psalms and Hymns were not, however, in general use in New Englanduntil after the Revolution, this preface with its complaint was for a longtime little seen and little heeded. 

It is said that the abolition came gradually; that the impetuous andwell-trained singers at first cut off the last word only of the deacon's"lining;" they then encroached a word or two further, and finally sungboldly on without stopping at all to be "deaconed. " This brought downa tempest of indignation from the older church-members, who protested, however, in vain. A vote in the church usually found the singersvictorious, and whether the church voted for or against the "lining, " thechoir would always by stratagem vanquish the deacon. One old soldier tookhis revenge, however. Being sung down by the rampant choir, he still showedbattle, and rose at the conclusion of the psalm and opened his psalm-book, saying calmly, "_Now_ let the _people of the Lord sing_. "

The Rowley church tried diplomacy in their struggle against "deaconing, "by instituting a gradual abolishing of the custom. In 1785 the choir wasallowed "to sing once on the Lord's Day without reading by the Deacon. " Infive years the Rowley singers were wholly victorious, and "lining out" thepsalm was entirely discontinued. 

In 1770, dissatisfaction at the singing in the church was rife inWilbraham, and a vote was taken to see whether the town would be willingto have singing four times at each service; and it was voted to "take intoconsideration the Broken State of this Town with regard to singing on theSabbath Day. " Special and bitter objection was made against the leaderbeating time so ostentatiously. A list of singers was made and asinging-master appointed. The deacon was allowed to lead and line and beattime in the forenoon, while the new school was to have control in theafternoon; and "whoever leads the singing shall be at liberty to use themotion of his hand while singing for the space of three months only. " It isneedless to state who came off victorious in the end. The deacon left as aparting shot a request to "make Inquiry into the conduct of those who callthemselves the Singers in this town. "

In Worcester, in 1779, a resolution adopted at the town meeting was "thatthe mode of singing in the congregation here be without reading the psalmsline by line. " "The Sabbath succeeding the adoption of this resolution, after the hymn had been read by the minister, the aged and venerable DeaconChamberlain, unwilling to abandon the custom of his fathers and his ownhonorable prerogative, rose and read the first line according to his usualpractice. The singers, previously prepared to carry the desired alterationinto effect, proceeded in their singing without pausing at the conclusionof the line. The white-haired officer of the church with the full powerof his voice read on through the second line, until the loud notes of thecollected body of singers overpowered his attempt to resist the progressof improvement. The deacon, deeply mortified at the triumph of the musicalreformation, then seized his hat and retired from the meeting-house intears. " His conduct was censured by the church, and he was for a timedeprived of partaking in the communion, for "absenting himself from thepublic services of the Sabbath;" but in a few weeks the unhouselled deaconwas forgiven, and never attempted to "line" again. 

Though the opponents of "lining" were victorious in the larger villages andtowns, in smaller parishes, where there were few hymn-books, the liningof the psalms continued for many years. Mr. Hood wrote, in 1846, theastonishing statement that "the habit of lining prevails to this day overthree-fourths of the United States. " This I can hardly believe, though Iknow that at present the practice obtains in out of the way towns with poorand ignorant congregations. The separation of the lines often gives a verystrange meaning to the words of a psalm; and one wonders what the Puritanchildren thought when they heard this lino of contradictions that Hoodpoints out:--

 "The Lord will come and He will not, "

and after singing that line through heard the second line, --

 "Keep silence, but speak out. "

Many new psalm-books appeared about the time of the Revolutionary War, andmany church petitions have been preserved asking permission to use thenew and more melodious psalm and hymn books. Books of instruction alsoabounded, --books in which the notes were not printed on the staff, andbooks in which there were staffs but no notes, only letters or othercharacters (these were called "dunce notes"); books, too, in which thenotes were printed so thickly that they could scarcely be distinguished onefrom the other. 

 "A dotted tribe with ebon heads That climb the slender fence along, As black as ink, as thick as weeds, Ye little Africans of song. "

One book--perhaps the worst, since it was the most pretentious--was "TheCompleat Melody or Harmony of Sion, " by William Tansur, --"IngeniousTans'ur Skilled in Musicks Art. " It was a most superficial, pedantic, andbewildering composition. The musical instruction was given in the form of aseries of ill-spelled dialogues between a teacher and pupil, interspersedwith occasional miserable rhymes. It was ill-expressed at best, andsuch musical terms as "Rations of Concords, " "Trilloes, " "Trifdiapasons, ""Leaps, " "Binding cadences, " "Disallowances, " "Canons, " "Prime Flowerof Florid, " "Consecutions of Perfects, " and "Figurates, " make the bookexceedingly difficult of comprehension to the average reader, thoughpossibly not to a student of obsolete musical phraseology. 

A side skirmish on the music field was at this time fought between thetreble and the tenor parts. Ravenscroft's Psalms and Walter's book hadgiven the melody, or plain-song, to the tenor. This had, of course, thrownadditional difficulties in the way of good singing; but when once thetrebles obtained the leading part, after the customary bitter opposition, the improved singing approved the victory. 

Many objections, too, were made to the introduction of "triple-time" tunes. It gave great offence to the older Puritans, who wished to drawl out allthe notes of uniform length; and some persons thought that marking andaccenting the measure was a step toward the "Scarlet Woman. " The time wascalled derisively, "a long leg and a short one. "

These old bigots must have been paralyzed at the new style of psalm-singingwhich was invented and introduced by a Massachusetts tanner andsinging-master named Billings, and which was suggested, doubtless, by theEnglish anthems. It spread through the choirs of colonial villages andtowns like wild-fire, and was called "fuguing. " Mr. Billings' "FuguingPsalm Singer" was published in 1770. It is a dingy, ill-printed book witha comically illustrated frontispiece, long pages of instruction, and thismotto:--

 "O, praise the Lord with one consent And in this grand design Let Britain and the Colonies Unanimously join. "

The succeeding hymn-books, and the patriotic hymns of Billings inpost-Revolutionary years have no hint of "Britain" in them. The names"Federal Harmony, " "Columbian Harmony, " "Continental Harmony, " "ColumbianRepository, " and "United States Sacred Harmony" show the new nation. Billings also published the "Psalm Singer's Amusement, " and othersinging-books. The shades of Cotton, of Sewall, of Mather must have groanedaloud at the suggestions, instructions, and actions of this unregenerate, daring, and "amusing" leader of church-singing. 

It seems astonishing that New England communities in those times of anxiousand depressing warfare should have so delightedly seized and adopted thisunusual and comparatively joyous style of singing, but perhaps the newspirit of liberty demanded more animated and spirited expression; andBillings' psalm-tunes were played with drum and fife on the battlefield toinspire the American soldiers. Billings wrote of his fuguing invention, "Ithas more than twenty times the power of the old slow tunes. Now the solemnbass demands their attention, next the manly tenor, now the lofty counter, now the volatile treble. Now here! Now there! Now here again! Oh ecstatic, push on, ye sons of harmony!" Dr. Mather Byles wrote thus of fuguing:--

 "Down starts the Bass with Grave Majestic Air, And up the Treble mounts with shrill Career, With softer Sounds in mild melodious Maze Warbling between, the Tenor gently plays And, if th' inspiring Altos joins the Force See! like the Lark it Wings its towering Course Thro' Harmony's sublimest Sphere it flies And to Angelic Accents seems to rise. "

A more modern poet in affectionate remembrance thus sings the fugue:--

 "A fugue let loose cheers up the place, With bass and tenor, alto, air, The parts strike in with measured grace, And something sweet is everywhere. 

 "As if some warbling brood should build Of bits of tunes a singing nest; Each bringing that with which it thrilled And weaving it with all the rest. "

All public worshippers in the meetings one hundred years ago did not, however, regard fuguing as "something sweet everywhere, " nor did they agreewith Billings and Byles as to its angelic and ecstatic properties. Somethought it "heartless, tasteless, trivial, and irreverent jargon. " Othersthought the tunes were written more for the absurd inflation of the singersthan for the glory of God; and many fully sympathized with the man whohung two cats over Billings's door to indicate his opinion of Billings'scaterwauling. An old inhabitant of Roxbury remembered that when fuguingtunes were introduced into his church "they produced a literally fuguingeffect on the older people, who went out of the church as soon as the firstverse was sung. " One scandalized and belligerent old clergyman, upon theSabbath following the introduction of fuguing into his church, preachedupon the prophecy of Amos, "The songs of the temple shall be turnedinto howling, " while another took for his text the sixth verse of theseventeenth chapter of Acts, "Those that have turned the world upside down, are come hither also. " One indignant and disgusted church attendant thusprofanely recorded in church his views:--

"Written out of temper on a Pannel in one of the Pues in Salem Church:--

 "Could poor King David but for once To Salem Church repair; And hear his Psalms thus warbled out, Good Lord, how he would swear

 "But could St Paul but just pop in, From higher scenes abstracted, And hear his Gospel now explained, By Heavens, he'd run distracted. "

These lines were reprinted in the "American Apollo" in 1792. 

The repetition of a word or syllable in fuguing often lead to someridiculous variations in the meanings of the lines. Thus the words--

 "With reverence let the saints appear And bow before the Lord, "

were forced to be sung, "And bow-wow-wow, And bow-ow-ow, " and so on untilbass, treble, alto, counter, and tenor had bow-wowed for about twentyseconds; yet I doubt if the simple hearts that sung ever saw the absurdity. 

It is impossible while speaking of fuguing to pass over an extraordinaryelement of the choir called "singing counter. " The counter-tenor parts inEuropean church-music were originally written for boys' voices. Fromthence followed the falsetto singing of the part by men; such was alsothe "counter" of New England. It was my fortune to hear once in a countrychurch an aged deacon "sing counter". Reverence for the place and song, andrespect for the singer alike failed to control the irrepressible startof amazement and smile of amusement with which we greeted the weird andapparently demented shriek which rose high over the voices of the choir, but which did not at all disconcert their accustomed ears. Words, howeverchosen, would fail in attempting to describe the grotesque and uncannysound. 

It is very evident, when once choirs of singers were established andattempts made for congregations to sing the same tune, and to keeptogether, and upon the same key, that in some way a decided pitch must begiven to them to start upon. To this end pitch-pipes were brought into thesingers' gallery, and the pitch was given sneakingly and shamefacedly tothe singers. From these pitch-pipes the steps were gradual, but they led, as the Puritan divines foresaw, to the general introduction of musicalinstruments into the meetings. 

This seemed to be attacking the very foundations of their church; for thePuritans in England had, in 1557, expressly declared "concerning singing ofpsalms we allow of the people joining with one voice in a plain tune, butnot in tossing the psalms from one side to the other with mingling oforgans. " The Round-heads had, in 1664, gone through England destroying thenoble organs in the churches and cathedrals. They tore the pipes from theorgan in Westminster Abbey, shouting, "Hark! how the organs go!" and, "Markwhat musick that is, that is lawful for a Puritan to dance, " and they soldthe metal for pots of ale. Only four or five organs were left uninjured inall England. 'Twas not likely, then, that New England Puritans would takekindly to any musical instruments. Cotton Mather declared that there wasnot a word in the New Testament that authorized the use of such aids todevotion. The ministers preached often and long on the text from theprophecy of Amos, "I will not hear the melody of thy viols;" while, Puritan-fashion, they ignored the other half of the verse, "Take thou awayfrom me the noise of thy songs. " Disparaging comparisons were made withNebuchadnezzar's idolatrous concert of cornet, flute, dulcimer, sackbut, and psaltery; and the ministers, from their overwhelming store of Biblicalknowledge, hurled text after text at the "fiddle-players. "

Some of the first pitch-pipes were comical little apple-wood instrumentsthat looked like mouse-traps, and great pains was taken to conceal them asthey were passed surreptitiously from hand to hand in the choir. I haveseen one which was carefully concealed in a box that had a leather bindinglike a book, and which was ostentatiously labelled in large gilt letters"Holy Bible;" a piece of barefaced and unnecessary deception on the part ofsome pious New England deacon or chorister. 

Little wooden fifes were also used, and then metal tuning-forks. A cannyScotchman, who abhorred the thought of all musical instruments anywhere, managed to have one fling at the pitch-pipe. The pitch had been given butwas much too high, and before the first verse was ended the choir had tocease singing. The Scotchman stood up and pointed his long finger to theleader, saying in broad accents of scorn, "Ah, Johnny Smuth, now ye canhave a chance to blaw yer braw whustle agaen. " At a similar catastropheowing to the mistake of the leader in Medford, old General Brooks rose inhis pew and roared in an irritated voice of command, "Halt! Take anotherpitch, Bailey, take another pitch. "

In 1713 there was sent to America an English organ, "a pair of organs" itwas called, which had chanced, by being at the manufacturers instead of ina church, to have escaped the general destruction by the Round-heads. Itwas given by Thomas Brattle to the Brattle Street Church in Boston. Thecongregation voted to refuse the gift, and it was then sent to King'sChapel, where it remained unpacked for several months for fear of hostiledemonstrations, but was finally set up and used. In 1740 a Bostonian namedBromfield made an organ, and it was placed in a meeting-house and usedweekly. In 1794 the church in Newbury obtained an organ, and manyunpleasant and disparaging references were made by clergymen of otherparishes to "our neighbor's box of whistles, " "the tooting tub. "

Violoncellos, or bass-viols, as they were universally called, were almostthe first musical instruments that were allowed in the New Englandchurches. They were called, without intentional irreverence, "Lord'sfiddles. " Violins were widely opposed, they savored too much of low, taverndance-music. After much consultation a satisfactory compromise was agreedupon by which violins were allowed in many meetings, if the performers"would play the fiddle wrong end up. " Thus did our sanctimoniousgrandfathers cajole and persuade themselves that an inverted fiddle wasnot a fiddle at all, but a small bass-viol. An old lady, eighty years old, wrote thus in the middle of this century, of the church of her youth:"After awhile there was a bass-viol Introduced and brought into meeting anddid not suit the Old people; one Old Gentleman got up, took his hat offthe peg and marched off. Said they had begun fiddling and there would bedancing soon. " Another church-member, in derisive opposition to a clarinetwhich had been "voted into the choir, " brought into meeting a fish-horn, which he blew loud and long to the complete rout of the clarinet-player andthe singers. When reproved for this astounding behavior he answered stoutlythat "if one man could blow a horn in the Lord's House on the Sabbath dayhe guessed he could too, " and he had to be bound over to keep the peacebefore the following Sunday. A venerable and hitherto decorous old deaconof Roxbury not only left the church when the hated bass-viol began itsaccompanying notes, but he stood for a long time outside the church doorstridently "caterwauling" at the top of his lungs. When expostulated withfor this unseemly and unchristianlike annoyance he explained that he was"only mocking the banjo. " To such depths of rebellion were stirred thePuritan instincts of these religious souls. 

Many a minister said openly that he would like to walk out of his pulpitwhen the obnoxious and hated flutes, violins, bass-viols, and bassoons wereplayed upon in the singing gallery. One clergyman contemptuously announced"We will now sing and fiddle the forty-fifth Psalm. " Another complained ofthe indecorous dress of the fiddle-player. This had reference to the almostuniversal custom, in country churches in the summer time, of the bass-violplayer removing his coat and playing "in his shirt sleeves. " Others hatedthe noisy tuning of the bass-viol while the psalm was being read. Mr. Brown, of Westerly, sadly deplored that "now we have only catgut and resinreligion. "

In 1804 the church in Quincy, being "advanced, " granted the singers thesum of twenty-five dollars to buy a bass-viol to use in meeting, and a fewother churches followed their lead. From the year 1794 till 1829 thechurch in Wareham, Massachusetts, was deeply agitated over the question of"Bass-Viol, or No Bass-Viol. " They voted that a bass-viol was "expedient, "then they voted to expel the hated abomination; then was obtained "Leavefor the Bass Viol to be brought into ye meeting house to be Played On everyother Sabbath & to Play if chosen every Sabbath in the Intermission betweenmeetings & not to Pitch the Tunes on the Sabbaths that it don't Play" Then, they tried to bribe the choir for fifty dollars not to use the "bars-vile, "but being unsuccessful, many members in open rebellion stayed away fromchurch and were disciplined therefor. Then they voted that the bass-violcould not be used unless Capt. Gibbs were previously notified (so he andhis family need not come to hear the hated sounds); but at last, afterthirty years, the choir and the "fiddle-player" were triumphant in Warehamas they were in other towns. 

