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diff --git a/old/7sabb10.txt b/old/7sabb10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c3b1732 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7sabb10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8173 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Sabbath in Puritan New England, by Alice Morse Earle + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Sabbath in Puritan New England + +Author: Alice Morse Earle + +Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8659] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on July 30, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +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 Day +XVIII. 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 Pulpit +XXIII. 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's +Day meeting-place for the Separatist church,--"a timber fort both strong +and comely, with flat roof and battlements;" and to this fort, every +Sunday, the men and women walked reverently, three in a row, and in it they +worshipped 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 for +the public worship of God; this house was called a meeting-house. Cotton +Mather said distinctly that he "found no just ground in Scripture to apply +such a trope as church to a house for public assembly." The church, in the +Puritan's way of thinking, worshipped in the meeting-house, and he was as +bitterly opposed to calling this edifice a church as he was to calling the +Sabbath Sunday. His favorite term for that day was the Lord's Day. + +The settlers were eager and glad to build their meeting-houses; for these +houses of God were to them the visible sign of the establishment of that +theocracy which they had left their fair homes and had come to New England +to create and perpetuate. But lest some future settlements should be slow +or indifferent about doing their duty promptly, it was enacted in 1675 that +a meeting-house should be erected in every town in the colony; and if the +people 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 members +necessary to establish a separate church was very distinctly given in the +Platform of Church Discipline: "A church ought not to be of greater number +than can ordinarilie meet convenientlie in one place, nor ordinarilie +fewer than may convenientlie carry on church-work." Each church was quite +independent 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-houses +with clay-filled chinks, surmounted by steep roofs thatched with long +straw or grass, and often with only the beaten earth for a floor. It was +considered a great advance and a matter of proper pride when the settlers +had the meeting-house "lathed on the inside, and so daubed and whitened +over workmanlike." The dimensions of many of these first essays at church +architecture are known to us, and lowly little structures they were. One, +indeed, is preserved for us under cover at Salem. The first meeting-house +in 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 Haverhill +edifice was only twenty-six feet long and twenty wide, yet "none other than +the house of God." + +As the colonists grew in wealth and numbers, they desired and built better +sanctuaries, "good roomthy meeting-houses" they were called by Judge +Sewall, 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 house +to sett horses in." As these meeting-houses had not been consecrated, and +as 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 as +profanations of holy places. + +The second form or type of American church architecture was a square wooden +building, usually unpainted, crowned with a truncated pyramidal roof, which +was surmounted (if the church could afford such luxury) with a belfry or +turret containing a bell. The old church at Hingham, the "Old Ship" which +was built in 1681, is still standing, a well-preserved example of this +second style of architecture. These square meeting-houses, so much alike, +soon abounded in New England; for a new church, in its contract for +building, would often specify that the structure should be "like in every +detaile to the Lynn meeting-house," or like the Hadley, Milford, Boston, +Danvers, or New Haven meeting-house. This form of edifice was the prototype +of the fine great First Church of Boston, a large square brick building, +with three rows of windows and two galleries, which stood from the year +1713 to 1808, and of which many pictures exist. + +The third form of the Puritan meeting-house, of which the Old South Church +of Boston is a typical model, has too many representatives throughout New +England to need any description, as have also the succeeding forms of New +England church architecture. + +The first meeting-houses were often built in the valleys, in the meadow +lands; for the dwelling-houses must be clustered around them, since the +colonists were ordered by law to build their new homes within half a mile +of the meeting-house. Soon, however, the houses became too closely crowded +for the most convenient uses of a farming community; pasturage for the +cattle had to be obtained at too great a distance from the farmhouse; +firewood had to be brought from too distant woods; nearness to water +also had to be considered. Thus the law became a dead letter, and each +new-coming settler built on outlying and remote land, since the Indians +were no longer so deeply to be dreaded. Then the meeting-houses, having +usually to accommodate a whole township of scattered farms, were placed on +remote and often highly elevated locations; sometimes at the very top of a +long, steep hill,--so long and so steep in some cases, especially in one +Connecticut parish, that church attendants could not ride down on horseback +from the pinnacled meeting-house, but were forced to scramble down, leading +their horses, and mount from a horse-block at the foot of the hill. The +second Roxbury church was set on a high hill, and the story is fairly +pathetic of the aged and feeble John Eliot, the glory of New England +Puritanism, that once, as he toiled patiently up the long ascent to his +dearly loved meeting, he said to the person on whose supporting arm he +leaned (in the Puritan fashion of teaching a lesson from any event and +surrounding): "This is very like the way to heaven; 'tis uphill. The Lord +by His grace fetch us up." + +The location on a hilltop was chosen and favored for various reasons. The +meeting-house was at first a watch-house, from which to keep vigilant +lookout for any possible approach of hostile or sneaking Indians; it was +also a landmark, whose high bell-turret, or steeple, though pointing to +heaven, was likewise a guide on earth, for, thus stationed on a high +elevation, it could be seen for miles around by travellers journeying +through the woods, or in the narrow, tree-obscured bridle-paths which were +then almost the only roads. In seaside towns it could be a mark for for +sailors at sea; such was the Truro meeting-house. Then, too, our Puritan +ancestors dearly loved a "sightly location," and were willing to climb +uphill cheerfully, even through bleak New England winters, for the sake of +having a meeting-house which showed off well, and was a proper source of +envy to the neighboring villages and the country around. The studiously +remote and painfully inaccessible locations chosen for the site of many +fine, roomy churches must astonish any observing traveller on the byroads +of 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 a +tall second growth of woods, deserted and neglected old graveyards--the +most lonely and forlorn of all sad places--by their broken and fallen +headstones, which surround a half-filled-in and uncovered cellar, show +that once a meeting-house for New England Christians had stood there. Tall +grass, and a tangle of blackberry brambles cover the forgotten graves, +and perhaps a spire of orange tiger-lilies, a shrub of southernwood or of +winter-killed and dying box, may struggle feebly for life under the shadow +of the "plumed ranks of tall wild cherry," and prove that once these lonely +graves were cared for and loved for the sake of those who lie buried in +this now waste spot. No traces remain of the old meeting-house save the +cellar and the narrow stone steps, sadly leading nowhere, which once were +pressed by the feet of the children of the Pilgrims, but now are trodden +only by the curious and infrequent passer-by, or the epitaph-seeking +antiquary. + +It is difficult often to understand the details in the descriptions of +these early meeting-houses, the colonial spelling is so widely varied, +and so cleverly ingenious. Uniformity of spelling is a strictly modern +accomplishment, a hampering innovation. "A square roofe without Dormans, +with two Lucoms on each side," means, I think, without dormer windows, and +with luthern windows. Another church paid a bill for the meeting-house roof +and 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 orders +for "juyces and rayles and nayles and bymes and tymber and gaybels and a +pulpyt, and three payr of stayrs," in its meeting-house,--a liberal supply +of 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 be +spelt in three or four different ways. Here is a portion of a contract in +the records of the Roxbury church: "Sayd John is to fence in the Buring +Plas with a Fesy ston wall, sefighiattly don for Strenk and workmanship +as also to mark a Doball gatt 6 or 8 fote wid and to hing it." +_Sefighiattly_ is "sufficiently;" but who can translate "Fesy"? can it +mean "facy" or faced smoothly? + +The church-raising was always a great event in the town. Each citizen was +forced by law to take part in or contribute to "raring the Meeting hows." +In early days nails were scarce,--so scarce that unprincipled persons set +fire to any buildings which chanced to be temporarily empty, for the sake +of obtaining the nails from the ruins; so each male inhabitant supplied +to the new church a certain "amount of nayles." Not only were logs, and +lumber, and the use of horses' and men's labor given, but a contribution +was also levied for the inevitable barrel of rum and its unintoxicating +accompaniments. "Rhum and Cacks" are frequent entries in the account books +of early churches. No wonder that accidents were frequent, and that men +fell from the scaffolding and were killed, as at the raising of the +Dunstable meeting-house. When the Medford people built their second +meeting-house, they provided for the workmen and bystanders, five barrels +of rum, one barrel of good brown sugar, a box of fine lemons, and two +loaves of sugar. As a natural consequence, two thirds of the frame fell, +and many were injured. In Northampton, in 1738, ten gallons of rum were +bought for L8 "to raise the meeting-house"--and the village doctor got "L3 +for setting his bone Jonathan Strong, and L3 10s. for setting Ebenezer +Burt's thy" which had somehow through the rum or the raising, both gotten +broken. Sometimes, as in Pittsfield in 1671, the sum of four shillings was +raised on every acre of land in the town, and three shillings a day were +paid to every man who came early to work, while one shilling a day was +apportioned to each worker for his rum and sugar. At last no liquor was +allowed to the workmen until after the day's work was over, and thus fatal +accidents were prevented. + +The earliest meeting-houses had oiled paper in the windows to admit the +light. 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 the +windows as now. We find frequent entries of "glasse and nayles for it," and +in Newbury, in 1665, the church ordered that the "Glasse in the windows +be ... look't to if any should happen to be loosed with winde to be nailed +close again." The glass was in lozenge-shaped panes, set in lead in the +form 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 the +immediate vicinity were always cut down on account of dread of the fierce +fires which swept often through the forests and overwhelmed and destroyed +the towns. The heat and blazing light in summer were as hard to bear in +these 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 be +any true religious feeling, any sense of sanctity, in a garish and bright +light,--"the white and undiluted day,"--but I think no one can doubt that +to the Puritans these seething, glaring, pine-smelling hothouses were truly +God's dwelling-place, though there was no "dim, religious light" within. + +Curtains and window-blinds were unknown, and the sunlight streamed in with +unobstructed and unbroken rays. Heavy shutters for protection were often +used, but to close them at time of service would have been to plunge +the church into utter darkness. Permission was sometimes given, as in +Haverhill, to "sett up a shed outside of the window to keep out the heat of +the sun there,"--a very roundabout way to accomplish a very simple end. As +years passed on, trees sprang up and grew apace, and too often the churches +became overhung and heavily shadowed by dense, sombre spruce, cedar, and +fir trees. A New England parson was preaching in a neighboring church which +was thus gloomily surrounded. He gave out as his text, "Why do the wicked +live?" and as he peered in the dim light at his manuscript, he exclaimed +abruptly, "I hope they will live long enough to cut down this great +hemlock-tree back of the pulpit window." Another minister, Dr. Storrs, +having struggled to read his sermon in an ill-lighted, gloomy church, said +he would never speak in that building again while it was so overshadowed +with trees. A few years later he was invited to preach to the same +congregation; but when he approached the church, and saw the great +umbrageous tree still standing, he rode away, and left the people +sermonless in their darkness. The chill of these sunless, unheated +buildings in winter can well be imagined. + +Strange and grotesque decorations did the outside of the earliest +meeting-houses bear,--grinning wolves' heads nailed under the windows and +by the side of the door, while splashes of blood, which had dripped +from the severed neck, reddened the logs beneath. The wolf, for his +destructiveness, 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 story +requires unlimited faith in Puritan probity, and confidence in Puritan +records to credit it, but believe it, ye who can, as I do! In Salem and in +Ipswich, in 1640, any man who brought a living wolf to the meeting-house +was paid fifteen shillings by the town; if the wolf were dead, ten +shillings. In 1664, if the wolf-killer wished to obtain the reward, he was +ordered to bring the wolf's head and "nayle it to the meeting-house and +give notis thereof." In Hampton, the inhabitants were ordered to "nayle the +same to a little red oake tree at northeast end of the meeting-house." One +man in Newbury, in 1665, killed seven wolves, and was paid the reward +for so doing. This was a great number, for the wary wolf was not easily +destroyed either by musket or wolf-hook. In 1723 wolves were so abundant +in Ipswich that parents would not suffer their children to go to and from +church and school without the attendance of some grown person. As late as +1746 wolves made sad havoc in Woodbury, Connecticut; and a reward of five +dollars 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, but +so late as the year 1779 the howls of wolves were heard every night in +Newbury, though trophies of shrivelled wolves' heads no longer graced the +walls of the meeting-house. + +All kinds of notices and orders and regulations and "bills" were posted on +the meeting-house, often on the door, where they would greet the eye of +all who entered: prohibitions from selling guns and powder to the Indians, +notices of town meetings, intentions of marriage, copies of the laws +against Sabbath-breaking, messages from the Quakers, warnings of "vandoos" +and sales, lists of the town officers, and sometimes scandalous and +insulting libels, and libels in verse, which is worse, for our forefathers +dearly loved to rhyme on all occasions. On the meeting-house green stood +those Puritanical instruments of punishment, the stocks, whipping-post, +pillory, and cage; and on lecture days the stocks and pillory were +often occupied by wicked or careless colonists, or those everlasting +pillory-replenishers, the Quakers. It is one of the unintentionally comic +features of absurd colonial laws and punishments in which the early legal +records so delightfully abound, that the first man who was sentenced to and +occupied the stocks in Boston was the carpenter who made them. He was thus +fitly punished for his extortionate charge to the town for the lumber +he used in their manufacture. This was rather better than "making the +punishment fit the crime," since the Boston magistrates managed to force +the criminal to furnish his own punishment. In Shrewsbury, also, the +unhappy man who first tested the wearisome capacity and endured the public +mortication of the town's stocks was the man who made them. He "builded +better than he knew." Pillories were used as a means of punishment until +a comparatively recent date,--in Salem until the year 1801, and in Boston +till 1803. + +Great horse-blocks, rows of stepping-stones, or hewn logs further graced +the meeting-house green; and occasionally one fine horse-block, such as the +Concord women proudly erected, and paid for by a contribution of a pound of +butter from each house-wife. + +The meeting-house not only was employed for the worship of God and for town +meetings, but it was a storehouse as well. Until after the Revolutionary +War it was universally used as a powder magazine; and indeed, as no fire in +stove or fireplace was ever allowed within, it was a safe enough place for +the explosive material. In Hanover, the powder room was in the steeple, +while in Quincy the "powder-closite" was in the beams of the roof. Whenever +there chanced to be a thunderstorm during the time of public worship, the +people of Beverly ran out under the trees, and in other towns they left +the meeting-house if the storm seemed severe or near; still they built no +powder houses. Grain, too, was stored in the loft of the meeting-house for +safety; hatches were built, and often the corn paid to the minister was +placed there. "Leantos," or "linters," were sometimes built by the side of +the building for use for storage. In Springfield, Mr. Pyncheon was allowed +to place his corn in the roof chamber of the meeting-house; but as the +people were afraid that the great weight might burst the floor, he was +forbidden 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 was +forbidden that tobacco be smoked upon the public streets, the church +loft was used to dry and store the freshly cut tobacco-leaves which the +inhabitants sold to the "ungodly Dutch." Thus did greed for gain lead even +blue Connecticut Christians to profane the house of God. + +The early meeting-houses in country parishes were seldom painted, such +outward show being thought vain and extravagant. In the middle of the +eighteenth century paint became cheaper and more plentiful, and a gay +rivalry in church-decoration sprang up. One meeting-house had to be as fine +as its neighbor. Votes were taken, "rates were levied," gifts were asked +in every town to buy "colour" for the meeting-house. For instance, the new +meeting-house in Pomfret, Connecticut, was painted bright yellow; it proved +a veritable golden apple of discord throughout the county. Windham town +quickly voted that its meeting-house be "coloured something like the +Pomfret meeting-house." Killingly soon ordered that the "cullering of the +body of our meeting-house should be like the Pomfret meeting-house, and the +Roff shal be cullered Read." Brooklyn church then, in 1762, ordered that +the outside of its meeting-house be "culered" in the approved fashion. +The body of the house was painted a bright orange; the doors and "bottom +boards" a warm chocolate color; the "window-jets," corner-boards, and +weather-boards white. What a bright nosegay of color! As a crowning glory +Brooklyn people put up an "Eleclarick Rod" on the gorgeous edifice, and +proudly boasted that--Brooklyn meeting-house was the "newest biggest and +yallowest" in the county. One old writer, however, spoke scornfully of the +spirit of envious emulation, extravagance, and bad taste that spread and +prevailed from the example of the foolish and useless "colouring" of the +Pomfret meeting-house. + +Within the meeting-house all was simple enough: raftered walls, sanded +floors, rows of benches, a few pews, and the pulpit, or the "scaffold," +as John Cotton called it. The bare rafters were often profusely hung with +dusty spiders' webs, and were the home also of countless swallows, that +flew in and out of the open bell-turret. Sometimes, too, mischievous +squirrels, attracted by the corn in the meeting-house loft, made their +homes