We were well into the present century before any cheerful and also simplemusic was heard in our churches; fuguing was more varied and surprisingthan cheerful. Of course, it was difficult as well as inappropriate tosuggest pleasing tunes for such words as these:--

 "Far in the deep where darkness dwells, The land of horror and despair, Justice hath built a dismal hell, And laid her stores of vengeance there:

 "Eternal plagues and heavy chains, Tormenting racks and fiery coals, And darts to inflict immortal pains, Dyed in the blood of damned souls. "

But many of the words of the old hymns were smooth, lively, andencouraging; and the young singers and perhaps the singing-masters cravednew and less sober tunes. Old dance tunes were at first adapted; "SweetAnne Page, " "Babbling Echo, " "Little Pickle" were set to sacred words. Themusic of "Few Happy Matches" was sung to the hymn "Lo, on a narrow neckof land;" and that of "When I was brisk and young" was disguised withthe sacred words of "Let sinners take their course. " The jolly old tune, "Begone dull care, " which began, --

 "My wife shall dance, and I will sing, And merrily pass the day. "

was strangely appropriated to the solemn words, --

 "If this be death, I soon shall be From every pain and sorrow free, "

and did not seem ill-fitted either. 

"Sacred arrangements, " "spiritual songs, " "sacred airs, " soon followed, andof course demanded singers of capacity and education to sing them. Fromthis was but a step to a paid quartette, and the struggle over this lastmeans of improvement and pleasure in church music is of too recent a dateto be more than referred to. 

I attended a church service not many years ago in Worcester, where an oldclergyman, the venerable "Father" Allen, of Shrewsbury, then too agedand feeble to preach, was seated in the front pew of the church. When aquartette of singers began to render a rather operatic arrangement of asacred song he rose, erect and stately, to his full gaunt height, turnedslowly around and glanced reproachfully over the frivolous, backslidingcongregation, wrapped around his spare, lean figure his full cloakof quilted black silk, took his shovel hat and his cane, and stalkedindignantly and sadly the whole length of the broad central aisle, outof the church, thus making a last but futile protest against moderninnovations in church music. Many, in whom the Puritan instincts and bloodare still strong, sympathize internally with him in this feeling; and allnovelty-lovers must acknowledge that the sublime simplicity and deep pietyin which the old Puritan psalm-tunes abound, has seldom been attained inthe modern church-songs. Even persons of neither musical knowledge, taste, nor love, feel the power of such a tune as Old Hundred; and more modern andmore difficult melodies, though they charm with their harmony and novelty, can never equal it in impressiveness nor in true religious influence. 

XVI. 

The Interruptions of the Services. 

Though the Puritans were such a decorous, orderly people, their religiousmeetings were not always quiet and uninterrupted. We know the torment theyendured from the "wretched boys, " and they were harassed by otherannoying interruptions. For the preservation of peace and order they madecharacteristic laws, with characteristic punishments. "If any interruptor oppose a preacher in season of worship, they shall be reproved by theMagistrate, and on repetition, shall pay £5, or stand two hours on a blockfour feet high, with this inscription in Capitalls, 'A WANTON GOSPELLER. '"As with other of their severe laws the rigid punishment provoked the crime, for Wanton Gospellers abounded. The Baptists did not hesitate to statetheir characteristic belief in the Puritan meetings, and the Quakers or"Foxians, " as they were often called, interrupted and plagued them sorely. Judge Sewall wrote, in 1677, "A female quaker, Margaret Brewster, insermon-time came in, in a canvass frock, her hair dishevelled loose like aPeriwig, her face as black as ink, led by two other quakers, and two otherquakers followed. It occasioned the greatest and most amazing uproar that Iever saw. " More grievous irruptions still of scantily clad and even nakedQuaker women were made into other Puritan meetings; and Quaker men shoutedgloomily in through the church windows, "Woe! Woe! Woe to the people!"and, "The Lord will destroy thee!" and they broke glass bottles beforethe minister's very face, crying out, "Thus the Lord will break thee inpieces!" and they came into the meeting-house, in spite of the fiercetithingman, and sat down in other people's seats with their hats on theirheads, in ash-covered coats, rocking to and fro and groaning dismally, asif in a mournful obsession. Quaker women managed to obtain admission to thechurches, and they jumped up in the quiet Puritan assemblies screaming out, "Parson! thou art an old fool, " and, "Parson! thy sermon is too long, " and, "Parson! sit down! thee has already said more than thee knows how to saywell, " and other unpleasant, though perhaps truthful personalities. It ishard to believe that the poor, excited, screaming visionaries of thoseearly days belonged to the same religious sect as do the serene, low-voiced, sweet-faced, and retiring Quakeresses of to-day. And there isno doubt that the astounding and meaningless freaks of these half-crazedfanatics were provoked by the cruel persecutions which they endured fromour much loved and revered, but alas, intolerant and far from perfectPuritan Fathers. These poor Quakers were arrested, fined, robbed, strippednaked, imprisoned, laid neck and heels, chained to logs of wood, branded, maimed, whipped, pilloried, caged, set in the stocks, exiled, soldinto slavery and hanged by our stern and cruel ancestors. Perhaps somegentle-hearted but timid Puritan souls may have inwardly felt that theIndian wars, and the destructive fires, and the earthquakes, and the deadcattle, blasted wheat, and wormy peas, were not judgments of God for smallministerial pay and periwig-wearing, but punishments for the heartrendingwoes of the persecuted Quakers. 

Others than the poor Quakers spoke out in colonial meetings. In Salemvillage and in other witch-hunting towns the crafty "victims" of thewitches were frequently visited with their mock pains and sham fits in themeeting-houses, and they called out and interrupted the ministers mostvexingly. Ann Putnam, the best and boldest actress among those cunningyoung Puritan witch-accusers, the protagonist of that New England tragedyknown as the Salem Witchcraft, shouted out most embarrassingly, "There isa yellow-bird sitting on the minister's hat, as it hangs on the pin in thepulpit. " Mr. Lawson, the minister, wrote with much simplicity that "thesethings occurring in the time of public worship did something interrupt mein my first prayer, being so unusual. " But he braced himself up in spiteof Ann and the demoniacal yellow-bird, and finished the service. Thesedisorderly interruptions occurred on every Lord's Day, growing weeklymore constant and more universal, and must have been unbearable. Some fewdisgusted members withdrew from the church, giving as reason that "thedistracting and disturbing tumults and noises made by persons underdiabolical power and delusions, preventing sometimes our hearing andunderstanding and profiting of the word preached; we having after manytrials and experiences found no redress in this case, accounted ourselvesunder a necessity to go where we might hear the word in quiet. " Thesewithdrawing church-members were all of families that contained at leastone person that had been accused of practising witchcraft. They were thusseverely intolerant of the sacrilegious and lawless interruptions of theshy young "victims, " who received in general only sympathy, pity, and evenstimulating encouragement from their deluded and excited neighbors. 

One very pleasing interruption, --no, I cannot call it by so severe aname, --one very pleasing diversion of the attention of the congregationfrom the parson was caused by an innocent custom that prevailed in many acountry community. Just fancy the flurry on a June Sabbath in Killingly, in1785, when Joseph Gay, clad in velvet coat, lace-frilled shirt, and whitebroadcloth knee-breeches, with his fair bride of a few days, gorgeous in apeach-colored silk gown and a bonnet trimmed "with sixteen yards of whiteribbon, " rose, in the middle of the sermon, from their front seat in thegallery and stood for several minutes, slowly turning around in order toshow from every point of view their bridal finery to the eagerly gazingcongregation of friends and neighbors. Such was the really delightful andthoughtful custom, in those fashion-plateless days, among persons ofwealth in that and other churches; it was, in fact, part of the weddingcelebration. Even in midwinter, in the icy church, the blushing bride wouldthrow aside her broadcloth cape or camblet roquelo and stand up clad in asprigged India muslin gown with only a thin lace tucker over her neck, warmwith pride in her pretty gown, her white bonnet with ostrich feathers andembroidered veil, and in her new husband. 

The services in the meeting-house on the Sabbath and on Lecture dayswere sometimes painfully varied, though scarcely interrupted, by a verydistressing and harrowing custom of public abasement and self-abnegation, which prevailed for many years in the nervously religious colonies. It wasnot an enforced punishment, but a voluntary one. Men and women who hadcommitted crimes or misdemeanors, and who had sincerely repented of theirsins, or who were filled with remorse for some violation of conscience, oreven with regret for some neglect of religious ethics, rose in the Sabbathmeeting before the assembled congregation and confessed their sins, andhumbly asked forgiveness of God, and charity from their fellows. Atother times they stood with downcast heads while the minister read theirconfession of guilt and plea for forgiveness. A most graphic account of oneof those painful scenes is thus given by Governor Winthrop in his "Historyof New England:"--

 "Captain Underhill being brought by the blessing of God in this church's censure of excommunication, to remorse for his foul sins, obtained, by means of the elders, and others of the church of Boston, a safe conduct under the hand of the governor and one of the council to repair to the church. He came at the time of the court of assistants, and upon the lecture day, after sermon, the pastor called him forth and declared the occasion, and then gave him leave to speak: and in it was a spectacle winch caused many weeping eyes, though it afforded matter of much rejoicing to behold the power of the Lord Jesus in his ordinances, when they are dispensed in his own way, holding forth the authority of his regal sceptre in the simplicity of the gospel came in his worst clothes (being accustomed to take great pride in his bravery and neatness) without a band, in a foul linen cap pulled close to his eyes; and standing upon a form, he did, with many deep sighs and abundance of tears, lay open his wicked course, his adultery, his hypocrisy, his persecution of God's people here, and especially his pride (as the root of all which caused God to give him over to his other sinful courses) and contempt of the magistrates. . . . He spake well save that his blubbering &c interrupted him, and all along he discovered a broken and melting heart and gave good exhortations to take heed of such vanities and beginnings of evil as had occasioned his fall; and in the end he earnestly and humbly besought the church to have compassion of him and to deliver him out of the hands of Satan. "

What a picture! what a story! "Of all tales 'tis the saddest--and more sadbecause it makes us smile. "

Captain John Underhill was a brave though somewhat bumptious soldier, whohad fought under the Prince of Orange in the War of the Netherlands, andhad been employed as temporal drill-master in the church-militant in NewEngland. He did good service for the colonists in the war with the PequotIndians, and indeed wherever there was any fighting to be done. "He thrustabout and justled into fame" He also managed to have apparently a very goodtime in the new land, both in sinning and repenting. When he stood up onthe church-seat before the horrified, yet wide-open eyes of pious Bostonfolk, in his studiously and theatrically disarranged garments, andblubbered out his whining yet vain-glorious repentance, he doubtless actedhis part well, for he had twice before been through the same performance, supplementing his second rehearsal by kneeling down before an injuredhusband in the congregation, and asking earthly forgiveness. I wish Icould believe that this final repentance of the resilient captain weresincere--but I cannot. Nor did Boston people believe it either, though thatnoble and generous-minded man, Winthrop, thought he saw at the time ofconfession evidences of a truly contrite heart. The Puritans sternly andeagerly cast out the gay captain to the Dutch when he became an Antinomian, and he came to live and fight and gallant in a town on the western end ofLong Island, where he perhaps found a church-home with members less severeand less sharp-eyed than those of his Boston place of martyrdom, and apeople less inclined to resent and punish his frailties and his ways ofamusing himself. 

In justice to Underhill (or perhaps to show his double-dealing) I will saythat he left behind him a letter to Hanserd Knollys, complaining of theill-treatment he had received; and in it he gives a very different accountof this little affair with the Boston Church from that given us by GovernorWinthrop. The offender says nothing about his hypocrisy, his public andself-abasing confession, nor of his sanctimonious blubbering and wishes fordeath. He explains that his offence was mild and purely mental, that in aninfaust moment he glanced (doubtless stared soldier-fashion) at "MistrisMiriam Wildbore" as she sat in her "pue" at meeting. The elders, noting hisadmiring and amorous glances, thereupon accused him of sin in his heart, and severely asked him why he did not look instead at Mistress Newell orMistress Upham. He replied very spiritedly and pertinently that these dameswere "not desiryable women as to temporal graces, " which was certainlysufficient and proper reason for any man to give, were he Puritan orCavalier. Then acerb old John Cotton and some other Boston ascetics(perhaps Goodman Newell and Goodman Upham, resenting for their wives the_spretæ injuria formæ_) at once hunted up some plainly applicableverses from the Bible that clearly proved him guilty of the allegedsin--and summarily excommunicated him. He also wrote that the pious churchcomplained that the attractive, the temporally graced Mistress Wildborecame vainly and over-bravely clad to meeting, with "wanton open-workedgloves slitt at the thumbs and fingers for the purpose of taking snuff, "and he resented this complaint against the fair one, saying no harm couldsurely come from indulging in the "good creature called tobacco. " He wouldnaturally feel that snuff-taking was a proper and suitable church-custom, since his own conversion, --dubious though it was, --his religious belief hadcome to him, "the spirit fell home upon his heart" while he was indulgingin a quiet smoke. 

The story of his offences as told b his contemporaries does not assign tohim so innocuous a diversion as staring across the meeting-house, but theaccount is quite as amusing as his own plaintive and deeply injured versionof his arraignment. 

Other letters of his have been preserved to us, --letters blustering aswas Ancient Pistol, and equally sanctimonious, letters fearfully andphonetically spelt. Here is the opening of a letter written while hewas under sentence of excommunication from the Boston Church, and ofbanishment. It is to Governor Winthrop, his friend and fellow-emigrant:--

"Honnored in the Lord, --

"Your silenc one more admirse me. I Youse chrischan playnnes. I know youlove it. . . . Silene can not reduce the hart of youer lovd brother: I wouldthe rightchous would smite me espechah youerslfe & the honnered Depoti towhom I also dereckt this letter. . . . I would to God you would tender mesoule so as to youse playnnes with me. I wrot to you both but now answer: &here I am dayli abused by malishous tongue. John Baker I here hath wrot tothe honnored depoti how as I was drouck & like to be cild & both falc, uponokachon I delt with Wannerton for intrushon & finddmg them resolutli bentto rout all gud a mong us & advanc there superstischous ways & by boystrouswords indeferd to fritten men to accomplish his end. & he abusing me tomy face, dru upon him with intent to corb his insolent & dastardlisperrite. . . . Ister daye on Pickeren their Chorch Warden caim up to us withintent to make some of ourse drone as is sospeckted but the Lord soferedhim so to misdemen himslfe as he is likli to li by the hielse this toomonth. . . . My homble request is that you will be charitable of me. . . . Letjusties and merci be goyned. . . . You may plese to soggest youer will to thisbarrer you will find him tracktabel. "

My sense of drollery is always most keenly tickled when I read Underhill'sepistles, with their amazing and highly-varied letter concoctions, andremember that he also--wrote a book. What that seventeenth-century printerand proof-reader endured ere they presented his "edited" volume to thepublic must have been beyond expression by words. It was a pretty good bookthough, and in it, like many another man of his ilk, he tendered to hismuch-injured wife loud and diffuse praise, ending with these sententiouswords, "Let no man despise advice and counsel of his wife--though she be awoman. "

And yet, upon careful examination we find a method, a system, inUnderhill's orthography, or rather in his cacography. He thinks a finaltion should be spelt chon--and why not? "proposichon, " "satisfackchon, ""oblegachon, " "persekuchon, " "dereckchon, " "himelyachon"--thus he spellssuch words. And his plurals are plain when once you grasp his laws:"poseschouse" and "considderachonse, " "facktse, " and "respecktse. " Andhis ly is alwajs li, "exacktli, " "thorroli, " "fidelliti, " "charriti, ""falsciti. " And why is not "indiered, " as good as 'endeared, ' "pregedic, "as 'prejudice, ' "obstrucktter" as 'obstructer, ' "pascheges, " and"prouydentt, " and "antyentt, " just as clear as our own way of spellingthese words? A "painful" speller you surely were, my gay Don JuanUnderbill, as your pedantic "writtingse" all show, and the most dramaticand comic figure among all the early Puritans as well, though you scarcelydeserve to be called a Puritan; we might rather say of you, as of Malvolio, "The devil a Puritan that he was, or anything constantly but atime-pleaser . . . His ground of faith that all who looked on him loved him. "

In keen contrast to this sentimental excitement is the presence of nobleJudge Sewall, white-haired and benignant, standing up calmly in Bostonmeeting, with dignified face and demeanor, but an aching and contriteheart, to ask through the voice of his minister humble forgiveness of Godand man for his sad share as a judge in the unjust and awful condemnationand cruel sentencing to death of the poor murdered victims of that terribledelusion the Salem Witchcraft. Years of calm and unshrinking reflection, ofpleading and constant communion with God had brought to him an overwhelmingsense of his mistaken and over-influenced judgment, and a horror andremorse for the fatal results of his error. Then, like the steadfast andupright old Puritan that he was, he publicly acknowledged his terriblemistake. It is one of the finest instances of true nobility of soul and ofabsolute self-renunciation that the world affords. And the deep strain, thesharp wrench of the step is made more apparent still by the fact of thedisapproval of his fellow-judges of his public confession and recantation. The yearly entries in his diary, simply expressed yet deeply speaking, entries of the prayerful fasts which he spent alone in his chamber whenthe anniversary of the fatal judgment-day returned, show that no half-vainbigotry, no emotional excitement filled and moved him to the open words ofremorse. The lesson of his repentance is farther reaching than hedreamed, when the story of his confession can so move and affect thisnineteenth-century generation, and fill more than one soul with a nobleridea of the Puritan nature, and with a higher and fuller conception of theabsolute truth of the Puritan Christianity. 

Some very prosaic and earthly interruptions to the church services arerecorded as being made, and possibly by the church-members themselves. Inone church, in 1661, a fine of five shillings was imposed on any one "whoshot off a gun or led a horse into the meeting-house. " These seem to mequite as unseemly, irreverent, and disagreeable disturbances as shoutingout, Quaker-fashion, "Parson, your sermon is too long;" but possibly thehouse of God was turned into a stable on week-days, not on the Sabbath. 

In many parishes church-attendants were fined who brought their "doggs"into the meeting-house. Dogs swarmed in the colony, for they had beenimported from England, "sufficient mastive dogs, hounds and beagles, " andalso Irish wolf-hounds; and they caused an interruption in one afternoonservice by chasing into the meeting-house one of those pungently offensive, though harmless, animals that abounded even in the earliest colonialdays, and whose mephitic odor, in this case, had power to scatter thecongregation as effectively as would have a score of armed Indian braves. Officially appointed "Dogg-whippers" and the never idle tithingman expelledthe intruding and unwelcome canine attendants from the meeting-house withfierce blows and fiercer yelps. The swarming dogs, though they were trainedto hunt the Indians and wolves and tear them in pieces, were much fonder ofhunting and tearing the peaceful sheep, and thus became such unmitigatednuisances, out of meeting as well as in, that they had to be muzzled andhobbled, and killed, and land was granted (as in Newbury in 1703) oncondition that no dog was ever kept thereon. As late as the year 1820, itwas ordered in the town of Brewster that any dog that came into meetingshould be killed unless the owner promised to thenceforth keep the intruderout. 

Alarms of fire in the neighborhood frequently disturbed the quiet ofthe early colonial services; for the combustible catted chimneys werea constant source of conflagration, especially on Sundays, when thefireplaces with their roaring fires were left unwatched; and all the menrushed out of the meeting at sound of the alarm to aid in quenching theflames, which could however be ill-fought with the scanty supply ofwater that could be brought in a few leathern fire-buckets andmilk-pails, --though at a very early date as an aid in extinguishingfires each New England family was ordered by law to own a fire-ladder. Occasionally the town's ladder and poles and hooks and cedar-buckets werekept in the meeting-house, and thus were handy for Sunday fires. 

Sometimes armed men, bearing rumors of wars and of hostile attacks, rodeclattering up to the church-door, and strode with jingling spurs andrattling swords into the excited assembly with appeal for more soldiers tobear arms, or for more help for those already in the army, and the wholecongregation felt it no interruption but a high religious privilege andduty, to which they responded in word and deed. On some happy Sabbaths thearmed riders bore good news of great victories, and great was the rejoicingthereat in prayer and praise in the old meeting-house. 

But usually through the Sabbath services, though the quiet was not thatof our modern carpeted, cushioned, orderly churches, but few interruptingsounds were heard. The cry of a waking infant, the scraping of restlessfeet on the sanded floor, the lumbering noise of the motions of a crampedfarmer as he stood up to lean over the pew-door or gallery-rail, theclatter of an overturned cricket, the twittering of swallows in therafters, and in the summer-time the bumping and buzzing of an invadingbumble-bee as he soared through the air and against the walls, werethe only sounds within the meeting-house that broke the monotonous"thirteenthly" and "fourteenthly" of the minister's sermon. 

XVII. 

The Observances of the Day. 

The so-called "False Blue Laws" of Connecticut, which were foisted upon thepublic by the Reverend Samuel Peter, have caused much indignation among allthoughtful descendants and all lovers of New England Puritans. Three ofhis most bitterly resented false laws which refer to the observance of theSabbath read thus:--

"No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair, orshave on the Sabbath Day. 

"No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath or fasting day. 

"No one shall ride on the Sabbath Day, or walk in his garden or elsewhereexcept reverently to and from meeting. "

Though these laws were worded by Dr. Peters, and though we are disgusted tohear them so often quoted as historical facts, still we must acknowledgethat though in detail not correct, they are in spirit true records of theold Puritan laws which were enacted to enforce the strict and decorousobservance of the Sabbath, and which were valid not only in Connecticut andMassachusetts, but in other New England States. Even a careless glance atthe historical record of any old town or church will give plenty of detailsto prove this. 

Thus in New London we find in the latter part of the seventeenth century awicked fisherman presented before the Court and fined for catching eels onSunday; another "fined twenty shillings for sailing a boat on the Lord'sDay;" while in 1670 two lovers, John Lewis and Sarah Chapman, were accusedof and tried for "sitting together on the Lord's Day under an apple tree inGoodman Chapman's Orchard, "--so harmless and so natural an act. In Plymoutha man was "sharply whipped" for shooting fowl on Sunday; another was finedfor carrying a grist of corn home on the Lord's Day, and the miller whoallowed him to take it was also fined. Elizabeth Eddy of the same town wasfined, in 1652, "ten shillings for wringing and hanging out clothes. " APlymouth man, for attending to his tar-pits on the Sabbath, was set in thestocks. James Watt, in 1658, was publicly reproved "for writing a noteabout common business on the Lord's Day, _at least in the eveningsomewhat too soon. _" A Plymouth man who drove a yoke of oxen was"presented" before the Court, as was also another offender, who drove somecows a short distance "without need" on the Sabbath. 

In Newbury, in 1646, Aquila Chase and his wife were presented and fined forgathering peas from their garden on the Sabbath, but upon investigation thefines were remitted, and the offenders were only admonished. In Wareham, in 1772, William Estes acknowledged himself "Gilty of Racking Hay on theLord's Day" and was fined ten shillings; and in 1774 another Warehamcitizen, "for a breach of the Sabbath in puling apples, " was fined fiveshillings. A Dunstable soldier, for "wetting a piece of an old hat to putin his shoe" to protect his foot--for doing this piece of heavy work on theLord's Day, was fined, and paid forty shillings. 

Captain Kemble of Boston was in 1656 set for two hours in the public stocksfor his "lewd and unseemly behavior, " which, consisted in his kissing hiswife "publicquely" on the Sabbath Day, upon the doorstep of his house, whenhe had just returned from a voyage and absence of three years. The lewdoffender was a man of wealth and influence, the father of Madam SarahKnights, the "fearfull female travailler" whose diary of a journey fromBoston to New York and return, written in 1704, rivals in quality if not inquantity Judge Sewall's much-quoted diary. A traveller named Burnaby tellsof a similar offence of an English sea-captain who was soundly whipped forkissing his wife on the street of a New England town on Sunday, and of hisretaliation in kind, by a clever trick upon his chastisers; but Burnaby'snarrative always seemed to me of dubious credibility. 

Abundant proof can be given that the act of the legislature in 1649 was nota dead letter which ordered that "whosoever shall prophane the Lords dayeby doeing any seruill worke or such like abusses shall forfeite for euerysuch default ten shillings or be whipt. "

The Vermont "Blue Book" contained equally sharp "Sunday laws. " Whoever wasguilty of any rude, profane, or unlawful conduct on the Lord's Day, inwords or action, by clamorous discourses, shouting, hallooing, screaming, running, riding, dancing, jumping, was to be fined forty shillings andwhipped upon the naked back not to exceed ten stripes. The New Haven codeof laws, more severe still, ordered that "Profanation of the Lord's Dayshall be punished by fine, imprisonment, or corporeal punishment; andif proudly, and with a high hand against the authority of God--_withdeath_. "

Lists of arrests and fines for walking and travelling unnecessarily on theSabbath might be given in great numbers, and it was specially orderedthat none should "ride violently to and from meeting. " Many a pious NewEnglander, in olden days, was fined for his ungodly pride, and his desireto "show off" his "new colt" as he "rode violently" up to the meeting-housegreen on Sabbath morn. One offender explained in excuse of his unnecessarydriving on the Sabbath that he had been to visit a sick relative, buthis excuse was not accepted. A Maine man who was rebuked and fined for"unseemly walking" on the Lord's Day protested that he ran to save a manfrom drowning. The Court made him pay his fine, but ordered that the moneyshould be returned to him when he could prove by witnesses that he hadbeen on that errand of mercy and duty. As late as the year 1831, inLebanon, Connecticut, a lady journeying to her father's home was arrestedwithin sight of her father's house for unnecessary travelling on theSabbath; and a long and fiercely contested lawsuit was the result, anddamages were finally given for false imprisonment. In 1720 Samuel Sabincomplained of himself before a justice in Norwich that he visited onSabbath night some relatives at a neighbor's house. His morbidly tenderconscience smote him and made him "fear he had transgressed the law, "though he felt sure no harm had been done thereby. In 1659 Sam Clarke, for"Hankering about on men's gates on Sabbath evening to draw company outto him, " was reproved and warned not to "harden his neck" and be "whollydestrojed. " Poor stiff-necked, lonely, "hankering" Sam! to be so harshlyreproved for his harmlessly sociable intents. Perhaps he "hankered" afterthe Puritan maids, and if so, deserved his reproof and the threat ofannihilation. 

Sabbath-breaking by visiting abounded in staid Worcester town to a mostbase extent, but was severely punished, as local records show. In Belfast, Maine, in 1776, a meeting was held to get the "Towns Mind" with regard toa plan to restrain visiting on the Sabbath. The time had passed when suchoffences could be punished either by fine or imprisonment, so it was voted"that if any person makes unnecessary Vizits on the Sabeth, They shall beLook't on with Contempt. " This was the universal expression throughout thePuritan colonies; and looked on with contempt are Sabbath-breakers andSabbath-slighters in New England to the present day. Even if they committedno active offence, the colonists could not passively neglect the Churchand its duties. As late as 1774 the First Church of Roxbury finednon-attendance at public worship. In 1651 Thomas Scott "was fyned tenshillings unless he have learned Mr. Norton's 'Chatacise' by the nextcourt" In 1760 the legislature of Massachusetts passed the law that "anyperson able of Body who shall absent themselves from publick worship of Godon the Lord's Day shall pay ten shillings fine. " By the Connecticut codeten shillings was the fine, and the law was not suspended until the year1770. By the New Haven code five shillings was the fine for non-attendanceat church, and the offender was often punished as well. Captain Dennison, one of New Haven's most popular and respected citizens, was fined fifteenshillings for absence from church. William Blagden, who lived in New Havenin 1647, was "brought up" for absence from meeting. He pleaded that he hadfallen into the water late on Saturday, could light no fire on Sunday todry his clothes, and so had lain in bed to keep warm while his only suit ofgarments was drying. In spite of this seemingly fair excuse, Blagden wasfound guilty of "sloathefuluess" and sentenced to be "publiquely whipped. "Of course the Quakers contributed liberally to the support of the Court, and were fined in great numbers for refusing to attend the church whichthey hated, and which also warmly abhorred them; and they were zealouslyset in the stocks, and whipped and caged and pilloried as well, --whippedif they came and expressed any dissatisfaction, and whipped if they stayedaway. 

Severe and explicit were the orders with regard to the use of the "Creaturecalled Tobacko" on the Sabbath. In the very earliest days of the colonymeans had been taken to present the planting of the pernicious weedexcept in very small quantities "for meere necessitie, for phisick, forpreseruaceon of health, and that the same be taken privatly by auncientmen. " In Connecticut a man could by permission of the law smoke once ifhe went on a journey of ten miles (as some slight solace for the arduoustrip), but never more than once a day, and never in another man's house. Let us hope that on their lonely journeys they conscientiously obeyed thelaw, though we can but suspect that the one unsocial smoke may have been along one. In some communities the colonists could not plant tobacco, norbuy it, nor sell it, but since they loved the fascinating weed then as menlove it now, they somehow invoked or spirited it into their pipes, thoughthey never could smoke it in public unfined and unpunished. The shrewd andthrifty New Haven people permitted the raising of it for purposes of trade, though not for use, thus supplying the "devil's weed" to others, chieflythe godless Dutch, but piously spurning it themselves--in public. Its usewas absolutely forbidden under any circumstances on the Sabbath within twomiles of the meeting-house, which (since at that date all the homes wereclustered around the church-green) was equivalent to not smoking it at allon the Lord's Day, if the lav were obeyed. But wicked backsliders existed, poor slaves of habit, who were in Duxbury fined ten shillings for eachoffence, and in Portsmouth, not only were fined, but to their shame be ittold, set as jail-birds in the Portsmouth cage. In Sandwich and in Bostonthe fine for "drinking tobacco in the meeting-house" was five shillings foreach drink, which I take to mean chewing tobacco rather than smoking it;many men were fined for thus drinking, and solacing the weary hours, thoughdoubtless they were as sly and kept themselves as unobserved as possible. Four Yarmouth men--old sea-dogs, perhaps, who loved their pipe--were, in1687, fined four shillings each for smoking tobacco around the end of themeeting-house. Silly, ostrich-brained Yarmouth men! to fancy to escapedetection by hiding around the corner of the church; and to think that thetithingman had no nose when he was so Argus-eyed. Some few of the ministersused the "tobacco weed. " Mr. Baily wrote with distress of mind andabasement of soul in his diary of his "exceeding in tobacco. " The hatred ofthe public use of tobacco lingered long in New England, even in large townssuch as Providence, though chiefly on account of universal dread lestsparks from the burning weed should start conflagrations in the towns. Until within a few years, in small towns in western Massachusetts, Easthampton and neighboring villages, tobacco-smoking on the street was notpermitted either on weekdays or Sundays. 

Not content with strict observance of the Sabbathday alone, the Puritansincluded Saturday evening in their holy day, and in the first colonialyears these instructions were given to Governor Endicott by the New EnglandPlantation Company: "And to the end that the Sabeth may be celebrated ina religious man ner wee appoint that all may surcease their labor everySatterday throughout the yeare at three of the clock in the afternoone, andthat they spend the rest of the day in chatechizing and preparacoon forthe Sabeth as the ministers shall direct. " Cotton Mather wrote thus of hisgrandfather, old John Cotton: "The Sabbath he begun the evening before, forwhich keeping from evening to evening he wrote arguments before his comingto New England, and I suppose 't was from his reason and practice that theChristians of New England have generally done so too. " He then tells of theprotracted religious services held in the Cotton household every Saturdaynight, --services so long that the Sabbath-day exercises must have seemed incomparison like a light interlude. 

John Norton described these Cotton Sabbaths more briefly thus: "He [JohnCotton] began the Sabbath at evening; therefore then performed family-dutyafter supper, being longer than ordinary in Exposition. After which hecatechized his children and servants and then returned unto his study. Themorning following, family-worship being ended, he retired into his studyuntil the bell called him away. Upon his return from meeting he returnedagain into his study (the place of his labor and prayer) unto his privatedevotion; where, having a small repast carried him up for his dinner, hecontinued until the tolling of the bell. The public service being over, hewithdrew for a space to his pre-mentioned oratory for his sacred addressesto God, as in the forenoon, then came down, _repeated the sermon in thefamily_, prayed, after supper sang a Psalm, and towards bedtime betakinghimself again to his study he closed the day with prayer. Thus he spent theSabbath continually. " Just fancy the Cotton children and servants listeningto his long afternoon sermon a second time!

All the New England clergymen were rigid in the prolonged observance ofSunday. From sunset on Saturday until Sunday night they would not shave, have rooms swept, nor beds made, have food prepared, nor cooking utensilsand table-ware washed. As soon as their Sabbath began they gathered theirfamilies and servants around them, as did Cotton, and read the Bible andexhorted and prayed and recited the catechism until nine o'clock, usuallyby the light of one small "dip candle" only; on long winter Saturdays itmust have been gloomy and tedious indeed. Small wonder that one ministerwrote back to England that he found it difficult in the new colony to get aservant who "_enjoyed catechizing and family duties_. " Many clergymendeplored sadly the custom which grew in later years of driving, and eventransacting business, on Saturday night. Mr. Bushnell used to call it"stealing the time of the Sabbath, " and refused to countenance it in anyway. 