in the sanctuary; and they were so prolific and so omnivorous that +the Bible and the pulpit cushions were not safe from their nibbling +attacks. On every Sunday afternoon the Word of God and its sustaining +cushion had to be removed to the safe shelter of a neighboring farmhouse or +tavern, to prevent total annihilation by these Puritanical, Bible-loving +squirrels. + +The pulpits were often pretentious, even in the plain and undecorated +meeting-houses, and were usually high desks, to which a narrow flight of +stairs led. In the churches of the third stage of architecture, these +stairs were often inclosed in a towering hexagonal mahogany structure, +which was ornamented with pillars and panels. Into this the minister +walked, closed the door behind him, and invisibly ascended the stairs; +while the children counted the seconds from the time he closed the door +until his head appeared through the trap-door at the top of the pulpit. The +form known as a tub-pulpit was very popular in the larger churches. The +pulpit of one old, unpainted church retained until the middle of this +century, as its sole decoration, an enormous, carefully painted, staring +eye, a terrible and suggestive illustration to youthful wrong-doers of the +great, all-seeing eye of God. + +As the ceiling and rafters were so open and reverberating, it was generally +thought imperative to hang above the pulpit a great sounding-board, which +threatened the minister like a giant extinguisher, and was really as devoid +of utility as it was curious in ornamentation, "reflecting most part an +empty ineffectual sound." This great sound-killer was decorated with carved +and painted rosettes, as in the Shrewsbury meeting-house; with carved ivy +leaves, as in Farmington; with a carved bunch of grapes or pomegranates, as +in the Leicester church; with letters indicating a date, as, "M. R. H." for +March, in the Hadley church; with appropriate mottoes and texts, such as +the words, "Holiness is the Lords," in the Windham church; with cords and +tassels, with hanging fringes, with panels and balls; and thus formed a +great ornament to the church, and a source of honest pride to the church +members. 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 weight +of the heavy machine. In Danvers, one of these useless though ornamental +structures hung within eighteen inches of the preacher's nose, on a slender +bar thirty feet in length; and every Sunday the children gazed with +fascinated anticipation at the slight rod and the great hexagonal +extinguisher, thinking and hoping that on this day the sounding-board would +surely drop, and "put out" the minister. In fact, it was regarded by many +a child, though this idea was hardly formulated in the little brain, as +a visible means of possible punishment for any false doctrine that might +issue from the mouth of the preacher. + +Another pastime and source of interest to the children in many old churches +was the study of the knots and veins in the unpainted wood of which the +pews and galleries were made. Age had developed and darkened and rendered +visible all the natural irregularities in the wood, just as it had brought +out and strengthened the dry-woody, close, unaired, penetrating scent which +permeated the meeting-house and gave it the distinctive "church smell." The +children, and perhaps a few of the grown people, found in these clusters +of knots queer similitudes of faces, strange figures and constellations, +which, though conned Sunday after Sunday until known by heart, still seemed +ever to show in their irregular groupings a puzzling possibility of the +discovery of new configurations and monstrosities. + +The dangling, dusty spiders' webs afforded, too, an interesting sight and +diversion for the sermon-hearing, but not sermon-listening, young Puritans, +who watched the cobwebs swaying, trembling, forming strange maps of +imaginary rivers with their many tributaries, or outlines of intersecting +roads 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 a +foolish buzzing fly could be watched through the dreary exposition and +attempted reconciliation of predestination and free will, that indeed were +a happy way of passing the weary hours. + + + + +II. + +The Church Militant. + + + +For many years after the settlement of New England the Puritans, even in +outwardly tranquil times, went armed to meeting; and to sanctify the Sunday +gun-loading they were expressly forbidden to fire off their charges at +any object on that day save an Indian or a wolf, their two "greatest +inconveniencies." Trumbull, in his "Mac Fingal," Avrites thus in jest of +this 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 the +attendants at church should carry a "competent number of peeces, fixed +and compleat with powder and shot and swords every Lords-day to the +meeting-house;" one armed man from each household was then thought +advisable and necessary for public safety. In 1642 six men with muskets and +powder and shot were thought sufficient for protection for each church. In +Connecticut similar mandates were issued, and as the orders were neglected +"by divers persones," a law was passed in 1643 that each offender should +forfeit twelve pence for each offence. In 1644 a fourth part of the +"trayned hand" was obliged to come armed each Sabbath, and the sentinels +were ordered to keep their matches constantly lighted for use in their +match-locks. They were also commanded to wear armor, which consisted of +"coats basted with cotton-wool, and thus made defensive against Indian +arrows." In 1650 so much dread and fear were felt of Sunday attacks from +the red men that the Sabbath-Day guard was doubled in number. In 1692, the +Connecticut Legislature ordered one fifth of the soldiers in each town to +come armed to each meeting, and that nowhere should be present as a guard +at time of public worship fewer than eight soldiers and a sergeant. In +Hadley the guard was allowed annually from the public treasury a pound of +lead and a pound of powder to each soldier. + +No details that could add to safety on the Sabbath were forgotten or +overlooked by the New Haven church; bullets were made common currency at +the value of a farthing, in order that they might be plentiful and in every +one's possession; the colonists were enjoined to determine in advance what +to do with the women and children in case of attack, "that they do not hang +about them and hinder them;" the men were ordered to bring at least six +charges of powder and shot to meeting; the farmers were forbidden to "leave +more arms at home than men to use them;" the half-pikes were to be headed +and the whole ones mended, and the swords "and all piercing weapons +furbished up and dressed;" wood was to be placed in the watch-house; it was +ordered that the "door of the meeting-house next the soldiers' seat be kept +clear from women and children sitting there, that if there be occasion +for the soldiers to go suddenly forth, they may have free passage." The +soldiers sat on either side of the main door, a sentinel was stationed +in the meeting-house turret, and armed watchers paced the streets; three +cannon were mounted by the side of this "church militant," which must +strongly have resembled a garrison. + +Military duty and military discipline and regard for the Sabbath, and for +the House of God as well, did not always make the well-equipped occupants +of these soldiers' seats in New Haven behave with the dignity and decorum +befitting such guardians of the peace and protectors in war. Serious +disorders and disturbances among the guard were reported at the General +Court on June 16, 1662. One belligerent son of Mars, as he sat in the +meeting-house, threw lumps of lime--perhaps from the plastered chinks in +the log wall--at a fellow-warrior, who in turn, very naturally, kicked his +tormentor with much agility and force. There must have ensued quite a free +fight all around in the meeting-house, for "Mrs. Goodyear's boy had his +head broke that day in meeting, on account of which a woman said she +doubted not the wrath of God was upon us." And well might she think so, for +divers other unseemly incidents which occurred in the meeting-house at the +same time were narrated in Court, examined into, and punished. + +In spite of these events in the New Haven church (which were certainly +exceptional), the seemingly incongruous union of church and army was +suitable enough in a community that always began and ended the military +exercises on "training day" with solemn prayer and psalm-singing; and that +used the army and encouraged a true soldier-like spirit not chiefly as aids +in 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 is +aware of." + +The Salem sentinels wore doubtless some of the good English armor owned by +the 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 down +under the left arm. This bandileer sustained twelve boxes of cartridges, +and a well-filled bullet-bag. Each man bore either a "bastard musket with +a snaphance," a "long fowling-piece with musket bore," a "full musket," a +"barrell with a match-cock," or perhaps (for they were purchased by the +town) 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 were +sometimes appropriately called) chambers, harque-busses, carbins,"--all +these and many other death-dealing machines did our forefathers bring and +import from their war-loving fatherland to assist them in establishing +God's Word, and exterminating the Indians, but not always, alas! to aid +them in converting those poor heathen. + +The armed Salem watcher, besides his firearms and ammunition, had attached +to his wrist by a cord a gun-rest, or gun-fork, which he placed upon +the ground when he wished to fire his musket, and upon which that +constitutional kicker rested when touched off. He also carried a sword and +sometimes a pike, and thus heavily burdened with multitudinous arms and +cumbersome armor, could never have run after or from an Indian with much +agility or celerity; though he could stand at the church-door with his +leather 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 picturesque +accompaniment of Puritan religious worship, and the Salem and Plymouth +armed men were imposing, though clumsy. But the New Haven soldiers, with +their bulky garments wadded and stuffed out with thick layers of cotton +wool, must have been more safety-assuring and comforting than they were +romantic or heroic; but perhaps they too