It was very generally believed in the early days of New England thatspecial judgments befell those who worked on the eve of the Sabbath. Winthrop gives the case of a man who, having hired help to repair amilldam, worked an hour on Saturday after sunset to finish what he hadintended for the day's labor. The next day his little child, being leftalone for some hours, was drowned in an uncovered well in the cellar of hishouse. "The father freely, in open congregation, did acknowledge it therighteous hand of God for his profaning his holy day. "

Visitors and travellers from other countries were forced to obey the rigidlaws with regard to Saturday-night observance. Archibald Henderson, themaster of a vessel which entered the port of Boston, complained to theCouncil for Foreign Plantations in London that while he was in sober Bostontown, being ignorant of the laws of the land, and having walked half anhour after sunset on Saturday night, as punishment for this unintentionaland trivial offence, a constable entered his lodgings, seized him by thehair of his head, and dragged him to prison. Henderson claimed £800 damagesfor the detention of his vessel during his prosecution. I have alwayssuspected that the gay captain may have misbehaved himself in Bostonon that Saturday night in some other way than simply by walking inthe streets, and that the Puritan law-enforcers took advantage of theSabbath-day laws in order to prosecute and punish him. We know ofBradford's complaint of the times; that while sailors brought "a greatedeale" of money from foreign parts to New England to spend, they alsobrought evil ways of spending it--"more sine I feare than money. "

The Puritans found in Scripture support for this observance of Saturdaynight, in these words, "The evening and the morning were the first day, "and they had many followers in their belief. In New England country townsto this day, descendants of the Puritans regard Saturday night, though ina modified way, as almost Sunday, and that evening is never chosen for anykind of gay gathering or visiting. As late as 1855 the shops in Hartfordwere never open for customers upon Saturday night. 

Much satire was directed against this Saturday night observance both byEnglish and by American authors. In the "American Museum" for February, 1787, appeared a poem entitled, "The Connecticut Sabbath. " After saying atsome length that God had thought one day in seven sufficient for rest, butNew England Christians had improved his law by setting apart a day and ahalf, the poet thus runs on derisively:--

 "And let it be enacted further still That all our people strict observe our will; Five days and a half shall men, and women, too, Attend their bus'ness and their mirth pursue, But after that no man without a fine Shall walk the streets or at a tavern dine. One day and half 'tis requisite to rest From toilsome labor and a tempting feast. Henceforth let none on peril of their lives Attempt a journey or embrace their wives; No barber, foreign or domestic bred, Shall e'er presume to dress a lady's head; No shop shall spare (half the preceding day) A yard of riband or an ounce of tea. "

And many similar rhymes might be given. 

Sunday night, being shut out of the Sabbath hours, became in the eighteenthcentury a time of general cheerfulness and often merry-making. This suddentransition from the religious calm and quiet of the afternoon to the noisygayety of the evening was very trying to many of the clergymen, especiallyto Jonathan Edwards, who preached often and sadly against "Sabbath eveningdissipations and mirth-making. " In some communities singing-schools wereheld on Sunday nights, which afforded a comparatively decorous and orderlymanner of spending the close of the day. 

Sweet to the Pilgrims and to their descendants was the hush of their calmSaturday night, and their still, tranquil Sabbath, --sign and token to them, not only of the weekly rest ordained in the creation, but of the eternalrest to come. The universal quiet and peace of the community showed theprimitive instinct of a pure, simple devotion, the sincere religion whichknew no compromise in spiritual things, no half-way obedience to God'sWord, but rested absolutely on the Lord's Day--as was commanded. No work, no play, no idle strolling was known; no sign of human life or motion wasseen except the necessary care of the patient cattle and other dumb beasts, the orderly and quiet going to and from the meeting, and at the nooning, a visit to the churchyard to stand by the side of the silent dead. Thisabsolute obedience to the letter as well as to the spirit of God's Wordwas one of the most typical traits of the character of the Puritans, andappeared to them to be one of the most vital points of their religion. 

XVIII. 

The Authority of the Church and the Ministers. 

Severely were the early colonists punished if they ventured to criticiseor disparage either the ministers or their teachings, or indeed any of thereligious exercises of the church. In Sandwich a man was publicly whippedfor speaking deridingly of God's words and ordinances as taught by theSandwich minister. Mistress Oliver was forced to stand in public with acleft stick on her tongue for "reproaching the elders. " A New Haven man wasseverely whipped and fined for declaring that he received no profit fromthe minister's sermons. We also know the terrible shock given the Windhamchurch in 1729 by the "vile and slanderous expressions" of one unregenerateWindhamite who said, "I had rather hear my dog bark than Mr. Bellamypreach. " He was warned that he would be "shakenoff and givenup, " andterrified at the prospect of so dire a fate he read a confession of hissorrow and repentance, and promised to "keep a guard over his tongue, " andalso to listen to Mr. Bellamy's preaching, which may have been a still moredifficult task. Mr. Edward Tomlins, of Boston, upon retracting his opinionwhich he had expressed openly against the singing in the churches, wasdischarged without a fine. William Howes and his son were in 1744 finedfifty shillings "apeece for deriding such as sing in the congregation, tearming them fooles. " The church music was as sacred to the Puritans aswere the prayers, but it must have been a sore trial to many to keep stillabout the vile manner and method of singing. In 1631 Phillip Ratcliffe, for "speaking against the churches, " had his ears cut off, was whipped andbanished. We know also the consternation caused in New Haven in 1646 byMadam Brewster's saying that the custom of carrying contributions tothe Deacons' table was popish--was "like going to the High Alter, "and "savored of the Mass. " She answered her accusers in such a bold, highhanded, and defiant manner that her heinous offence was consideredworthy of trial in a higher court, whose decision is now lost. 

The colonists could not let their affection and zeal for an individualminister cause them to show any disrespect or indifference to the PuritanChurch in general. When the question of the settlement of the Reverend Mr. Lenthal in the church of Weymouth, Massachusetts, was under discussion, thetyranny of the Puritan Church over any who dared oppose or question it wasshown in a marked manner, and may be cited as a typical case. Mr. Lenthalwas suspected of being poisoned with the Anne Hutchinson heresies, and healso "opposed the way of gathering churches. " Hence his ordination over thechurch in the new settlement was bitterly opposed by the Boston divines, though apparently desired by the Weymouth congregation. One Britton, whowas friendly towards Lenthal and who spoke "reproachfully" and slurringlyof a book which defended the course of the Boston churches, was whippedwith eleven stripes, as he had no money to pay the imposed fine. JohnSmythe, who "got hands to a blank" (which was either canvassing forsignatures to a proxy vote in favor of Lenthal or obtaining signaturesto an instrument declaring against the design of the churches), for thus"combining to hinder the orderly gathering" of the Weymouth church at thistime, was fined £2. Edward Sylvester for the same offence was fined anddisfranchised. Ambrose Martin, another friend of Lenthal's, for callingthe church covenant of the Boston divines "a stinking carrion and a humaninvention, " was fined £10, while Thomas Makepeace, another Weymouthmalcontent, was informed by those in power that "they were weary of him, "or, in modern slang, that "he made them tired. " Parson Lenthal himself, being sent for by the convention, weakened at once in a way his churchfollowers must have bitterly despised; he was "quickly convinced of hiserror and evil. " His conviction was followed with his confession, and inopen court he gave under his hand a laudable retraction, which retractionhe was ordered also to "utter in the assembly at Weymouth, and so nofurther censure was passed on him. " Thus the chief offender got thelightest punishment, and thus did the omnipotent Church rule the wholecommunity. 

The names of loquacious, babbling Quakers and Baptists who spokedisrespectfully of some or all of the ordinances of the Puritan churchmight be given, and would swell the list indefinitely; they were fined andpunished without mercy or even toleration. 

All profanity or blaspheming against God was severely punished. One verywicked man in Hartford for his "fillthy and prophane expressions, " namely, that "hee hoped to meet some of the members of the Church in Hell beforelong, and he did not question but hee should, " was "committed to prison, there to be kept in safe custody till the sermon, and then to stand thetime thereof in the pillory, and after sermon to be severely whipped. " Whata severe punishment for so purely verbal an offence! New England ideas ofprofanity were very rigid, and New England men had reason to guard welltheir temper and tongue, else that latter member might be bored with ahot iron; for such was the penalty for profanity. We know what horror Mr. Tomlins's wicked profanity, "Curse ye woodchuck!" caused in Lynn meeting, and Mr. Dexter was "putt in ye billboes ffor prophane saying dam ye cowe. "The Newbury doctor was sharply fined also for wickedly cursing. Whendrinking at the tavern he raised his glass and said, --

 "I'll pledge my friends, and for my foes A plague for their heels, and a poxe for their toes. "

He acknowledged his wickedness and foolishness in using the "olde proverb, "and penitently promised to curse no more. 

Sad to tell, Puritan women sometimes lost their temper and theirgood-breeding and their godliness. Two wicked Wells women were punished in1669 "for using profane speeches in their common talk; as in making answerto several questions their answer is, The Devil a bit. " In 1640, inSpringfield, Goody Gregory, being grievously angered, profanely abused anannoying neighbor, saying, "Before God I coulde breake thy heade!" But sheacknowledged her "great sine and faulte" like a woman, and paid her fineand sat in the stocks like a man, since she swore like the members of thatprofane sex. 

Sometimes the sins of the fathers were visited on the children in a mostextraordinary manner. One man, "for abusing N. Parker at the tavern, " wasdeprived of the privilege of bringing his children to be baptized, and wasthus spiritually punished for a very worldly offence. For some offences, such as "speaking deridingly of the minister's powers, " as was done inPlymouth, "casting uncharitable reflexions on the minister, " as did anAndover man; and also for absenting one's self from church services; for"sloathefulness, " for "walking prophanely, " for spoiling hides when tanningand refusing explanation thereof; for selling short weight in grain, for being "given too much to Jearings, " for "Slanndering, " for being a"Makebayte, " for "ronging naibors, " for "being too Proude, " for "suspitionsof stealing pinnes, " for "pnishouse Squerilouse Odyouse wordes, " and for"lyeing, " church-members were not only fined and punished but were deprivedof partaking of the sacrament. In the matter of lying great distinction wasmade as to the character and effect of the offence. George Crispe's wife, who "told a lie, not a pernicious lie, but unadvisedly, " was simplyadmonished and remonstrated with. Will Randall, who told a "plain lie, " wasfined ten shillings. While Ralph Smith, who "lied about seeing a whale, "was fined twenty shillings and excommunicated. 

In some communities, of which Lechford tells us New Haven was one, theseunhouselled Puritans were allowed, if they so desired, to stand outside themeeting-house door at the time of public worship and catch what few wordsof the service they could. This humble waiting for crumbs of God's word wasdoubtless regarded as a sign of repentance for past deeds, for it was oftenfollowed by full forgiveness. As excommunicated persons were regarded withhigh disfavor and even abhorrence by the entire pious and godly walkingcommunity, this apparently spiritual punishment was more severe in itstemporal effects than at first sight appears. From the Cambridge Platform, which was drawn up and adopted by the New England Synod in 1648, we learnthat "while the offender remains excommunicated the church is to refrainfrom all communion with him in civil things, " and the members werespecially "to forbear to eat and drink with him;" so his daily and even hisfamily life was made wretched. And as it was not necessary to wait for theaction of the church to pronounce excommunication, but the "pastor of achurch might by himself and authoritatively suspend from the Lord's tablea brother _suspected_ of scandal" until there was time for fullexamination, we can see what an absolute power the church and even theminister had over church-members in a New England community. 

Nor could the poor excommunicate go to neighboring towns and settlements tostart afresh. No one wished him or would tolerate him. Lancaster, in 1653, voted not to receive into its plantation "any excommunicat or notoriouslyerring agt the Docktrin & Discipline of churches of this Commonwealth. "Other towns passed similar votes. Fortunately, Rhode Island--the island of"Aquidnay" and the Providence Plantations--opened wide its arms as a placeof refuge for outcast Puritans. Universal freedom and religious tolerationwere in Rhode Island the foundations of the State. Josiah Quincy said thatliberty of conscience would have produced anarchy if it had been permittedin the New England Puritan settlements in the seventeenth century, but theflourishing Narragansett, Providence, and Newport plantations seem to provethe absurdity of that statement. Liberty of conscience was there allowed, as Dr. MacSparran, the first clergyman of the Narragansett Church, complained in his "America Dissected, " "to the extent of no religion atall. " The Gortonians, the Foxians, and Hutchinsonians, the Anabaptists, theSix Principle Baptists, the Church of England, apparently all the followersof the eighty-two "pestilent heresies" so sadly enumerated and so bitterlyhated and "cast out to Satan" by the Massachusetts Puritan divines, --allthe excommunicants and exiles found in Rhode Island a home andfriends--other friends than the Devil to whom they had been consigned. 

Though the early Puritan ministers had such powerful influence in everyother respect, they were not permitted to perform the marriage-servicenor to raise their voices in prayer or exhortation at a funeral. Sewalljealously notes when the English burial-service began to be read atburials, saying, "the office for Burial is a Lying very bad office makes nodifference between the precious and the vile. " The office of marriage wasdenied the parson, and was generally relegated to the magistrate. In this, Governor Bradford states, they followed "ye laudable custome of ye LowCountries. " Not rulers and magistrates only were empowered to perform themarriage ceremony; squires, tavern-keepers, captains, various authorizedpersons might wed Puritan lovers; any man of dignity or prominence in thecommunity could apparently receive authority to perform that office exceptthe otherwise all-powerful parson. 

As years rolled on, though the New Englanders still felt great reverenceand pride for their church and its ordinances, the minister was no longerthe just man made perfect, the oracle of divine will. The church-membersescaped somewhat from ecclesiastical power, and some of them found faultwith and openly disparaged their ministers in a way that would in earlydays have caused them to be pilloried, whipped, caged, or fined; and oftenthe derogatory comments were elicited by the most trivial offences. Oneparson was bitterly condemned because he managed to amass eight hundreddollars by selling the produce of his farm. Another shocking and severelycriticised offence was a game of bowls which one minister played andenjoyed. Still another minister, in Hanover, Massachusetts, was reprovedfor his lack of dignity, which was shown in his wearing stockings "footedup with another color;" that is, knit stockings in which the feet werecolored differently from the legs. He also was found guilty of havingjumped over the fence instead of decorously and clerically walking throughthe gate when going to call on one of his parishioners. Rev. Joseph Metcalfof the Old Colony was complained of in 1720 for wearing too worldly a wig. He mildly reproved and shamed the meddlesome women of his church by askingthem to come to him and each cut off a lock of hair from the obnoxiouswig until all the complainers were satisfied that it had been renderedsufficiently unworldly. Some Newbury church-members, in 1742, asserted thattheir minister unclerically wore a colored kerchief instead of a band. Thishe indignantly denied, saying that he "had never buried a babe even in mosttempestuous weather, " when he rode several miles, but he always wore aband, and he complained in turn that members of his congregation turnedaway from him on the street, and "glowered" at him and "sneered at him. "Still more unseemly demonstrations of dislike were sometimes shown, as inSouth Hadley, in 1741, when a committee of disaffected parishionerspulled the Rev. Mr Rawsom out of the pulpit and marched him out of themeeting-house because they did not fancy his preaching. But all suchactions were as offensive to the general community then as open expressionsof dissatisfaction and contempt are now. 

XIX. 

The Ordination of the Minister. 

The minister's ordination was, of course, an important social as well asspiritual event in such a religious community as was a New England colonialtown. It was always celebrated by a great gathering of people from far andnear, including all the ministers from every town for many miles around;and though a deeply serious service, was also an excuse for muchmerriment. In Connecticut, and by tradition also in Massachusetts, an"ordination-ball" was frequently given. It is popularly supposed that atthis ball the ministers did not dance, nor even appear, nor to it in anyway give their countenance; that it was only a ball given at the time ofthe ordination because so many people would then be in the town to takepart in the festivity. That this was not always the case is proved bya letter of invitation still in existence written by Reverend TimothyEdwards, who was ordained in Windsor in 1694; it was written to Mr. AndMrs. Stoughton, asking them to attend the ordination-ball which was to begiven in his, the minister's house. But whether the parsons approved andattended, or whether they strongly discountenanced it, the ordination-ballwas always a great success. It is recorded that at one in Danvers a youngman danced so vigorously and long on the sanded floor that he entirely woreout a new pair of shoes. The fashion of giving ordination-balls did not dieout with colonial times. In Federal days it still continued, a speciallygay ball being given in the town of Wolcott at an ordination in 1811. 

There was always given an ordination supper, --a plentiful feast, at whichvisiting ministers and the new pastor were always present and partook withtrue clerical appetite. This ordination feast consisted of all kinds of NewEngland fare, all the mysterious compounds and concoctions of Indian cornand "pompions, " all sorts of roast meats, "turces" cooked in various ways, gingerbread and "cacks, " and--an inevitable feature at the time of everygathering of people, from a corn-husking or apple-bee to a funeral--aliberal amount of cider, punch, and grog was also supplied, which lattercompound beverages were often mixed on the meeting-house green or even inpunch-bowls on the very door-steps of the church. Beer, too, was speciallybrewed to honor the feast. Rev. Mr. Thatcher, of Boston, wrote in his diaryon the twentieth of May, 1681, "This daye the Ordination Beare was brewed. "Portable bars were sometimes established at the church-door, and strongdrinks were distributed free of charge to the entire assemblage. As lateas 1825, at the installation of Dr. Leonard Bacon over the FirstCongregational Church in New Haven, free drinks were furnished at anadjacent bar to all who chose to order them, and were "settled for" by thegenerous and hospitable society. In considering the extravagant amount ofmoneys often recorded as having been paid out for liquor at ordinations, one must not fail to remember that the seemingly large sums were oftenspent in Revolutionary times during the great depreciation of Continentalmoney. Six hundred and sixty-six dollars were disbursed for theentertainment of the council at the ordination of Mr. Kilbourn, ofChesterfield; but the items were really few and the total amount of liquorwas not great, --thirty-eight mugs of flip at twelve dollars per mug; elevengills of rum bitters at six dollars per gill, and two mugs of sling attwenty-four dollars per mug. The church in one town sent the Continentalmoney in payment for the drinks of the church-council in a wheelbarrow tothe tavern-keeper, and he was not very well paid either. 

It gives one a strange sense of the customs and habits of the olden timesto read an "ordination-bill" from a tavern-keeper which is thus endorsed, "This all Paid for exsept the Minister's Rum. " To give some idea of theexpense of "keeping the ministers" at an ordination in Hartford in 1784, let me give the items of the bill:--

 £ s. D. To keeping Ministers 0 2 4 2 Mugs tody 0 5 10 5 Segars 0 3 0 1 Pint wine 0 0 9 3 lodgings 0 9 0 3 bitters 0 0 9 3 breakfasts 0 3 6 15 boles Punch 1 10 0 24 dinners 1 16 0 11 bottles wine 0 3 6 5 mugs flip 0 5 10 3 boles punch 0 6 0 3 boles tody 0 3 6

One might say with Falstaff, "O monstrous! but one half-pennyworth of breadto this intolerable deal of sack!" I sadly fear me that at that Hartfordordination our parson ancestors got grievsously "gilded, " to use a choice"red-lattice phrase. "

Many accounts of gay ordination parties have been preserved in diaries forus. Reverend Mr. Smith, who was settled in Portland in the early part ofthe eighteenth century, wrote thus in his journal of an ordination whichhe attended: "Mr. Foxcroft ordained at New Gloucester. We had a pleasantjourney home. Mr. L. Was alert and kept us all merry. A _jolly ordination_. We lost all sight of decorum. " The Mr. L. Referred to was Mr. StephenLongfellow, greatgrandfather of the poet. 

Bills for ordination-expenses abound in items of barrels of rum and ciderand metheglin, of bowls of flip and punch and toddy, of boxes of lemons andloaves of sugar, in punches, and sometimes broken punchbowls, and in onecase a large amount of Malaga and Canary wine, spices and "ross water, "from which was brewed doubtless an appetizing ordination-cup which may haverivalled Josselyn's New England nectar of "cyder, Maligo raisins, spices, and sirup of clove-gillyflowers. "

In Massachusetts, in January, 1759, the subject of the frequent disordersand irregularities in connection with ordination-services, especially incountry towns, came before the council of the province, who referredits consideration to a convention of ministers. The ministers at thatconvention were recommended to each give instruction, exhortation, andadvice against excesses to the members of his congregation whenever anordination was about to take place in the vicinity of his church. In thisway it was hoped that the reformation would be aided, and temperance, order, and decorum established. The newspapers were free in theircondemnation of the feasting and roistering at ordination-services. WhenDr. Cummings was ordained over the Old South Church of Boston in February, 1761, a feast took place at the Rev. Dr. Sewall's house which occasionedmuch comment. A four-column letter of criticism appeared in the BostonGazette of March 9, 1761, over the signature of "Countryman, " whichprovoked several answers and much newspaper controversy. As Dr. Sewall hadbeen moderator of the meeting of ministers held only two years previouslywith the hope, and for the purpose of abolishing ordination revelries, itis not strange that the circumstance of the feast being given in his houseshould cause public comment and criticism. 

"Countryman" complained that "the price of provisions was raised a quartercart in Boston for several days before the instalment by reason of thegreat preparations therefor, and the readiness of the ecclesiasticalcaterers to give almost any price that was demanded. Many Boston peoplecomplained the town had, by this means, in a few days lost a large sum ofmoney; which was, as it were, levied on and extorted from them. If thepoor were the _better for what remained of so plentiful and splendid afeast_ I am very glad but yet think it is a pity the charity were notbetter timed. " He reprovingly enumerates, "There were six tables that heldone with another eighteen persons each, upon each table a good rich plumbpudding, a dish of boil'd pork and fowls, and a corn'd leg of pork withsauce proper for it, a leg of bacon, a piece of alamode beef, a leg ofmutton with caper sauce, a roast line of veal, a roast turkey, a venisonpastee, besides chess cakes and tarts, cheese and butter. Half a dozencooks were employed upon this occasion, upwards of twenty tenders to waitupon the tables; they had the best of old cyder, one barrel of Lisbon wine, punch in plenty before and after dinner, made of old Barbados spirit. Thecost of this moderate dinner was upwards of fifty pounds lawful money. "This special ordination-feast, even as detailed by the complaining"Countryman, " does not seem to me very reprehensible. The standing of thechurch, the wealth of the congregation, the character of the guests (amongwhom were the Governor and the judges of the Superior Court) all makethis repast appear neither ostentatious nor extravagant. Fifty pounds wascertainly not an enormous sum to spend for a dinner with wine for over onehundred persons, and such a good dinner too. Nor is it probable that a cityas large as was Boston at that date could through that dinner have beenswept of provisions to such an extent that prices would be raised a quarterpart. I suspect some personal malice caused "Countryman's" attacks, for hecertainly could have found in other towns more flagrant cases to complainof and condemn. 

Though no record exists to prove that "the poor were the better forwhat remained" after this Boston feast, in other towns lettersand church-entries show that any fragments remaining after theordination-dinner were well disposed of. Sometimes they furnished forth thenew minister's table. In one case they were given to "a widowed family"("widowed" here being used in the old tender sense of bereaved). InKillingly "the overplush of provisions" was sold to help pay the arrearagesof the salary of the outgoing minister, thus showing a laudable desire to"settle up and start square. "

If the church were dedicated at the time of the ordination, that wouldnaturally be cause for additional gayety. A very interesting and graphicaccount of the feast at the dedication of the Old Tunnel Meeting-House ofLynn in the year 1682 has been preserved. It thus describes the scene:--

"Ye Deddication Dinner was had in ye greate barne of Mr. Hoode which byreason of its goodly size was deemed ye most fit place. It was neatlyadorned with green bows and other hangings and made very faire to lookupon, ye wreaths being mostly wrought by ye young folk, they meetingtogether, both maides and young men, and having a merry time in doing yework. Ye rough stalls and unbowed posts being gaily begirt and all yecorners and cubbies being clean swept and well aired, it truly did appeara meet banquetting hall. Ye scaffolds too from which ye provinder had beenremoved were swept cleane as broome could make them. Some seats were put upon ye scaffoldes whereon might sitt such of ye antient women as would see &ye maides and children. Ye greate floor was all held for ye company whichwas to partake of ye feast of fat things, none others being admitted theresave them that were to wait upon ye same. Ye kine that were wont to bethere were forced to keep holiday in the field. "

Then follows a minute account of how the fowls persisted in flying inand roosting over the table, scattering feathers and hay on the parsonsbeneath. 

"Mr. Shepard's face did turn very red and he catched up an apple and hurledit at ye birds. But he thereby made a bad matter worse for ye fruit beingwell aimed it hit ye legs of a fowl and brought him floundering andflopping down on ye table, scattering gravy, sauce and divers things uponour garments and in our faces. But this did not well please some, yet withmost it was a happening that made great merryment. Dainty meats were on yetable in great plenty, bear-stake, deer-meat, rabbit, and fowle, both wildand from ye barnyard. Luscious puddings we likewise had in abundance, mostly apple and berry, but some of corn meal with small bits of sewetbaked therein; also pyes and tarts. We had some pleasant fruits, as apples, nuts and wild grapes, and to crown all, we had plenty of good cider and yeinspiring Barbadoes drink. Mr. Shepard and most of ye ministers weregrave and prudent at table, discoursing much upon ye great points of yededdication sermon and in silence laboring upon ye food before them. But Iwill not risque to say on which they dwelt with most relish, ye discourseor ye dinner. Most of ye young members of ye Council would fain make ajolly time of it. Mr. Gerrish, ye Wenham minister, tho prudent in hismeat and drinks, was yet in right merry mood. And he did once grievouslyscandalize Mr. Shepard, who on suddenly looking up from his dish did spyhim, as he thot, winking in an unbecoming way to one of ye pretty damselson ye scaffold. And thereupon bidding ye godly Mr. Rogers to labor with himaside for his misbehavior, it turned out that ye winking was occasioned bysome of ye hay seeds that were blowing about, lodging in his eye; whereatMr. Shepard felt greatly releaved. 

"Ye new Meeting house was much discoursed upon at ye table. And most thotit as comely a house of worship as can be found in the whole Collony saveonly three or four. Mr. Gerrish was in such merry mood that he kept ye endof ye table whereby he sat in right jovial humour. Some did loudly laughand clap their hands. But in ye middest of ye merryment a strange disasterdid happen unto him. Not having his thots about him he endeavored yedangerous performance of gaping and laughing at the same time which he mustnow feel is not so easy or safe a thing. In doing this he set his jaws openin such wise that it was beyond all his power to bring them together again. His agonie was very great, and his joyful laugh soon turned to grievousgioaning. Ye women in ye scaffolds became much distressed for him. We didour utmost to stay ye anguish of Mr. Gerrish, but could make out littletill Mr. Rogers who knoweth somewhat of anatomy did bid ye sufferer to sitdown on ye floor, which being done Mr. Rogers took ye head atween his legs, turning ye face as much upward as possible and then gave a powerful blowand then sudden press which brot ye jaws into working order. But Mr. Geirish did not gape or laugh much more on that occasion, neither did hetalk much for that matter. 

"No other weighty mishap occurred save that one of ye Salem delegates, inboastfully essaying to crack a walnut atween his teeth did crack, insteadof ye nut, a most usefull double tooth and was thereby forced to appear atye evening with a bandaged face. "

This ended this most amusing chapter of disasters to the ministers, thoughthe banquet was diversified by interrupting crows from invading roosters, fierce and undignified counter-attacks with nuts and apples by theclergymen, a few mortifyingly "mawdlin songs and much roistering laughter, "and the account ends, "so noble and savoury a banquet was never beforespread in this noble town, God be praised. " What a picture of the good oldtimes! Different times make different manners; the early Puritan ministersdid not, as a rule, drink to excess, any more than do our modern clergymen;but it is not strange that though they were of Puritan blood and belief, they should have fallen into the universal custom of the day, and shouldhave "gone to their graves full of years, honor, simplicity, and rum. " Theonly wonder is, when the ministers had the best places at every table, atevery feast, at every merry-making in New England, that stories of theirroistering excesses should not have come down to us as there have of theintemperate clergy of Virginia. 

The ordination services within the meeting-houses were not always decorousand quiet scenes. In spite of the reverence which our forefathers had fortheir church and their ministers, it did not prevent them from bitterlyopposing the settlement of an unwished-for clergyman over them, and manytowns were racked and divided, then as now, over the important question. As years passed on the church members grew bold enough to dare to offerpersonal and bodily opposition. At the ordination of the Rev. PeterThatcher in the New North Church in Boston, in 1720, there were twoparties. The members who did not wish him to be settled over the churchwent into the meeting-house and made a great disorder and clamor. Theyforbade the proceedings, and went into the gallery, and threw from thencewater and missiles on the friends of the clergymen who were gathered aroundhim at the altar. Perhaps they obtained courage for these sacrilegious actsfrom the barrels of rum and the bowls of strong punch. And this was inPuritanical Boston, in the year of the hundredth anniversary of the landingof the Mayflower. Thus had one century changed the absolute reverence andaffectionate regard of the Pilgrims for their church, their ministers, and their meeting-houses, to irreverent and obstinate desire for personalsatisfaction. No wonder that the ministers at that date preached andbelieved that Satan was making fresh and increasing efforts to destroy thePuritan church. The hour was ready for Whitefield, for Edwards, for anynew awakening; and was above all fast approaching for the sadly neededtemperance reform. 

In the seventeenth century a minister was ordained and re-ordained ateach church over which he had charge; but after some years the name ofinstallation was given to each appointment after the first ordination, andthe ceremony was correspondingly changed. 

XX. 

The Ministers. 

The picture which Colonel Higginson has drawn of the Puritan minister is sowell known and so graphic that any attempt to add to it would be futile. All the succeeding New England parsons, as years rolled by, were not, however, like the black-gowned, black-gloved, stately, and solemn man whomhe has so clearly shown us. Men of rigid decorum, and grave ceremony therewere, such as Dr. Emmons and Jonathan Edwards; but there were parsons alsoof another type, --eccentric, unconventional, and undignified in demeanorand dress. Parson Robinson, of Duxbury, persisted in wearing in the pulpit, as part of his clerical attire, a round jacket instead of the suitablegown or Geneva cloak, and he was known thereby as "Master Jack. " Withastonishing inconsistency this Master Jack objected to the villageblacksmith's wearing his leathern apron into the church, and he assailedthe offender again and again with words and hints from his pulpit. He wasat last worsted by the grimaces of the victorious smith (where was theDuxbury tithingman?), and indignantly left the pulpit, ejaculating, "I'llnot preach while that man sits before me. " A remonstrating parishionersaid afterward to Master Jack, "I'd not have left if the Devil sat there. ""Neither would I", was the quick answer. 

Another singular article of attire was worn in the pulpit by Father Mills, of Torrington, though neither in irreverence nor indifference. When hisdearly loved wife died he pondered how he, who always wore black, couldexpress to the world that he was wearing mourning; and his simple heart hitupon this grotesque device: he left off his full-flowing wig, and tiedup his head in a black silk handkerchief, which he wore thereafter as atrapping of woe. 

Parson Judson, of Taunton, was so lazy that he used to preach while sittingdown in the pulpit; and was so contemptibly fond of comfort that he wouldon summer Sundays give out to the sweltering members of his congregationthe longest psalm in the psalm-book, and then desert them--piouslyperspiring and fuguing--and lie under a tree enjoying the cool outdoorbreezes until the long psalm was ended, escaping thus not only the heat butthe singing; and when we consider the quantity and quality of both, andthat he condemned his good people to an extra amount of each, it seemsa piece of clerical inhumanity that would be hard to equal. Surely thisselfish Taunton sybarite was the prosaic ideal of Hamlet's words:--

 "Some ungracious pastors do Show me the steep and thorny way to Heaven, Whilst like a puff'd and reckless libertine Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own rede. "

But lazy and slothful ministers were fortunately rare in New England. Noprimrose path of dalliance was theirs; industrious and hard-working werenearly all the early parsons, preaching and praying twice on the Sabbath, and preaching again on Lecture days; visiting the sick and often givingmedical and "chyrurgycal" advice; called upon for legal counsel andadjudication; occupied in spare moments in teaching and preparing youngmen for college; working on their farms; hearing the children say theircatechism; fasting and praying long, weary hours in their own study, --trulythey were "pious and painful preachers, " as Colonel Higginson saw recordedon a gravestone in Watertown. Though I suspect "painful" in the Puritanvocabulary meant "painstaking, " did it not? Cotton Mather called JohnFiske, of Chelmsford, a "plaine but able painful and useful preacher, "while President Dunster, of Harvard College, was described by acontemporary divine as "pious painful and fit to teach. " Other curiousepithets and descriptions were applied to the parsons; they were called"holy-heavenly, " "sweet-affecting, " "soul-ravishing, " "heaven-piercing, ""angel-rivalling, " "subtil, " "irrefragable, " "angelical, " "septemfluous, ""holy-savoured, " "princely, " "soul-appetizing, " "full of antic tastes"(meaning having the tastes of an antiquary), "God-bearing. " Of two of theNew England saints it was written:--

 "Thier Temper far from Injucundity, Thier tongues and pens from Infecundity. "

Many other fulsome, turgid, and even whimsical expressious of praise mightbe named, for the Puritans were rich in classic sesquipedalian adjectives, and their active linguistic consciences made them equally fertile inproducing new ones. 

Ready and unexpected were the solemn Puritans in repartee. A party of gayyoung sparks, meeting austere old John Cotton, determined to guy him. Oneof the young reprobates sent up to him and whispered in his ear, "Cotton, thou art an old fool. " "I am, I am, " was the unexpected answer; "the Lordmake both thee and me wiser than we are. " Two young men of like intent metMr. Haynes, of Vermont, and said with mock sad faces, "Have you heard thenews? the Devil is dead. " Quick came the answer, "Oh, poor, fatherlesschildren! what will become of you?"