wore painted tin armor, "corselets +and gorgets and tasses." + +In Concord, New Hampshire, the men, who all came armed to meeting, stacked +their muskets around a post in the middle of the church, while the honored +pastor, 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 from +his post of vantage to blaze away at any red man whom he saw sneaking +without, or to lead, if necessary, his congregation to battle. The church +in York, Maine, until the year 1746, felt it necessary to retain the custom +of carrying arms to the meeting-house, so plentiful and so aggressive were +Maine Indians. + +Not only in the time of Indian wars were armed men seen in the +meeting-house, but on June 17, 1775, the Provincial Congress recommended +that the men "within twenty miles of the sea-coast carry their arms and +ammunition with them to meeting on the Sabbath and other days when they +meet for public worship." And on many a Sabbath and Lecture Day, during the +years of war that followed, were proved the wisdom and foresight of that +suggestion. + +The men in those old days of the seventeenth century, when in constant +dread of attacks by Indians, always rose when the services were ended and +left the house before the women and children, thus making sure the safe +exit of the latter. This custom prevailed from habit until a late date in +many churches in New England, all the men, after the benediction and the +exit of the parson, walking out in advance of the women. So also the custom +of the men always sitting at the "head" or door of the pew arose from the +early necessity of their always being ready to seize their arms and rush +unobstructed 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 sit +at the door, even if it were a more desirable seat from which to see the +clergyman, 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 colonists +assembled for the first public service of the holy day; they were gathered +together by various warning sounds. The Haverhill settlers listened for the +ringing toot of Abraham Tyler's horn. The Montague and South Hadley people +were notified that the hour of assembling had arrived by the loud blowing +of a conch-shell. John Lane, a resident of the latter town, was engaged +in 1750 to "blow the Cunk" on the Sabbath as "a sign for meeting." In +Stockbridge a strong-lunged "praying" Indian blew the enormous shell, which +was safely preserved until modern times, and which, when relieved from +Sunday use, was for many years sounded as a week-day signal in the +hay-field. Even a conch-shell was enough of an expense to the poor colonial +churches. The Montague people in 1759 paid L1 10s. for their "conk," and +also on the purchase year gave Joseph Root 20 shillings for blowing the new +shell. In 1785 the Whately church voted that "we will not improve anybody +to blow the conch," and so the church-attendants straggled to Whately +meeting each at his own time and pleasure. + +In East Hadley the inhabitant who "blew the kunk" (as phonetic East +Hadleyites spelt it) and swept out the meeting-house was paid annually the +munificent sum of three dollars for his services. Conch-blowing was not +so difficult and consequently not so highly-paid an accomplishment as +drum-beating. A verse of a simple old-fashioned hymn tells thus of the +gathering 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 as +a signal for gathering for public worship, and was plainly the favorite +means of notification. In 1678 Robert Stuard, of Norwalk, "ingages yt his +son James shall beate the Drumb, on the Sabbath and other ocations," and in +Norwalk the "drumb," the "drumne," the "drumme," and at last the drum was +beaten 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 the +town's money, and he was furnished a "new strong drumme;" and the town +supplied to him also the flax for the drum-cords which he wore out in the +service of God. Johnson, in his "Wonder Working Providence," tells of the +Cambridge Church: "Hearing the sound of a drum he was directed toward it by +a broade beaten way; following this rode he demands of the next man he met +what the signall of the drum ment; the reply was made they had as yet no +Bell to call men to meeting and therefore made use of the drum." In 1638 +a platform was made upon the top of the Windsor meeting-house "from the +Lanthornc to the ridge to walk conveniently to sound a trumpet or a drum to +give warning to meeting." + +Sometimes three guns were fired as a signal for "church-time." The signal +for religious gathering, and the signal for battle were always markedly +different, in order to avoid unnecessary fright. + +In 1647 Robert Basset was appointed in New Haven to drum "twice upon Lordes +Dayes and Lecture Dayes upon the meeting house that soe those who live farr +off may heare the more distinkly." Robert may have been a good drummer, but +he proved to be a most reprehensible and disreputable citizen; in the local +Court Records of August 1, 1648, we find a full report of an astounding +occurrence in which he played an important part. Ten men, who Avere nearly +all sea-faring men,--gay, rollicking sailors,--went to Bassctt's house and +asked for strong drink. The magistrates had endeavored zealously, and in +the main successfully, to prevent all intoxication in the community, +and had forbidden the sale of liquor save in very small quantities. The +church-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. The +Court Record says: "The miscarriage continued till betwixt tenn and eleven +of 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 the +midst of the carousal the master of the pinnace called the boatswain +"Brother Loggerheads." This must have been a particularly insulting +epithet, which no respectable boatswain could have been expected quietly to +endure, for "at once the two men fell fast to wrestling, then to blowes and +theirin grew to that feircnes that the master of the pinnace thought the +boatswain would have puled out his eies; and they toumbled on the ground +down the hill into the creeke and mire shamefully wallowing theirin." +In his pain and terror the master called out, "Hoe, the Watch! Hoe, the +Watch!" "The Watch made hast and for the present stopped the disorder, but +in his rage and distemper the boatswaine fell a-swearinge Wounds and Hart +as if he were not only angry with men but would provoke the high +and blessed God." The master of the pinnace, being freed from his +fellow-combatant, returned to Basset's house--perhaps to tell his tale +of woe, perhaps to get more liquor--and was assailed by the drummer with +amazing words of "anger and distemper used by drunken companions;" in +short, he was "verey offensive, his noyes and oathes being hearde to +the other side of the creeke." For aiding and abetting this noisy and +disgraceful spree, and also for partaking in it, Drummer Basset was fined +L5, which must have been more than his yearly salary, and in disgrace, and +possibly in disgust, quitted drumming the New Haven good people to meeting +and moved his residence to Stamford, doubtless to the relief and delight of +both magistrates and people of the former town. + +Another means of notification of the hour for religious service was by the +use of a flag, often in addition to the sound of the drum or bell. Thus in +Plymouth, in 1697, the selectmen were ordered to "procure a flagg to be put +out at the ringing of the first bell, and taken in when the last bell was +rung." 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 "tending +the flagg." + +Mr. Gosse, in his "Early Bells of Massachusetts," gives a full and +interesting account of the church-bells of the first colonial towns in that +State. Lechford, in his "Plaine Dealing," wrote in 1641 that they came +together in Boston on the Lord's Day by "the wringing of a bell," and it is +thought that that bell was a hand-bell. The first bells, for the lack +of bell-towers, were sometimes hung on trees by the side of the +meeting-houses, to the great amazement and distress of the Indians, who +regarded them with superstitious dread, thinking--to paraphrase Herbert's +beautiful line--"when the bell did chime 't was devils' music;" but more +frequently 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 thus +in the very centre of the church the sexton stood when he rung the summons +for lire or for meeting. This rope was of course directly in front of the +pulpit; and Jonathan Edwards, who was devoid of gestures and looked always +straight 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 issued +from their houses in "desent order," man and wife walking first, and the +children in quiet procession after them. Often a man-servant and a maid +walked on either side of the heads of the family. In some communities the +congregation waited outside the church door until the minister and his wife +arrived and passed into the house; then the church-attendants followed, the +loitering boys always contriving to scuffle noisily in from the horse-sheds +at the last moment, making much scraping and clatter with their heavy boots +on the sanded floor, and tumbling clumsily up the uucarpeted, creaking +stairs. + +In other churches the members of the congregation seated themselves in +their pews upon their arrival, but rose reverently when the parson, dressed +in black skull-cap and Geneva cloak, entered the door; and they stood, in +token of respect, until after he entered the pulpit and was seated. + +It was also the honor-giving and deferential custom in many New England +churches, in the eighteenth century, for the entire congregation to remain +respectfully standing within the pews at the end of the serice until the +minister had descended from his lofty pulpit, opened the door of his wife's +pew, and led her with stately dignity to the church-porch, where, were he +and she genial and neighborly minded souls, they in turn stood and greeted +with 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 planks +placed on legs like milking-stools. They were without any support or rest +for the back; and perhaps the stiff-backed Pilgrims and Puritans required +or wished no support. Quickly, as the colonies grew in wealth and the +colonists in ambition and importance, "Spots for Pues" were sold (or +"pitts" as they were sometimes called), at first to some few rich or +influential men who wished to sit in a group together, and finally each +family of dignity or wealth sat in its own family-pew. Often it was +stipulated in the permission to build a pew that a separate entrance-door +should be cut into it through the outside wall of the meeting-house, thus +detracting grievously from the external symmetry of the edifice, but +obviating the necessity of a space-occupying entrance aisle within the +church, where there was little enough sitting-room for the quickly +increasing and universally church-going population. As these pews were +either oblong or square, were both large and small, painted and unpainted, +and as each pewholder could exercise his own "tast or disresing" in the +kind of wood he used in the formation of his pew, as well as in the style +of finish, much diversity and incongruity of course resulted. A man who had +a wainscoted pew was naturally and properly much respected and envied by +the entire community. These pews, erected by individual members, were +individual and not communal property. A widow in Cape Cod had her house +destroyed by fire. She was given from the old meeting-house, which was +being razed, the old building materials to use in the construction of her +new home. She was not allowed, however, to remove the wood which formed the +pews, as they were adjudged to be the property of the members who had built +them, and those owners only could sell or remove the materials of which +they 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 be +seen when the occupants were seated. Permissions to build were often given +with modifying restrictions to the aspiring pew-builders, as for instance +is recorded of the Haverhill church, "provided they would not build so high +as to damnify and hinder the light of them windows," or of the Waterbury +church, "if the pues will not progodish the hous." Often the floor of the +pews was several inches and occasionally a foot higher than the floor of +the "alleys," thus forming at the entrance-door of the pew one or two +steps, which were great stumbling-blocks to clumsy and to childish feet, +that tripped again when within the pew over the "crickets" and foot-benches +which were, if the family were large, the accepted and lowly church-seats +of the little children. Occasionally one long, low foot-rest stretched +quite across one side of the pew-floor. I have seen these long benches +with a tier of three shelves; the lower and broader shelf was used as a +foot-rest, the second one was to hold the hats of the men, and the third +and narrower shelf was for the hymn-books and Bibles. Such comfortable and +luxurious pew-furnishings could never have been found in many churches. + +An old New Englander relates a funny story of his youth, in which one of +these triple-tiered foot-benches played an important part. When he was +a boy a travelling show visited his native town, and though he was not +permitted to go within the mystic and alluring tent, he stood longingly at +the gate, and was prodigiously diverted and astonished by an exhibition of +tight-rope walking, which was given outside the tent-door as a bait to +lure pleasure-loving and frivolous townspeople within, and also as a +tantalization to the children of the saints who were not allowed to enter +the 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 a +careful preparation for a final feat and triumph of skill on his mother's +clothes-line. In an evil hour, as he sat one Sunday in the corner of his +father's pew, his eyes rested on the narrow ledge which formed the top of +the long foot-bench. Satan can find mischief for idle boys within church as +well as without, and the desire grew stronger to try to walk on that +narrow foothold. He looked at his father and mother, they were peacefully +sleeping; so also were the grown-up occupants of the neighboring pews; +the pew walls were high, the minister seldom glanced to right or left; a +thousand good reasons were whispered in his ear by the mischief-finder, +and at last he willingly yielded, pulled off his heavy shoes, and softly +mounted the foot-bench. He walked forward and back with great success +twice, thrice, but when turning for a fourth tour he suddenly lost his +balance, and over he went with a resounding crash--hats, psalm-books, +heavy bench, and all. He crushed into hopeless shapelessness his father's +gray beaver meeting-hat, a long-treasured and much-loved antique; he nearly +smashed his mother's kid-slippered foot to jelly, and the fall elicited +from her, in the surprise of the sudden awakening and intense pain, an +ear-piercing shriek, which, with the noisy crash, electrified the entire +meeting. All the grown people stood up to investigate, the children climbed +on the seats to look at the guilty offender and his deeply mortified +parents; while the minister paused in his sermon and said with cutting +severity, "I have always regretted that the office of tithingman has been +abolished in this community, as his presence and his watchful care +are sadly needed by both the grown persons and the children in this +congregation." The wretched boy who had caused all the commotion and +disgrace was of course uninjured by his fall, but a final settlement at +home between father and son on account of this sacrilegious piece of church +disturbance made the unhappy would-be tight-rope walker wish that he had at +least broken his arm instead of his father's hat and his mother's pride and +the peace of the congregation. + +The seats were sometimes on four sides of these pews, but oftener on three +sides only, thus at least two thirds of the pew occupants did not face the +minister. The pew-seats were as narrow and uncomfortable as the plebeian +benches, though more exclusive, and, with the high partition walls, quite +justified the comment of a little girl when she first attended a service in +one 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 elderly +people petitioned to build separate small pens of pews with a single wider +seat as "through the seats being so very narrow" they could not sit in +comfort. + +The seats were, until well into this century, almost universally hung on +hinges, and could be turned up against the walls of the pew, thus enabling +the standing congregation to lean for support against the sides of the pews +during 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 mile +away from the meeting-house in the summer time, for the perverse boys +contrived always in their salute of welcome to the Amen to give vent in +a most tremendous bang to a little of their pent up and ill-repressed +energies. In old church-orders such entries as this (of the Haverhill +church) are frequently seen: "The people are to Let their Seats down +without Such Nois." "The boyes are not to wickedly noise down there +pew-seats." A gentleman attending the old church in Leicester heard at +the beginning of the prayer, for the first time in his life, the noise of +slamming pew-seats, as the seats were thrust up against the pew-walls. He +jumped into the aisle at the first clatter, thinking instinctively that the +gallery was cracking and falling. Another stranger, a Southerner, entering +rather late at a morning service in an old church in New England, was +greeted with the rattle of falling seats, and exclaimed in amazement, "Do +you Northern people applaud in church?" + +In many meeting-houses the tops of the pews and of the high gallery +railings were ornamented with little balustrades of turned wood, which were +often 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. This +fascinating occupation whiled away many a tedious hour in the dreary +church, and in spite of weekly forbidding frowns and whispered reproofs for +the shrill, ear-piercing squeaks elicited by turning the spindle-shaped +balusters, was entirely too alluring a time-killer to be abandoned, and +consequently descended, an hereditary church pastime, from generation to +generation of the children of the Puritans; and indeed it remained so +strong an instinct that many a grown person, visiting in after life a +church whose pews bore balustrades like the ones of his childhood, could +scarce keep his itching fingers from trying them each in succession "to see +which ones would turn." + +These open balustrades also afforded fine peep-holes through which, by +standing or kneeling upon "the shelf," a child might gaze at his neighbor; +and also through which sly missiles--little balls of twisted paper--could +be snapped, to the annoyance of some meek girl or retaliating boy, until +the young marksman was ignominiously pulled down by his mother from his +post of attack. And through these balustrades the same boy a few years +later could thrust sly missives, also of twisted paper, to the girl whom he +had once assailed and bombarded with his annoying paper bullets. + +Through the pillared top-rail a restless child in olden days often +received, on a hot summer Sabbath from a farmer's wife or daughter in an +adjoining pew, friendly and quieting gifts of sprigs of dill, or fennel, +or caraway, famous anti-soporifics; and on this herbivorous food he would +contentedly browse as long as it lasted. An uneasy, sermon-tired little +girl was once given through the pew-rail several stalks of caraway, and +with them a large bunch of aromatic southernwood, or "lad's-love" which had +been brought to meeting by the matron in the next pew, with a crudely and +unconsciously aesthetic sense that where eye and ear found so little to +delight them, there the pungent and spicy fragrance of the southernwood +would be doubly grateful to the nostrils. Little Missy sat down delightedly +to nibble the caraway-seed, and her mother seeing her so quietly and +absorbingly occupied, at once fell contentedly and placidly asleep in her +corner of the pew. But five heads of caraway, though each contain many +score of seeds, and the whole number be slowly nibbled and eaten one seed +at a time, will not last through the child's eternity of a long doctrinal +sermon; and when the umbels were all devoured, the young experimentalist +began upon the stalks and stems, and they, too, slowly disappeared. She +then attacked the sprays of southernwood, and in spite of its bitter, +wormwoody flavor, having nothing else to do, she finished it, all but the +tough stems, just as the long sermon was brought to a close. Her waking +mother, discovering no signs of green verdure in the pew, quickly drew +forth a whispered confession of the time-killing Nebuchadnezzar-like feast, +and frightened and horrified, at once bore the leaf-gorged child from +the church, signalling in her retreat to the village doctor, who quickly +followed and administered to the omnivorous young New Englander a bolus +which made her loathe to her dying day, through a sympathetic association +and 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 with +affectionate 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 their +old-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 the +southernwood and made it specially fit to be a Sabbath-day posy. These +traditions are softened by the influence of years into simply idealizing, +in the mind of every country-bred New Englander, the peculiar refreshing +scent of the southernwood as a typical Sabbath-day fragrance. Half a +century ago, the pretty feathery pale-green shrub grew in every country +door-yard, humble or great, throughout New England; and every church-going +woman picked a branch or spray of it when she left her home on Sabbath +morn. To this day, on hot summer Sundays, many a staid old daughter of +the Puritans may be seen entering the village meeting-house, clad in +a lilac-sprigged lawn or a green-striped barege,--a scanty-skirted, +surplice-waisted relic of past summers,--with a lace-bordered silk cape +or a delicate, time-yellowed, purple and white cashmere scarf on her bent +shoulders, wearing on her gray head a shirred-silk or leghorn bonnet, and +carrying in her lace-mitted hand a fresh handkerchief, her spectacle-case +and 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 posy +for the Lord's House and the Lord's Day. And balmier breath than was +ever borne by blossom is the pure fragrance of green growing +things,--southernwood, mint, sweet fern, bayberry, sweetbrier. No rose is +half 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 sit +upon. It is a matter of recent tradition that Colonel Greenleaf caused a +nine days' talk in Newbury town at the beginning of this century when +he cushioned his pew. The widow of Sir William Pepperell, who lived in +imposing style, had her pew cushioned and lined and curtained with +worsted stuff, and carpeted with a heavy bear-skin. This worn, faded, and +moth-eaten furniture remained in the Kittery church until the year 1840, +just as when Lady Pepperell furnished and occupied the pew. Nor were even +the 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, to +rest upon. + +In many churches--in Durham, Concord and Sandwich--the pews had +swing-shelves, "leaning shelves," upon which a church attendant could rest +his paper and his arm when taking notes from the sermon, as was at one time +the universal custom, and in which even school-boys of a century ago had +to take part. Funny stories are told of the ostentatious notes taken by +pompous parishioners who could neither write nor read, but who could +scribble, and thus cut a learned figure. + +The doors of the pews were usually cut down somewhat lower than the +pew-walls, and frequently had no top-rails. They sometimes bore the name of +the pew-owner painted in large white letters. They were secured when +closed by clumsy wooden buttons. In many country congregations the elderly +men--stiff old farmers--had a fashion of standing up in the middle of the +sermon to stretch their cramped limbs, and they would lean against and hang +over 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 and +diverting himself. One day, having ill-secured the wooden button at the +door of his pew, the leaning-place gave way under his weight, and out he +sprawled 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 was +frequent in meeting, and the more duller the sermon, the more likely it was +that 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 satisfactory +performance in the church work in early New England than "seating the +meeting-house." Our Puritan forefathers, though bitterly denouncing all +forms and ceremonies, were great respecters of persons; and in nothing was +the regard for wealth and position more fully shown than in designating the +seat in which each person should sit during public worship. A committee of +dignified and influential men was appointed to assign irrevocably to each +person his or her place, according to rank and importance. Whittier wrote +of 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 at +each fresh seating, in order to obviate any of the effects of partiality +through kinship, friendship, personal esteem, or debt. A second committee +was also appointed to seat the members of committee number one, in order +that, as Haverhill people phrased it, "there may be no Grumbling at them +for picking and placing themselves." + +This seating committee sent to the church the list of all the attendants +and the seats assigned to them, and when the list had been twice or thrice +read to the congregation, and nailed on the meeting-house door, it became a +law. Then some such order as this of the church at Watertown, Connecticut, +was passed: "It is ordered that the next Sabbath Day every person shall +take his or her seat appointed to them, and not go to any other seat where +others are placed: And if any one of the inhabitants shall act contrary, he +shall for the first offence be reproved by the deacons, and for a second +pay a fine of two shillings, and a like fine for each offence ever +after." Or this of the Stratham church: "When the comety have Seatid the +meeting-house every person that is Seatid shall set in those Seats or pay +Five Shillings Pir Day for every day they set out of There seats in a +Disorderly Manner to advance themselves Higher in the meeting-house." These +two church-laws were very lenient. In many towns the punishments and fines +were much more severe. Two men of Newbury were in 1669 fined L27 4s. +each for "disorderly going and setting in seats belonging to others." They +were 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 for +reconsideration of their special cases and for promotion to a higher pew +before the final orders were "Jsued." + +In all the Puritan meetings, as then and now in Quaker meetings, the men +sat on one side of the meeting-house and the women on the other; and they +entered by separate doors. It was a great and much-contested change when +men and women were ordered to sit together "promiscuoslie." In front, +on either side of the pulpit (or very rarely in the foremost row in the +gallery), was a seat of highest dignity, known as the "foreseat," in which +only the persons of greatest importance in the community sat. + +Sometimes a row of square pews was built on three sides of the ground +floor, and each pew occupied by separate families, while the pulpit was +on the fourth side. If any man wished such a private pew for himself and +family, he obtained permission from the church and town, and built it at +his own expense. Immediately in front of the pulpit was either a long seat +or 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 was +reached by two or three steep, narrow steps. On a still higher plane was a +pew for the ruling elders, when ruling elders there were. The magistrates +also 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's +family. When there were twenty-six children in the family, as at least one +New England parson could boast, and when ministers' families of twelve +or fourteen children were far from unusual, it is no wonder that we find +frequent votes to "inlarge the ministers wives pew the breadth of the +alley," or to "take in the next pue to the ministers wives pue into her +pue." The seats in the gallery were universally regarded in the early +churches as the most exalted, in every sense, in the house, with the +exception, of course, of the dignity-bearing foreseat and the few private +pews. + +It is easy to comprehend what a source of disappointed anticipation, +heart-burning jealousy, offended dignity, unseemly pride, and bitter +quarrelling this method of assigning scats, and ranking thereby, must have +been in those little communities. How the goodwivcs must have hated the +seating committee! Though it was expressly ordered, when the committee +rendered their decision, that "the inhabitants are to rest silent and +sett down satysfyed," who can still the tongue of an envious woman or an +insulted man? Though they were Puritans, they were first of all men and +women, and complaints and revolts were frequent. Judge Sewall records that +one indignant dame "treated Captain Osgood very roughly on account of +seating the meeting-house." To her the difference between a seat in the +first and one in the second row was immeasurably great. It was not alone +the 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 in +dignity; thus could peace and contented pride be partially restored. For +instance, the seating committee in the Sutton church used their "best +discresing," and voted that "the third seat below be equal in dignity with +the foreseat in the front gallery, and the fourth seat below be equal in +dignity with the foreseat in the side gallery," etc., thus making many +seats of equal honor. Of course wives had to have seats of equal importance +with those of their husbands, and each widow retained the dignity +apportioned 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 thoughtful +judgment that could be shown, the dissensions over the seating lasted for +years. The conciliatory fashion of "dignifying the seats" clung long in the +Congregational churches of New England. In East Hartford and Windsor it was +not abandoned until 1824. + +Many men were unwilling to serve on these seating committees, and refused +to "medle with the seating," protesting against it on account of the odium +that was incurred, but they were seldom "let off." Even so influential and +upright a man as Judge Sewall felt a dread of the responsibility and of +the personal spleen he might arouse. He also feared in one case lest his +seat-decisions might, if disliked, work against the ministerial peace of +his son, who had been recently ordained as pastor of the church. Sometimes +the difficulty was settled in this way: the entire church (or rather the +male members) voted who should occupy the foreseat, or the highest pew, and +the voted-in occupants of this seat of honor formed a committee, who in +turn seated the others of the congregation. + +In the town of Rowley, "age, office, and the amount paid toward building +the meeting-house were considered when assigning seats." Other towns had +very amusing and minute rules for seating. Each