Gloomy and depressed of spirits they were often. The good Warham, who couldtake faithful and brave charge of his flock in the uncivilized wildsof Connecticut among ferocious savages, was tortured by doubts and"blasphemous suggestions, " and overwhelmed by unbelief, enduring speciallyagonizing scruples about administering and partaking of the Lord's Supper, and was thus perplexed and buffeted until the hour of his sad death. Theministers went through various stages of uncertainty and gloom, from thephysical terror of Dr. Cogswell in a thunderstorm, through vacillating andharassing convictions about the Half Way Covenant, through doubt of God, of salvation, of heaven, of eternite, particularly distressing suspicionsabout the reality of hell and the personality of the Devil, to the stageof deep melancholy which was shown in its highest type in "HandkerchiefMoody, " who preached and prayed and always appeared in public with ahandkerchief over his face, and gave to Hawthorne the inspiration for hisstory of "The Black Veil. " Rev. Mr. Bradstreet, of the First Church ofCharlestown, was so hypochondriacal that he was afraid to preach in thepulpit, feeling sure that he would die if he entered therein; so he alwaysdelivered his sermons to his patient congregation from the deacons' pew. Mr. Bradstreet was unconventional in many other respects, and was far frombeing a typical Puritan minister. He seldom wore a coat, but generallyappeared in a plaid gown, and was always seen with a pipe in his mouth, --amost disreputable addition to the clerical toilet at that date, or, intruth, at any date. He was a learned and pious man, however, and was thusintroduced to a fellow clergyman, "Here is a man who can whistle Greek. "

Scarcely one of the early Puritan ministers was free from the sad shadow ofdoubt and fear. No "rose-pink or dirty-drab views of humanity" were theirs;all was inky-black. And it is impossible to express the gloom and thedepression of spirit which fall on one now, after these centuries ofprosperous and cheerful years, when one considers thoughtfully the deep anddespairing agony of mind endured by these good, brave, steadfast, godlyPuritan ministers. Read, for instance, the sentences from the diary of theRev. John Baily, or of Nathaniel Mather, as given by Cotton Mather in his"Magnalia. " Mather says that poor, sad, heart-sick Baily was filled with"desponding jealousies, " "disconsolate uneasinesses, " gloomy fears, andthinks the words from his diary "may be profitable to some discouragedminds. " Profitable! Ah, no; far from it! The overwhelming blacknessof despair, the woful doubts and fears about destruction and utterannihilation which he felt so deeply and so continually, fall in a heavy, impenetrable cloud upon us as we read, until we feel that we too are in the"Suburbs of hell" and are "eternally damned. "

But in succeeding years they were not always gloomy and not always staid, as we know from the stories of the cheerful parties at ordination-times;and I doubt not the reverend Assembly of Elders at Cambridge enjoyed to thefull degree the twelve gallons of sack and six gallons of white wine sentto them by the Court as a testimony of deep respect. And the group ofclergymen who were painted over the mantelpiece of Parson Lowell, ofNewbury, must have been far from gloom, as the punch-bowl and drinking-cupsand tobacco and pipes would testify, and their cheerful motto likewise: "Inessentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity. " Andthe Rev. Mr. ---- no, I will not tell his name--kept an account withone Jerome Ripley, a storekeeper, and on one page of this account-book, containing thirty-nine entries, twenty-one were for New England rum. It somewhat lessens in our notions the personal responsibility, or thepersonal potatory capability of the parson, to discover that there wasan ordination in town during that rum-paged week, and that the visitingministers probably drank the greater portion of Jerome Ripley's liquor. But I wish the store-keeper had--to save this parson's reputation amongsucceeding generations--called and entered the rum as hay, or tea, ornails, or anything innocent and virtuous and clerical. When we read of allthese doings and drinkings of the old New England ministers, --"if ancienttales say true, nor wrong these ancient men"--we feel that we cannot sofiercely resent nor wonder at the degrading coupling in Byron's sneeringlines:--

 "There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms, As rum and true religion. "

All the cider made by the New England elders did not tend to gloom, and they were celebrated for their fine cider. The best cider inMassachusetts--that which brought the highest price--was known as theArminian cider, because the minister who furnished it to the market wassuspected of having Arminian tendencies. A very telling compliment to thecider of one of the first New England ministers is thus recorded: "Mr. Whiting had a score of appill-trees from which he made delicious cyder. And it hath been said yt an Indyan once coming to hys house and MistressWhiting giving him a drink of ye cyder, he did sett down ye pot and smakinghis lips say yt Adam and Eve were rightlie damned for eating ye appills inye garden of Eden, they should have made them into cyder. " This perverseapplication of good John Eliot's teaching would have vexed the apostlesorely. Of so much account were the barrels of cider, and so highly werethey prized by the ministers, that one honest soul did not hesitate tothank the Lord in the pulpit for the "many barrels of cider vouchsafed tous this year. "

Stronger liquors than cider were also manufactured by the ministers, --andby God-fearing, pious ministers also. They did not hesitate to own andoperate distilleries. Rev. Nathan Strong, pastor of the First Church ofHartford and author of the hymn "Swell the anthem, raise the song, " wasengaged in the distilling business and did not make a success of it either. Having become bankrupt, he did not dare show his head anywhere in publicfor some time, except on Sunday, for fear of arrest. This disreputable andmost unclerical affair did not operate against him in the minds of thecontemporaneous public, for ten years later he received the degree ofDoctor of Divinity from Princeton College; and he did not hesitate to jokeabout his liquor manufacturing, saying to two of his brother-clergymen, "Oh, we are all three in the same boat together, --Brother Prime raises thegrain, I distil it, and Brother Flint drinks it. "

Impostors there were--false parsons--in the early struggling days of NewEngland (since "the devil was never weary and never ceasing in disturbingthe peace of the new English church"), and they plagued the colonistssorely. The very first shepherd of the wandering flock--Mr. Lyford, whopreached to the planters in 1624--was, as Bradford says, "most unsavorysalt, " a most agonizing and unbearable thorn in the flesh and spirit of thepoor homesick Pilgrims; and he was finally banished to Virginia, where itwas supposed that he would find congenial and un-Puritanlike companions. Another bold-faced cheat preached to the colonists a most impressive sermonon the text, "Let him that stole steal no more, " while his own pockets werestuffed out with stolen money. "Out of the fulness of the heart the mouthspeaketh. "

Dicky Swayn, "after a thousand rogueries, " set up as a parson in Boston. But, unfortunately for him, he prayed too loud and too long on oneoccasion, and his prayer attracted the attention of a woman whose servanthe had formerly been. She promptly exposed his false pretensions and pastvillanies, and he left Boston and an army of cheated creditors. In 1699two other attractive and plausible scamps--Kingsbury and May--garbed andcurried themselves as ministers, and went through a course of uncheckedvillany, building only on their agreeable presence. Cotton Mather wrotepertinently of one of these charmers, "Fascination is a thing whereofmankind has more Experience than Comprehension;" and he also wrote verydespitefully of the adventurer's scholarly attainments saying there were"eighteen horrid false spells and not one point in one very short note Ireceived from him. " As the population increased, so also did the list ofdishonest impostors, who made a cloak of religion most effectively toaid them in deceiving the religious community; and sometimes, alas! theordained clergymen became sad backsliders. 

Nor were the pious and godly Puritan divines above the follies andfrailties of other men in other places and in other times. It can be saidof them, as of the Jew, had they not "eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?"--were they not as other men? It is recordedof Rev. Samuel Whiting, of Lynn, that "once coming among a gay partie ofyong people he kist all ye maides and said yt he felt all ye better forit. " And who can doubt it? Even that extreme type, that highest pinnacleof American Puritanical bigotry, --solemn and learned Cotton Mather, --had, when he was a mourning widower, a most amusing amorous episode with arather doubtful, a decidedly shady, young Boston woman, whom he styled an"Ingenious Child, " but who was far from being an ingenuous child. "She, " ashe proudly stated, "became charmed with my person to such a degree that shecould not but break in upon me with her most importunate requests. " And avery handsome and thoroughly attractive person does his portrait showeven to modern eyes. Poor Cotton resisted the wiles of the devil in thisalluring form, though he had to fast and pray three consecutive nights erethe strong Puritan spirit conquered the weak flesh, and he could consentand resolve to give up the thought of marrying the siren. His self-denialand firmness deserved a better reward than the very trying matrimonial"venture" that he afterwards made. 

Many another Puritan parson has left record of his wooings that are warmto read. And well did the parsons' wives deserve their ardent wooings andtheir tender love-letters. Hard as was the minister's life, over-filled aswas his time, highly taxed as were his resources, all these hardships werefelt in double proportion by the minister's wife. The old Hebrew standardof praise quoted by Cotton Mather, "A woman worthy to be the wife of apriest, " was keenly epigrammatic; and ample proof of the wise insightof the standard of comparison may be found in the lives of "the pious, prudent, and prayerful" wives of New England ministers. What wonder thattheir praises were sung in many loving though halting threnodies, inlong-winded but tender eulogies, in labored anagrams, in quaintly spelledepitaphs?--for the ministers' wives were the saints of the Puritancalendar. 

XXI. 

The Ministers' Pay. 

The salaries of New England clergymen were not large in early days, but the£60 or £70 which they each were yearly voted was quite enough to suitablysupport them in that new country of plain ways and plain living, if theyonly received it, which was, alas! not always the case. The First Court ofMassachusetts, in 1630, set the amount of the minister's annual stipendto be £20 or £30 according to the wealth of the community, and made it apublic charge. In 1659 the highest salary paid in Suffolk County was £100to Mr. Thatcher, and the lowest was £40 to the clergyman at Hull. Theminister of the Andover church was voted a salary of £60, and "when heshall have occacion to marry, £10 more. " He was very glad, however, to take£42 in hard cash instead of £60 in corn and labor, which were at that timethe most popular forms of ministerial remuneration; even though the "hardcash" were in the form of wampum, beaver-skins, or leaden bullets. 

Many congregations, though the members were so pious and godly, were prettysharp in bargaining with their preachers; for instance, the church in NewLondon made its new parson sign a contract that "in case he remove beforethe year is out, he returneth the £80 paid him. " Often clergymen would"supply" (or "Sipploye, " or "syploy" or "sipply, " or "sciploy, " as variousrecords have it) from month to mouth without "settling. " As they got the"keepe of a hors, " and their own board for Saturday and Sunday, and onMonday morning a cash payment for preaching (though often the amount wasonly twelve shillings), they were richer than with a small yearly salarythat was irregularly and inconveniently paid. Often too they entered bypreference into a yearly contract with a church, without any wish forregular settlement or ordination. 

A large portion of the stipends in early parishes being paid in corn andlabor, the amounts were established by fixed rate upon the inhabitants;and the amount of land owned and cultivated by each church-member wasconsidered in reckoning his assessment. These amounts were called voluntarycontributions. If, however, any citizen refused to "contribute, " hewas taxed; and if he refused to pay his church-tax he could be fined, imprisoned, or pilloried. For one hundred years the ministers' salariesin Boston were paid by these so-called "voluntary contributions. " In onechurch it was voted that "the Deacons have liberty for a quarter of a yeareto git in every mans sume either in a Church way or in a Christian way. "I would the process employed in the "Church way" were recorded, since itdiffered so from the Christian way. 

It is one of the Puritan paradoxes that abounded in New England, that thecommunity of New Haven, a "State whose Desire was Religion, " and religionalone, was particularly backward in paying the minister who had spiritualcharge there. After much trouble in deciding about the form and qualityof the currency which should be used in pay, since so much bad wampum wasthrust upon the deacons at the public contributions, it was in 1651 enactedthat "whereas it is taken notice of that Divers give not into the Treasuryat all on the Lords Day, it is decreed that all such if they give notfreely, of themselves be rated according to the Jurisdiction order for theMinisters Maintaynance. " The delinquents were ordered to bring their "rate"to the Deacon's house at once. A presuming young man ventured to suggestthat the recreant members who would not pay in the face of the wholecongregation would hardly rush to the Deacon's door to give in their"rate. " He was severely ordered to keep silence in the company of wiser andelder people; but time proved his simply wise supposition to be correct;and many and various were the devices and forces which the deacons wereobliged to use to obtain the minister's rate in New Haven. 

Some few bold Puritan souls dared to protest against being forced to paythe church rate whether they wished to or not. Lieutenant Fuller, ofBarnstable, was fined fifty shillings for "prophanely" saying "that the lawenacted about the ministers maintenance was a wicked and devilish one, andthat the devil sat at the helm when the law was made. " Such courageousthough profane expressions of revolt but little availed; for not onlywere members and attendants of the Puritan churches taxed, but Quakers, Baptists, and Church-of-England men were also "rated, " and if they refusedto pay to help support the church that they abhorred, they were fined andimprisoned. One man, of Watertown, named Briscoe, dared to write a bookagainst the violent enforcement of "voluntary" subscriptions. He was fined£10 for his wickedness; and the printer of the book was also punished. Avirago in New London, more openly courageous, threw scalding water on thehead of the tithingman who came to collect the minister's rate. Old JohnCotton preached long and earnestly upon the necessity and propriety ofraising the money for the minister's salary, and for other expenses of thechurch, wholly by voluntary and eagerly given contributions, --the "Lordhaving directed him to make it clear by Scripture. " He believed that tithesand church-taxes were productive of "pride, contention and sloth, " andindicated a declining spiritual condition of the church. But it was astrange voluntary gift he wished, that was forced by dread of the pilloryand cage!

Since, as Higginson said, "New England was a plantation of Religion, not aplantation of Trade, " the church and its support were of course the firstthought in laying out a new town-settlement, and some of the best town-lotswere always set aside for the "yuse of the minister. " Sometimes these lotswere a gift outright to the first settled preacher, in other townships theywere set aside as glebes, or "ministry land" as it was called. It was auniversal custom to build at once a house for the minister, and some veryqueer contracts and stipulations for the size, shape, and quality of theparson's home-edifice may be read in church-records. To the constructionof this house all the town contributed, as also to the building of themeeting-house; some gave work; some, the use of a horse or ox-team; some, boards; some, stones or brick; some, logs; others, nails; and a few, a veryfew, money. At the house-raising a good dinner was provided, and of course, plenty of liquor. Some malcontents rebelled against being forced to work onthe minister's house. Entries of fines are common enough for "refusingto dig on the Minister's Selor, " for neglecting to send "the Minister'sNayles, " for refusing to "contribute clay-boards, " etc. As with thetown-lot, the house sometimes was a gift outright to the clergyman, andofttimes the ownership was retained by the church, and the free use onlywas given to each minister. 

It was a universal custom to allow free pasturage for the minister'shorse, for which the village burial-ground was assigned as a favoritefeeding-ground. Sometimes this privilege of free pasturage was abused. InPlymouth, in 1789, Rev. Chandler Robbins was requested "not to have morehorses than shall be necessary, for his many horses that had been pasturedon 'Burial Hill'" had sadly damaged and defaced the gravestones, --perhapsthe very headstones placed over the bones of our Pilgrim Fathers. 

The "strangers' money, " which was the money contributed by visitors whochanced to attend the services, and which was sometimes specified as "allthe silver and black dogs given by strangers, " was usually given to theminister. A "black dog" was a "dog dollar. "

Often a settlement or a sum of money was given outright to the clergymanwhen he was first ordained or settled in the parish. At a town meeting inSharon, January 8, 1755, which was held with regard to procuring a newminister, it was voted "that a committe confer with Mr. Smith, and knowwhich will be more acceptable to him, to have a larger settlement and asmaller salary, or a larger salary and a smaller settlement, and makereport to this meeting. " On Jan. 15th it was voted "that we give to saidMr. Smith 420 ounces of silver or equivalent in old Tenor bills, for asettlement, to be paid in three years after settlement. That we give tosaid Mr. Smith 220 Spanish dollars or an equivalent in old Tenor bills forhis yearly salary. " Mr. Smith was very generous to his new parish, for hisacceptance of its call contains this clause: "As it will come heavy uponsome perhaps to pay salary and settlement together I have thought ofreleasing part of the payment of the salary for a time to be paid to meagain. The first year I shall allow you out of the salary you have voted me40 dollars, the 2nd 30 dollars, the 3rd 15, the 4th year 20 to be repaidto me again, the 5th year 20 more, the 6th year 20 more and the 25 dollarsthat remain, I am willing that the town should keep 'em for its own use. "He was apparently "willing to live very low, " as Parson Eliot humbly andpathetically wrote in a petition to his church. 

The Puritan ministers in New England in the eighteenth century were allgood Whigs; they hated the English kings, fully believing that those stupidrulers, who really cared little for the Church of England, were burningwith pious zeal to make Episcopacy the established church of the colonies, and knowing that were that deed accomplished they themselves would probablylose their homes and means of livelihood. They were the most eager ofRepublicans and patriots, and many of them were good and brave soldiers inthe Revolution. 