year of the age counted one +degree. Military service counted eight degrees. The magistrate's office +counted ten degrees. Every forty shillings paid in on the church rate +counted one degree. We can imagine the ambitious Puritan adding up his +degrees, and paying in forty shillings more in order to sit one seat above +his 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 over +the seating. In Windham, Connecticut, in 1762, the adoption of this +pacificatory measure only increased the dissension when it was discovered +that some miserable "bachelors who never paid for more than one head and +a horse" had bid in several of the best pews in the meeting-house. In New +London, two women, sisters-in-law, were seated side by side. Each claimed +the upper or more dignified seat, and they quarrelled so fiercely over the +occupation of it that they had to be brought before the town meeting. + +In no way could honor and respect be shown more satisfactorily in the +community than by the seat assigned in meeting. When Judge Sewall married +his second wife, he writes with much pride: "Mr. Oliver in the names of the +Overseers invites my Wife to sit in the foreseat. I thought to have brought +her into my pue. I thankt him and the Overseers." His wife died in a few +months, and he reproached himself for his pride in this honor, and left the +seat which he had in the men's foreseat. "God in his holy Sovereignty put +my wife out of the Fore Seat. I apprehended I had Cause to be ashamed of my +Sin and loath myself for it, and retired into my Pue," which was of course +less dignified than the foreseat. + +Often, in thriving communities, the "pues" and benches did not afford +seating room enough for the large number who wished to attend public +worship, and complaints were frequent that many were "obliged to sit +squeased on the stairs." Persons were allowed to bring chairs and stools +into the meeting-house, and place them in the "alleys." These extra seats +became often such encumbering nuisances that in many towns laws were passed +abolishing and excluding them, or, as in Hadley, ordering them "back of the +women's seats." In 1759 it was ordered in that town to "clear the Alleys of +the meeting-house of chairs and other Incumbrances." Where the chairless +people went is not told; perhaps they sat in the doorway, or, in the summer +time, listened outside the windows. One forward citizen of Hardwicke had +gradually moved his chair down the church alley, step by step, Sunday after +Sunday, from one position of dignity to another still higher, until at last +he boldly invaded the deacons' seat. When, in the year 1700, this honored +position was forbidden him, in his chagrin and mortification he committed +suicide by hanging. + +The young men sat together in rows, and the young women in corresponding +seats on the other side of the house. In 1677 the selectmen of Newbury +gave permission to a few young women to build a pew in the gallery. It is +impossible to understand why this should have roused the indignation of the +bachelors of the town, but they were excited and angered to such a pitch +that they broke a window, invaded the meeting-house, and "broke the pue in +pessis." For this sacrilegious act they were fined L10 each, and sentenced +to be whipped or pilloried. In consideration, however, of the fact that +many of them had been brave soldiers, the punishment was omitted when they +confessed and asked forgiveness. This episode is very comical; it exhibits +the Puritan youth in such an ungallant and absurd light. When, ten years +later, liberty was given to ten young men, who had sat in the "foure backer +seats in the gallery," to build a pew in "the hindermost seat in the +gallery behind the pulpit," it is not recorded that the Salem young women +made any objection. In the Woburn church, the four daughters of one of the +most respected families in the place received permission to build a pew in +which to sit. Here also such indignant and violent protests were made by +the young men that the selectmen were obliged to revoke the permission. +It would be interesting to know the bachelors' discourteous objections to +young women being allowed to own a pew, but no record of their reasons +is given. Bachelors were so restricted and governed in the colonies that +perhaps they resented the thought of any independence being allowed to +single women. Single men could not live alone, but were forced to reside +with some family to whom the court assigned them, and to do in all respects +just what the court ordered. Thus, in olden times, a man had to marry to +obtain his freedom. The only clue to a knowledge of the cause of the fierce +and resentful objection of New England young men to permitting the young +women of the various congregations to build and own a "maids pue" is +contained in the record of the church of the town of Scotland, Connecticut. +"An Hurlburt, Pashants and Mary Lazelle, Younes Bingham, prudenc Hurlburt +and Jerusha meachem" were empowered to build a pew "provided they build +within a year and raise ye pue no higher than the seat is on the Mens +side." "Never ye Less," saith the chronicle, "ye above said have built said +pue much higher than ye order, and if they do not lower the same within one +month from this time the society comitte shall take said pue away." Do you +wonder that the bachelors resented this towering "maids pue?" that they +would not be scornfully looked down upon every Sabbath by women-folk, +especially by a girl named "meachem"? Pashants and Younes and prudenc had +to quickly come down from their unlawfully high church-perch and take a +more humble seat, as befitted them; thus did their "vaulting ambition +o'erleap itself and fall on the other side." Perhaps the Salem maids also +built too high and imposing a pew. In Haverhill, in 1708, young women were +permitted to build pews, provided they did not "damnify the Stairway." This +somewhat profane-sounding restriction they heeded, and the Haverhill maids +occupied their undamnifying "pue" unmolested. Medford young women, however, +in 1701, when allowed only one side gallery for seats, while the young men +were assigned one side and all the front gallery, made such an uproar that +the 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 days +the young mothers often sat at the meeting-house door or in the porch,--if +porch there were,--where, listening to the word of God, they could attend +also to the wants of their babes. I have heard, too, of a little cage, or +frame, which was to be seen in the early meeting-houses, for the purpose +of holding children who were too young to sit alone,--poor Puritan babies! +Little girls sat with their mothers or elder sisters on "crickets" within +the pews; or if the family were over-numerous, the children and crickets +exundated into "the alley without the pues." Often a row of little +daughters of Zion sat on three-legged stools and low seats the entire +length of the aisle,--weary, sleepy, young sentinels "without the gates." + +The boys, the Puritan boys, those wild animals who were regarded with such +suspicion, such intense disfavor, by all elderly Puritan eyes, and who were +publicly stigmatized by the Duxbury elders as "ye wretched boys on ye Lords +Day," were herded by themselves. They usually sat on the pulpit and gallery +stairs, and constables or tithingmen were appointed to watch over them and +control them. In Salem, in 1676, it was ordered that "all ye boyes of ye +towne are and shall be appointed to sitt upon ye three pair of stairs in ye +meeting-house on ye Lords Day, and Wm. Lord is appointed to look after ye +boyes yt sitte upon ye pulpit stairs. Reuben Guppy is to look and order soe +many of ye boyes as may be convenient, and if any are unruly, to present +their names, as the law directs." Nowadays we should hardly seat boys in a +group if we wished them to be orderly and decorous, and I fear the man "by +the name of Guppy" found it no easy task to preserve order and due gravity +among the Puritan boys in Salem meeting. In fact, the rampant boys behaved +thus badly for the very reason that they were seated together instead of +with their respective families; and not until the fashion was universal of +each family sitting in a pew or group by itself did the boys in meeting +behave like human beings rather than like mischievous and unruly monkeys. + +In Stratford, in 1668, a tithingman was "appointed to watch over the youths +of disorderly carriage, and see that they behave themselves comelie, and +use such raps and blows as in his discretion meet." + +I like to think of those rows of sober-faced Puritan boys seated on the +narrow, steep pulpit stairs, clad in knee-breeches and homespun flapped +coats, and with round, cropped heads, miniature likenesses in dress and +countenance (if not in deportment) of their grave, stern, God-fearing +fathers. Though they were of the sedate Puritan blood, they were boys, and +they wriggled and twisted, and scraped their feet noisily on the sanded +floor; 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 back +of the luckless wight who chanced to sit in front of and below him on the +pulpit stairs. Many a dried kernel of Indian corn was surreptitiously +snapped at the head of an unwary neighbor, and many a sly word was +whispered and many a furtive but audible "snicker" elicited when the dread +tithingman was "having an eye-out" and administering "discreet raps and +blows" 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 and +Wry Faces caused laughter and misbehavior in the Beholders." The girls were +not one whit better behaved. One of "ye tything men chosen of ye town of +Norwich" reported that "Tabatha Morgus of s'd Norwich Did on ye 24th day +February it being Sabbath on ye Lordes Day, prophane ye Lordes Day in ye +meeting house of ye west society in ye time of ye forenoone service on s'd +Day by her rude and Indecent Behaviour in Laughing and Playing in ye time +of ye s'd Service which Doinges of ye s'd Tabatha is against ye peace of +our Sovereign Lord ye King, his Crown and Dignity." Wanton Tabatha had to +pay three shilings sixpence for her ill-timed mid-winter frolic. Perhaps +she laughed to try to keep warm. Those who laughed at the misdemeanors of +others were fined as well. Deborah Bangs, a young girl, in 1755 paid a fine +of five shillings for "Larfing in the Wareham Meeting House in time of +Public Worship," and a boy at the same time, for the