When the minister acquired the independence he so longed and fought for, it was not all his fancy painted it. He found himself poorindeed, --practically penniless. He complained sadly that he was paid hissalary in the worthless continental paper money, and he refused to take it. Often he cannily took merchandise of all kinds instead of the low-valuedpaper money, and he became a good and sharp trader, exchanging his variousgoods for whatever he needed--and could get. Merchandise was, indeed, farpreferable to money. The petition of Rev. Mr. Barnes to his Willsboroughpeople has been preserved, and he thus speaks of his salary: "In 1775 thewar comenced & Paper money was emitted which soon began to depreciate andthe depreciation was so rappid that in may 1777 your Pastor gave the wholeof his years Salary for one sucking Calf, the next year he gave the wholefor a small store pig. Your Pastor has not asked for any considerationbeing willing to try to Scrabble along with the people while they are inlow circumstances. " His neighbor, Rev. Mr. Sprague, of Dublin, formallypetitioned his church not to increase his salary, "as I am plagued to deathto get what is owing to me now, " or to buy anything with it when he got it. The minister in Scarborough had to be paid £5, 400 in paper money to makegood his salary of £60 in gold which had been voted him. 

"Living low" and "scrabbling along" seems to have been the normal anduniversal condition of the New England minister for some time after the Warof Independence. He was obliged to go without his pay, or to take it inwhatever shape it might chance to be tendered. Indeed, from the earliestcolonial days it was true that of whatever they had, the church-membersgave; meal, maize, beans, cider, lumber, merchantable pork, apples, "English grains, " pumpkins, --all were paid to the parson. Part of thestipend of a minister on Cape Cod was two hundred fish yearly from eachparishioner, with which to fertilize his sandy corn-land. In Plymouth, in 1662, the following method of increasing the minister's income wassuggested: "The Court Proposeth it as a thing that they judge would be verycommendable and beneficiall to the townes where God's providence shall castany whales, if they should agree to set aparte some p'te of every such fishor oyle for the Incouragement of an able and godly minister among them. " InSandwich, also, the parson had a part of every whale that came ashore. 

Various gifts, too, came to the preachers. In Newbury the first salmoncaught each year in the weir was left by will to the parson. Judge Sewallrecords that he visited the minister and "carried him a Bushel ofTurnips, cost me five shillings, and a Cabbage cost half a Crown. " Such ahigh-priced cabbage!

That New England country institution--the "donation party" to theminister--was evolved at a later date. At these donation parties theunfortunate shepherd of the flock often received much that neither henor the wily donors could use, while more valuable and useful gifts werelacking. 

A very material plenishing of the minister's house was often furnished inthe latter part of the eighteenth century by the annual "Spinning Bee. " Ona given day the women of the parish, each bearing her own spinning-wheeland flax, assembled at the minister's house and spun for his wife great"runs" of linen thread, which were afterward woven into linen for the useof the parson and his family. In Newbury, April 20, 1768, "Young ladies metat the house of the Rev. Mr. Parsons, who preached to them a sermon fromProverbs 31-19. They spun and presented to Mrs. Parsons two hundred andseventy skeins of good yarn. " They drank "liberty tea. " This makeshift ofa beverage was made of the four-leaved loosestrife. The herb was pulledup like flax, its stalks were stripped of the leaves and were boiled. Theleaves were put in a kettle and basted with the liquor distilled from thestalks. After this the leaves were dried in an oven to use in the samemanner as tea-leaves. Liberty tea sold readily for sixpence a pound. In1787 these same Newbury women spun two hundred and thirty-six skeinsof thread and yarn for the wife of the Rev. Mr. Murray. Some were busyspinning, some reeling and carding, and some combing the flax, while theminister preached to them on the text from Exodus xxxv. 25: "And allthe women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands. " Thesespinning-bees were everywhere in vogue, and formed a source of much profitto the parson, and of pleasure to the spinners, in spite of the sermons. 

Pieced patchwork bed-quilts for the minister's family were also given bythe women of the congregation. Sometimes each woman furnished a neatlypieced square, and all met at the parsonage and joined and quilted thecoverlet. At other times the minister's wife made the patchwork herself, but the women assembled and transformed it into quilts for her. The parsonwas helped also in his individual work. When the rye or wheat or grain onthe minister's land was full grown and ready for reaping and mowing, themen in his parish gave him gladly a day's work in harvesting, and in turnhe furnished them plenty of good rum to drink, else there were "greatuneasyness. " The New England men were not forced to drink liberty tea. 

One universal contribution to the support of the minister all over NewEngland was cord-wood; and the "minister's wood" is an institution up tothe present day in the few thickly wooded districts that remain. A load ofwood was usually given by each male church-member, and he was expected todeliver the gift at the door of the parsonage. Sixty loads a year were afair allowance, but the number sometimes ran up to one hundred, as wasfurnished to Parson Chauncey, of Durham. Rev. Mr. Parsons, of East Hadley, was the greatest wood-consumer among the old ministers of whom I havechanced to read. Good, cheerful, roaring fires must the Parsons family havekept; for in 1774 he had eighty loads of wood supplied to him; in 1751 hewas furnished with one hundred loads; in 1763 the amount had increased toone hundred and twenty loads, when the parish was glad to make a compromisewith their extravagant shepherd and pay him instead £13 6s 8d annuallyin addition to his regular salary, and let him buy or cut his own wood. Firewood at that time in that town was worth only the expense of cuttingand hauling to the house. A "load" of wood contained about three quartersof a cord, and until after the Revolutionary War was worth in the vicinityof Hadley only three shillings a load. The minister's loads were expectedto be always of good "hard-wood. " One thrifty parson, while watching afarmer unload his yearly contribution, remarked, "Isn't that pretty softwood?" "And don't we sometimes have pretty soft preaching?" was the answer. It was well that the witty retort was not made a century earlier; for thespeaker would have been punished by a fine, since they fined so sharplyanything that savored of "speaking against the minister. " In some towns aday was appointed which was called a "wood-spell, " when it was ordered thatall the wood be delivered at the parson's door; and thus the farmers formeda cheerful gathering, at which the minister furnished plentiful flip, orgrog, to the wood-givers. Rev. Stephen Williams, of Longmeadow, neverfailed to make a note of the "wood-sleddings" in his diary. He wrote onJan. 25, 1757, "Neighbors sledded wood for me and shewed a Good Humour. I rejoice at it. The Lord bless them that are out of humour and brot nowood. " In other towns the wood did not always come in when it was wanted orneeded, and winter found the parsonage woodshed empty. Rev. Mr. French, ofAndover, gave out this notice in his pulpit one Sunday in November: "I willwrite two discourses and deliver them in this meeting-house on ThanksgivingDay, _provided I can manage to write them without a fire_. " We can besure that Monday morning saw several loads of good hard wood deposited atthe parson's door. 

Other ministers did not hesitate to demand their cord-wood most openly, while still others became adepts in hinting and begging, not only for wood, but for other supplies. It is told of a Newbury parson that he rode fromhouse to house one winter afternoon, saying in each that he "wished he hada slice of their good cheese, for his wife expected company. " On his wayhome his sleigh, unfortunately, upset, and the gathering darkness could notconceal from the eyes of the astonished townspeople, who ran to "right theminister, " the nine great cheeses that rolled out into the snow. 

Another source of income to New England preachers was the sale of thegloves and rings which were given to them (and indeed to all persons ofany importance) at weddings, funerals, and christenings. In reading JudgeSewall's diary one is amazed at the extraordinary number of gloves he thusreceived, and can but wonder what became of them all, since, had he hadas many hands as Briareus, he could hardly have worn them. The manuscriptaccount-book of the Rev. Mr. Elliot, who was ordained pastor of the NewNorth Church of Boston in 1742, shows that he, having a frugal mind, soldboth gloves and rings. He kept a full list of the gloves he received, thekid gloves, the lambswool gloves, and the long gloves, --which were for hiswife. It seems incredible, but in thirty-two years he received two thousandand nine hundred and forty pairs of gloves. Of these, though dead men'sgloves did not have a very good market, he sold through various salesmenand dealers about six hundred and forty dollars worth. One wonders that hedid not "combine" with the undertaker or sexton who furnished the gloves tomourners, and thus do a very thrifty business. 

The parson, especially in a low-salaried, rural district, had to practise athousand petty and great economies to eke out his income. He and his familywore homespun and patched clothing, which his wife had spun and wove andcut and made. She knitted woollen mittens and stockings by the score. Sheunfortunately could not make shoes, and to keep the large family shod was aserious drain on the clerical purse, one minister declaring vehementlythat he should have died a rich man if he and his family could have gonebarefoot. The pastors of seaboard and riverside parishes set nets, like theApostles of old, and caught fish with which they fed their families untilthe over-phosphorized brains and stomachs rebelled. They set snares andtraps and caught birds and squirrels and hare, to replenish their tables, and from the skins of the rabbits and woodchucks and squirrels, theparsons' wives made fur caps for the husbands and for the children. 

The whole family gathered in large quantities from roadsides and pasturesthe oily bayberries, and from them the thrifty and capable wife made scoresof candles for winter use, patiently filling and refilling her few moulds, or "dipping" the candles again and again until large enough to use. Thesepale-green bayberry tallow candles, when lighted in the early winterevening, sent forth a faint spicy fragrance--a true New Englandincense--that fairly perfumed and Orientalized the atmosphere of theparsonage kitchen. They were very saving, however, even of these home-madecandles, blowing them out during the long family prayers. 

Some parsons could not afford always to use candles. In the home of onewell-known minister the wife always knitted, the children ciphered andstudied, and the husband wrote his sermon by the flickering fire-light (forthey always had wood in plenty), with his scraps of sermon paper placed onthe side of the great leathern bellows as it lay in his lap; a pretty homescene that was more picturesque to behold than comfortable to take part in. 

Country ministers could scarcely afford paper to write on, as it was taxedand was high priced. They bought their sermon paper by the pound; but theymade the first drafts of their addresses, in a fine, closely written hand, on wrapping-paper, on the backs of letters, on the margins of their fewnewspapers, and copied them when finished in their sermon-books with akeen regard for economy of space and paper. The manuscript sermons of NewEngland divines are models of careful penmanship, and may be examined withinterest by a student of chirography. The letters are cramped and crabbed, like the lives of many of the writers, but the penmanship is methodical, clear, and distinct, without wavering lines or uncertain touch. 

As every parsonage had some glebe land, the parson could raise at least afew vegetables to supply his table. One minister, prevented by illness fromplanting his garden, complained with bitterness that, save for a few raregifts of vegetables from his parishioners, his family had no green thingall summer save "messes of dandelion greens" which he had dug by theroadside, and the summer's succession of wild berries and mushrooms. Thechildren had gathered the berries and had sold them when they could, but ofcourse no one would buy the mushrooms, hence they had been forced to eatthem at the parsonage; and he spoke despitefully and disdainfully of themean, unnourishing, and doubtfully healthful food. 

In winter the parson's family fared worse; one minister declared that hehad had nothing but mush and milk with occasional "cracker johnny-cakes"all winter, and that he had not once tasted meat in that space of time, save at a funeral or ordination-supper, where I doubt not he gorged withthe composure and capacity of a Sioux brave at a war feast. 

Often the low state of the parsonage larder was quite unknown to theunthinking members of the congregation, who were not very luxuriously fedthemselves; and in the profession of preaching as in all other walks oflife much depended on the way the parson's money was spent, --economy andgood judgment in housekeeping worked wonders with the small salary. Dr. Dwight, in eulogizing Abijah Weld, pastor at Attleborough, declared thaton a salary of two hundred and twenty dollars a year Mr. Weld brought upeleven children, kept a hospitable house, and gave liberally in charity tothe poor. I fear if we were to ask some carnal-minded person, who knew notthe probity of Dr. Dwight, how Mr. Weld could possibly manage to accomplishsuch wonderful results with so little money, that we should meet withscepticism as to the correctness of the facts alleged. Such cases were, however, too common to be doubted. My answer to the puzzling financialquestion would be this: examine and study the story of the home life, thework of _Mrs_. Weld, that unsalaried helper in clerical labor; thereinthe secret lies. 

In many cases, in spite of the never failing and never ceasing economy, care, and assistance of the hard-working, thrifty wife, in spite oftributes, tithes and windfalls--in country parishes especially--theminister, unless he fortunately had some private wealth, felt it incumbentupon him to follow some money-making vocation on week-days. Many werefarmers on week-days. Many took into their families young men who wishedto be taught, or fitted for college. Rev. Mr. Halleck in the course of hisuseful and laborious life educated over three hundred young Puritans in hisown household. It is not recorded how Mrs. Halleck enjoyed the never endingcooking for this regiment of hungry young men. Some parsons learned to drawup wills and other legal documents, and thus became on a small scale thelawyers of the town. Others studied the mystery of medicine, and bought asmall stock of the nauseous drugs of the times, which they retailedwith accompanying advice to their parishioners. Some were coopers, somecarpenters, rope-makers, millers, or cobblers. One cobbler clergyman inAndover, Vermont, worked at his shoe-mending all the week with his Bibleopen on his bench before him, and he marked the page containing any textwhich bore on the subject of his coming sermon, with a marker of waxedshoe-thread. Often the Bible, in his pulpit on Sunday, had thirty or fortyof these shoe-thread guides hanging down from it. 

One minister, having been reproved for his worldliness in amassing a largeenough fortune to buy a good farm, answered his complaining congregationthus: "I have obtained the money to buy this farm by neglecting to followthe maxim to 'mind my own business. ' My business was to study the word ofGod and attend to my parish duties and preach good sermons. All this Iacknowledge I have not done, for I have been meddling with your business. _That_ was to support me and my family; that _you_ have not done. But remember this: while I have performed your duties, you have not donemine, so I think you cannot complain. "

Some of the early ministers, in addition to preaching in the meeting-house, did not disdain to take care of the edifice. Parson Everitt of Sandwich waspaid three dollars a year for sweeping out the meeting-house in which hepreached; and after he resigned this position of profit, the duties wereperformed by the town physician "as often as there shalbe ocation to keepeit deesent. " The thrifty Mr. Everitt had a pleasing variety of occupations;he was also a successful farmer, a good fence-builder, and he ran afulling-mill. 

So, altogether, as they were wholly exempt from taxation, the New Englandparsons did not fare ill, though Mr. Cotton said that "ministers and milkwere the only cheap things in New England, " and he deemed various ills, such as attacks by fierce Indians, loss of cattle, earthquakes, and failureof crops, to be divine judgments for the small ministerial pay; whileCotton Mather, in one of his pompous and depressing jokes, called theminister's stipend "Synecdotical Pay. " A search in a treatise on rhetoricor in a dictionary will discover the point of this witticism--if it beworth searching for. 

XXII. 

The Plain-Speaking Puritan Pulpit. 

One thing which always interests and can but amuse every reader of theold Puritan sermons is the astonishingly familiar way in which these NewEngland divines publicly shared their domestic joys and sorrows withthe members of their congregations; and we are equally surprised at theingenuity which they displayed in finding texts that were suitable forthe various occasions and events. The Reverend Mr. Turell was speciallyingenious. Of him Dr. Holmes wrote, --

 "You've heard, no doubt, of Parson Turell; Over at Medford he used to dwell, -- Married one of the Mathers' folks. "

His wife, Jane Coleman, was a handsome brunette. The bridegroom preachedhis first sermon after his wedding on this text, "I am black but comely, Oye daughters of Jerusalem. " When he married a second time he chose as histext, "He is altogether lovely, this is my beloved, and this my friend, Odaughters of Jerusalem!" It is possible that each of Parson Turell's bridesmay have chosen the text from which he preached her honeymoon sermon. Itwas the universal custom for many years thoughout New England to allow abride the privilege of selecting for the parson who had solemnized hermarriage, or at whose church she first appeared after the wedding, the textfrom which he should preach on the bridal Sabbath. Thus when John Physickand Mary Prescott were married in Portland, on July 4, 1770, the bride gaveto Rev. Mr. Deane this text: "Mary hath chosen that good part;" and from itParson Deane preached the "wedding sermon. " When Abby Smith, daughter ofParson Smith, married 'Squire John Adams, whom her father disliked andwould not invite home to dinner, she chose this text for her weddingsermon: "John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say hehath a devil. " The high-spirited bride had the honor of living to be thewife of one President of the United States, and mother of another. 

Another ingenious clergyman gave out one morning as his text, "Unto us ason is born;" and thus notified the surprised congregation of an eventwhich they had been awaiting for some weeks. Another preached on the text, "My servant lieth at home sick, " which was literally true. Another, abachelor, dared to announce this abbreviated text: "A wonder was seen inheaven--a woman. " Dr. Mather Byles, of Boston, being disappointed throughthe non-appearance of a minister named Prince, who had been expected todeliver the sermon, preached himself upon the text, "Put not your trustin princes. " But Dr. Byles was one who would always "court a grin when heshould win a soul. "

One minister felt it necessary to reprove a money-making parishioner whohad stored and was holding in reserve (with the hope of higher prices) alarge quantity of corn which was sadly needed for consumption in the town. The parson preached from this appropriate text, Proverbs xi. 26. "He thatwithholdeth his corn, the people shall curse him; but blessings shall beupon the head of him that selleth it. " As the minister grew warmer in hisexplanation and application of the text, the money-seeking corn-storerdefiantly and unregenerately sat up stiff and unmoved, until at last thepreacher, provoked out of prudence and patience, roared out, "ColonelIngraham, Colonel Ingraham! you know I mean you; why don't you hang downyour head?" In a similar case another stern parson employed the text, "Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone;" though the personalitiesof the sermon made unnecessary the open reference in the text to theoffender's name. 

The ministers were such autocrats in the Puritan community that they neverhesitated to show their authority in any manner in the pulpit. Judge Sewallrecords with much bitterness a libel which his pastor, Mr. Pemberton, launched at him in the meeting through the medium of the psalm whichhe gave out to be sung. They had differed over the adjustment of somechurch-matter and on the following Sunday the clergyman assigned to be sungthe libellous and significant psalm. Such lines as these must have beenhard indeed for Judge Sewall to endure:--

 "Speak, oh ye Judges of the Earth if just your Sentence be Or must not Innocence appeal to Heav'n from your decree

 "Your Wicked Hearts and Judgments are alike by Malice sway'd Your griping Hands by mighty Bribes to violence betrayed. 

 "No Serpent of parch'd Afric's breed doth Ranker poison bear The drowsy Adder will as soon unlock his Sullen Ear

 "Unmov'd by good Advice, and dead As Adders they remain From whom the skilful Charmer's voice can no attention gain. "

Small wonder that Judge Sewall writhed under the infliction of these linesas they were doubly thrust upon him by the deacon's "lining" and thesinging of the congregation; and the words, "The drowsy Adder will as soonunlock his Sullen Ear" seemed to particularly irritate him; doubtless hefelt sure that no one could doubt his integrity, but feared that some mightthink him stupid and obstinate. 

Another arbitrary clergyman, having had an altercation with some unrulysingers in the choir, gave out with much vehemence on the following Sundaythe hymn beginning, --

 "And are you wretches yet alive And do you yet rebel?"

with a very significant glower towards the singers' gallery. In a similarsituation another minister gave out to the rebellious choir the hymncommencing, --

 "Let those refuse to sing Who never knew our God. "

A visiting clergyman, preaching in a small and shabby church built in aparish of barren and stony farm-land, very spitefully and sneeringly readout to be sung the hymn of Watts' beginning, --

 "Lord, what a wretched land is this, That yields us no supplies!"

But his malicious intent was frustrated and the tables were adroitly turnedby the quick-witted choir-master, who bawled out in a loud voice as ifin answer, "Northfield, "--the name of the minister's own home andparish, --while he was really giving out to the choir, as was his wont, thename of the tune to which the hymn was to be sung. 

Nor did the parsons hesitate to be personal even in their prayers. Rev. Mr. Moody, who was ordained pastor at York in the year 1700, reproved in anextraordinary manner a young man who had called attention to some fine newclothing which he wore by coming in during prayer time and thus attractingthe notice of the congregation. Mr. Moody, in an elevated tone of voice, at once exclaimed, "And O Lord! we pray Thee, cure Ned Ingraham of thatungodly strut, " etc. Another time he prayed for a young lady in thecongregation and ended his invocation thus, "She asked me not to pray forher in public, but I told her I would, and so I have, Amen. "

Rev. Mr. Miles, while praying for rain, is said to have used thisextraordinary phraseology: "O Lord, Thou knowest we do not want Thee tosend us a rain which shall pour down in fury and swell our streams andcarry away our hay-cocks, fences, and bridges; but, Lord, we want it tocome drizzle-drozzle, drizzle-drozzle, for about a week, Amen. "

They did not think it necessary always to give their congregations novelthoughts and ideas nor fresh sermons. One minister, after being newlyordained in his parish, preached the same sermon three Sundays insuccession; and a deacon was sent to him mildly to suggest a change. "Why, no, " he answered, "I can see no evidence yet that this one has produced anyeffect. "

Rev. Mr. Daggett, of Yale College, had an entire system of sermons whichtook him four years to preach throughout. And for three successive years hedelivered once a year a sermon on the text, "Is Thy servant a dog that heshould do this thing?" And the fourth year he varied it with, "And the dogdid it. "

Dr. Coggswell, of Canterbury, Connecticut, had a sermon which he thrustupon his people every spring for many years as being suitable to the timewhen a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love. In it he soberlyreproved the young church attendants for gazing so much at each other inthe meeting. This annual anti-amatory advice never failed to raise a smileon the face of each father and son in the congregation as he listened tothe familiar and oft-repeated words. 

The Puritan ministers gave advice in their sermons upon most personal andworldly matters. Roger Williams instructed the women of his parish to wearveils when they appeared in public; but John Cotton preached to themone Sunday morning and proved to them that veils were a sign of unduesubjection to their husbands; and in the afternoon the fair Puritansappeared with bare faces and showed that women had even at that early day"rights. "

How the varieties of headgear did torment the parsons! They denouncedfrom many a pulpit the wearing of wigs. Mr. Noyes preached long and oftenagainst the fashion. Eliot, the noble preacher and missionary to theIndians, found time even in the midst of his arduous and incessant dutiesto deliver many a blast against "prolix locks, "--"with boiling zeal, " asCotton Mather said, --and he labelled them a "luxurious feminine protexity;"but lamented late in life that "the lust for wigs is become insuperable. "He thought the horrors in King Philip's War were a direct punishment fromGod for wig-wearing. Increase Mather preached warmly against wigs, sayingthat "such Apparel is contrary to the light of Nature and to expressScripture, " and that "Monstrous Perriwigs such as some of our churchmembers indulge in make them resemble ye locusts that came out of yeBottomless Pit. " To learn how these "Horrid Bushes of Vanity" weredespised by a real live Puritan wig-hater one needs only to read themany disparaging, regretful, and bitter references to wig-wearing andwig-wearers in Judge Sewall's diary, which reached a culmination when awidow whom he was courting suggested most warmly that he ought to wear, what his very soul abominated, a periwig. 

Eliot had also a strong aversion to tobacco, and denounced its use insevere terms; but his opposition in this case was as ineffectual as it wasagainst wigs. Allen said, "In contempt of all his admonitions the headwould be adorned with curls of foreign growth, and the pipe would send upvolumes of smoke. "

Rev. Mr. Rogers preached against long natural hair, --the "disguisement oflong ruffianly hair, "--as did also President Chauncey of Harvard College;while Mr. Wigglesworth's sermon on the subject has often been reprinted, and is full of logical arguments. This offence was named on the list ofexisting evils which was made by the General Court: that "the men wore longhair like women's hair, " while the women were complained of for "cuttingand curling and laying out of hair, especially among the younger sort. "Still, the Puritan magistrates, omnipotent as they were, did not dare toforce the be-curled citizens to cut their long love-locks, though theyinstructed and bribed them to do so. A Salem man was, in 1687, fined tenshillings for a misdemeanor, but "in case he shall cutt off his long har ofhis head into a sevill (civil?) frame in the mean time shall have abatedfive shillings of his fine. " John Eliot hated long natural hair as wellas false hair. Cotton Mather said of him, in a very unpleasant figure ofspeech, "The hair of them that professed religion grew too long for him toswallow. " Other fashions and habits brought forth denunciations from thepulpit, --hooped petticoats, gold-laced coats (unless worn by gentlemen), pointed shoes, chaise-owning, health-drinking, tavern-visiting, gossiping, meddling, tale-bearing, and lying. 

Political and business and even medical and sanitary subjects were popularin the early New England pulpit. Mr. Peters preached many a long sermonto urge the formation of a stock company for fishing, and canvassed allthrough the commonwealth for the same purpose. Cotton Mather said plainlythat ministers ought to instruct themselves and their congregations inpolitics; and in Connecticut it was ordered by law that each ministershould give sound and orthodox advice to his congregation at the time ofcivil elections. 

Every natural phenomenon, every unusual event called forth a sermon, andthe minister could find even in the common events of every-day life plainmanifestations of Divine wrath and judgment. He preached with solemndelight upon comets, and earthquakes, and northern lights, and great stormsand droughts, on deaths and diseases, and wonders and scandals (for therewere scandals even in puritanical New England), on wars both at home andabroad, on shipwrecks, on safe voyages, on distinguished visitors, on notedcriminals and crimes, --in fact, upon every subject that was of spiritual ortemporal interest to his congregation or himself. And his people lookedfor his religious comment upon passing events just as now-a-days we readarticles upon like subjects in the newspaper. Thus was the Puritan ministernot only a preacher, but a teacher, adviser, and friend, and a prettyplain-spoken one too. 

XXIII. 

The Early Congregations. 

On Sunday morning in New England in the olden time, the countrychurch-members whose homes were near the meeting-house walked reverentlyand slowly across the green meadows or the snowy fields to meeting. Townspeople, at the sound of the bell or drum or horn, walked decorouslyand soberly along the irregular streets to the house of God. Farmers wholived at a greater distance were up betimes to leave their homes and rideacross the fields and through the narrow bridle-paths, which were then theuniversal and almost the only country roads. These staid Puritan planterswere mounted on sturdy farmhorses, and a pillion was strapped on behindeach saddle, and on it was seated wife, daughter, or perhaps a youngchild--I should like to have seen the church-going dames perched up proudlyin all their Sunday finery, masked in black velvet, a sober Puritantravesty of a gay carnival fashion. Riding-habits were hardly known untila century ago, and even after their introduction were never worna-pillion-riding, so the Puritan women rode in their best attire. Sometimes, in unusually muddy or dusty weather, a very daintily dressed"nugiperous" dame would don a linen "weather skirt" to protect her finesilken petticoats. 

The wealthier Puritans were mounted on fine pacing horses, "once so highlyprized, now so odious deemed;" for trotting horses were not in much demandor repute in America until after the Revolutionary War. There were, untilthat date, professional horse-trainers, whose duties were to teach horsesto pace; though by far the best saddle-horses were the natural-gaited"Narragansett Pacers, " the first distinctively American race of horses. These remarkably easy-paced animals were in such demand in the West Indiesfor the use of the wives and daughters of the wealthy sugar-planters, andin Philadelphia and New York for rich Dutch and Quaker colonists, thatcomparatively few of them were allowed to remain in New England, and theywere, indeed too high-priced for poor New England colonists. The naturaland singular pace of these Narragansett horses, which did not incline therider from side to side, nor jolt him up and down, and their remarkablesureness of foot and their great endurance, rendered them of much valuein those days of travel in the saddle. They were also phenomenallybroad-backed, --shaped by nature for saddle and pillion. 

When trotting-horses became fashionable, the trainers placed logs of woodat regular intervals across the road, and by exercising the animalsover this obstructed path forced them to raise their feet at the properintervals, and thus learn to trot. 

Long distances did many of the pre-revolutionary farmers of New Englandhave to ride to reach their churches, and long indeed must have been thetime occupied in these Sunday trips, for a horse was too well-burdened withsaddle and pillion and two riders to travel fast. The worshippers mustoften have started at daybreak. When we see now an ancient pillion--a relicof olden times--brought out in jest or curiosity, and strapped behind asaddle on a horse's back, and when we see the poor steed mounted by tworiders, it seems impossible for the over-burdened animal to endure a longjourney, and certainly impossible for him to make a rapid one. 

Horse-flesh, and human endurance also, was economized in early days by whatwas called the "ride and tie" system. A man and his wife would mount saddleand pillion, ride a couple of miles, dismount, tie the steed, and walkon. A second couple, who had walked the first two miles, soon mounted therested horse, rode on past the riders for two or three miles, dismounted, and tied the animal again. In that way four persons could ride verycomfortably and sociably half-way to meeting, though they must have hadto make an early start to allow for the slow gait and long halts. At thechurch the disburdened horses were tied during the long services to palingsand to trees near the meeting-house (except the favored animals that foundshelter in the noon-houses) and the scene must have resembled the outskirtsof a gypsy camp or an English horse-fair. Such obedience did the Puritanspay to the letter of the law that when the Newbury people were forbidden, in tying their horses outside the church paling, to leave them near enoughto the footpath to be in the way of church pedestrians, it did not preventthe stupid or obstinate Newburyites from painstakingly bringing theirsteeds within the gates and tying them to the gate-posts where they weremuch more seriously and annoyingly in the way. 

It is usual to describe and to think of the Puritan congregations as likeassemblies of Quakers, solemn, staid, and uniform and dull of dress; butI can discover in historical records nothing to indicate simplicity, soberness, or even uniformity of apparel, except the uniformity of fashion, which was powerful then as now. The forbidding rules and regulationsrelating to the varied and elaborate forms of women's dress--and of men'sattire as well--would never have been issued unless such prohibited apparelhad been common and universally longed-for, and unless much diversity andelegance of dress had abounded. 

Indeed the daughters of the Pilgrims were true "daughters of Zion, walkingwith stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, and mincing as they go. " Savefor the "nose jewels, " the complaining and exhaustive list of the prophetIsaiah might serve as well for New England as for Judah and Jerusalem:"their cauls and their round tires like moons; the chains and the braceletsand the mufflers; the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the ear-rings; the rings and nose jewels; thechangeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and thecrisping pins; the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods and theveils. " Nor has the day yet come to pass in the nineteenth century when thebravery of the daughters has been taken away. 

Pleasant it is to think of the church appearance of the Puritan goodmen andgoodwives. Priscilla Alden in a Quakeress' drab gown would doubtless havebeen pleasant to behold, but Priscilla garbed in a "blew Mohere peticote, "a "tabby bodeys with red livery cote, " and an "immoderate great rayle" with"Slashes, " with a laced neckcloth or cross cloth around her fair neck, anda scarlet "whittle" over all this motley finery; with a "outwork quoyf orciffer" (New England French for coiffure) with "long wings" at the side, and a silk or tiffany hood on her drooping head, --Priscilla in this attirewere pretty indeed. 

Nor did sober John Alden and doughty Miles Standish lack for variety intheir dress; besides their soldier's garb, their sentinel's armor, theyhad a vast variety of other attire to choose from; they could select theirhead-wear from "redd knitt capps" or "monmouth capps" or "black hats lynedat the browes with leather. " They could have a "sute" of "dublett and hoseof leather lyned with oyled-skin-leather, " fastened with hooks and eyesinstead of buttons; or one of "hampshire kerseys lyned. " They could have"mandillions" (whatever they may have been) "lyned with cotton, " and"wast-coats of greene cotton bound about with red tape, " and breeches ofoiled leather and leathern drawers (I do not know whether these leatherndrawers were under-garments or leathern draw-strings at the knees of thebreeches). They could wear "gloves of sheeps or calfs leather" or of kid, and fine gold belts, and "points" at the knees. In fact, the invoices ofgoods to the earliest settlers show that they had a choice of variousmaterials for garments, including "gilford and gedleyman, holland andlockerum and buckerum, fustian, canvass, linsey-woolsey, red ppetuna, cursey, cambrick, calico-stuff, loom-work, Dutch serges, and Englishjeans"--enough for diversity, surely. Sad-colored mantles the goodmen wore, but their doublets were scarlet, and with their green waistcoats and redcaps, surely the Puritan men were sufficiently gayly dressed to suit anyfancy save that of a cavalier. Later in the history of the colony, whenhooped petticoats and laced hoods and mantles, and long, embroidered glovesfastened with horsehair "glove tightens, " and when velvet coats and satinbreeches and embroidered waistcoats, gold lace, sparkling buckles, andcocked hats with full bottomed wigs were worn, the gray, sombre oldmeeting-house blossomed like a tropical forest, and vied with the worldlyChurch of England in gay-garbed church attendants. 

Stern and severe of face were many of the members of these early NewEngland congregations, else they had not been true Puritans in heart, andabove all, they had not been Pilgrims. Long and thin of feature were they, rarely smiling, yet not devoid of humor. Some handsome countenanceswere seen, --austere, bigoted Cotton Mather being, strangely enough, thehandsomest and most worldly looking of them all. What those brave, sternmen and women were, as well as what they looked, is known to us all, andcannot be dwelt upon here, any more than can here be shown and explainedthe details of their religious faith and creed. Patient, frugal, God-fearing, and industrious, cruel and intolerant sometimes, but nevercowardly, sternly obeying the word of God in the spirit and the letter, buterring sometimes in the interpretation thereof, --surely they had no traitsto shame us, to keep us from thrilling with pride at the drop of theirblood which runs in our backsliding veins. Nothing can more plainly showtheir distinguishing characteristics, nothing is so fully typical of themotive, the spirit of their lives, as their reverent observance of theLord's day.