same offence, paid a +fine of ten shillings. He may have laughed louder and longer. In a law-book +in which Jonathan Trumbull recorded the minor cases which he tried as +justice of the peace, was found this entry: "His Majesties Tithing man +entered complaint against Jona. and Susan Smith, that on the Lords Day +during Divine Service, they did _smile_." They were found guilty, and +each was fined five shillings and costs,--poor smiling Susan and Jonathan. + +Those wretched Puritan boys, those "sons of Belial," whittled, too, and cut +the woodwork and benches of the meeting-house in those early days, just as +their descendants have ever since hacked and cut the benches and desks in +country schoolhouses,--though how they ever eluded the vigilant eye and ear +of the ubiquitous tithingman long enough to whittle will ever remain an +unsolved mystery of the past. This early forerunning evidence of what +has become a characteristic Yankee trait and habit was so annoyingly and +extensively exhibited in Medford, in 1729, that an order was passed to +prosecute and punish "all who cut the seats in the meeting-house." + +Few towns were content to have one tithingman and one staff, but ordered +that there should be a guardian set over the boys in every corner of the +meeting-house. In Hanover it was ordered "That there be some sticks set up +in various places in the meeting-house, and fit persons by them and _to +use them_." I doubt not that the sticks were well used, and Hanover boys +were well rapped in meeting. + +The Norwalk people come down through history shining with a halo of gentle +lenity, 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 he +would rather have been treated as were Hartford boys by cruel Hartford +church folk, who ordered that if "any boye shall be taken playing or +misbehaving himself in the time of publick worship whether in the +meeting-house or about the walls he shall be examined and punished at the +present 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 and +beautiful lessons were taught to these Durham boys at these Monday morning +interviews, and have descended to us in tradition; and the good Mr. +Chauncey stands out a shining light of Christian patience and forbearance +at a time when every other New England minister, from John Cotton down, +preached and practised the stern repression and sharp correction of all +children, and chanted together in solemn chorus, "Foolishness is bound up +in 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 the +laughing, sporting, or whittling boy, took him by the collar or the arm, +led him ostentatiously across the meeting-house, and seated him by his +shamefaced mother on the women's side. It was as if one grandly proud in +kneebreeches should be forced to walk abroad in petticoats. Far rather +would the disgraced boy have been whacked soundly with the heavy knob of +the tithingman's staff; for bodily pain is soon forgotten, while mortifying +abasement lingers long. + +The tithingman could also take any older youth who misbehaved or "acted +unsivill" in meeting from his manly seat with the grown men, and force him +to sit again with the boys; "if any over sixteen are disorderly, they shall +be ordered to said seats." Not only could these men of authority keep the +boys in order during meeting, but they also had full control during the +nooning, and repressed and restrained and vigorously corrected the luckless +boys during the midday hours. When seats in the galleries grew to be +regarded as inferior to seats and pews on the ground floor, the boys, who +of course must have the worst place in the house, were relegated from the +pulpit stairs to pews in the gallery, and these square, shut-off pews grew +to be what Dr. Porter called "the Devil's play-houses," and turbulent +outbursts 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, if +the big boys (who ought to have known better) "behaved unseemly," one of +the tithing-men who "took turns to set in the Galary" was ordered "to bring +Such Bois out of the Galary & set them before the Deacon's Seat" with the +small boys. In Plainfield, Connecticut, the "pestigeous" boys managed to +invent a new form of annoyance,--they "damnified the glass;" and a church +regulation had to be passed to prevent, or rather to try to prevent them +from "opening the windows or in any way damnifying the glass." It was +doubtless hot work scuffling and wrestling in the close, shut-in pews high +up under the roof, and they naturally wished to cool down by opening or +breaking the windows. Grown persons could not inconsiderately open the +church windows either. "The Constables are desired to _take notic_ +of the persons that open the windows in the tyme of publick worship." No +rheumatic-y draughts, no bronchitis-y damps, no pure air was allowed to +enter the New England meeting-house. The church doubtless took a vote +before it allowed a single window to be opened. + +In Westfield, Massachusetts, the boys became so abominably rampant that the +church formally decided "that if there is not a Reformation Respecting +the Disorders in the Pews built on the Great Beam in the time of Publick +Worship the comite can pul it down." + +The fashion of seating the boys in pews by themselves was slow of +abolishment in many of the churches. In Windsor, Connecticut, "boys' pews" +were a feature of the church until 1845. As years rolled on, the tithingmen +became restricted in their authority: they could no longer administer "raps +and blows;" they were forced to content themselves with loud rappings on +the floor, and pointing with a staff or with a condemning finger at the +misdemeanant. At last the deacons usurped these functions, and if rapping +and pointing did not answer the purpose of establishing order (if the boy +"psisted"), led the stubborn offender out of meeting; and they had full +authority soundly to thrash the "wretched boy" on the horse-block. Rev. Dr. +Dakin tells the story that, hearing a terrible noise and disturbance while +he was praying in a church in Quincy, he felt constrained to open his eyes +to ascertain the cause thereof; and he beheld a red-haired boy firmly +clutching the railing on the front edge of the gallery, while a venerable +deacon as firmly clutched the boy. The young rebel held fast, and the +correcting 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 the +triumphant deacon left the meeting-house to finish their little affair; +and unmistakable swishing sounds, accompanied by loud wails and whining +protestations, were soon heard from the region of the horse-sheds. Parents +never resented such chastisings; it was expected, and even desired, +that boys should be whipped freely by every school-master and person of +authority 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 by +themselves. The black women were all seated on a long bench or in an +inclosed pew labelled "B.W.," and the negro men in one labelled "B.M." One +William Mills, a jesting soul, being asked by a pompous stranger where he +could sit in meeting, told the visitor that he was welcome to sit in Bill +Mills's pew, and that it was marked "B.M." The man, who chanced to be +ignorant of the local custom of marking the negro seats, accepted the kind +invitation, and seated himself in the black men's pew, to the delight of +Bill Mills, the amusement of the boys, the scandal of the elders, and his +own disgust. + +Sometimes a little pew or short gallery was built high up among the beams +and joists over the staircase which led to the first gallery, and was +called the "swallows' nest," or the "roof pue," or the "second gallery." It +was reached by a steep, ladder-like staircase, and was often assigned to +the negroes and Indians of the congregation. + +Often "ye seat between ye Deacons seat and ye pulpit is for persons hard of +hearing to sett in." In nearly every meeting a bench or pew full of aged +men might be seen near the pulpit, and this seat was called, with Puritan +plainness of speech, the "Deaf Pew." Some very deaf church members (when +the boys were herded elsewhere) sat on the pulpit stairs, and even in the +pulpit, alongside the preacher, where they disconcertingly upturned their +great tin ear-trumpets directly in his face. The persistent joining in the +psalm-singing by these deaf old soldiers and farmers was one of the bitter +trials which the leader of the choir had to endure. + +The singers' seats were usually in the galleries; sometimes upon the ground +floor, in the "hind-row on either side." Occasionally the choir sat in two +rows of seats that extended quite across the floor of the house, in front +of the deacons' seat and the pulpit. The men singers then sat facing the +congregation, while the women singers faced the pulpit. Between them ran a +long rack for the psalm-books. When they sang they stood up, and bawled and +fugued 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, when +at rest, the psalm-books. When they sang, the choir thus formed a hollow +square, 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 of +repentance. "Barbarous and cruel punishments" were forbidden by the +statutes 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 long +Christian sermon; cowering before the hard, pitiless gaze of the assembled +and godly congregation, and the cold rebuke of the pious minister's averted +face; bearing on the poor sinful head a deep-branding paper inscribed in +"Capitall Letters" with the name of some dark or mysterious crime, or +wearing on the sleeve some strange and dread symbol, or on the breast a +scarlet letter. + +Let us thank God that these soul-blasting and hope-killing exposures--so +degrading to the criminal, so demoralizing to the community,--these foul, +in-human blots on our fair and dearly loved Puritan Lord's Day, were never +frequent, nor did the form of punishment obtain for a long time. In 1681 +two women were sentenced to sit during service on a high stool in the +middle alley of the Salem meeting-house, having on their heads a paper +bearing the name of their crime; and a woman in Agamenticus at about the +same date was ordered "to stand in a white sheet publicly two several +Sabbath-Days with the mark of her offence on her forehead." These are the +latest 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 alloted +place as absolutely assigned to him in the old meeting-house as was the +pulpit to the parson. Much has been said in semi-ridicule of this old +custom of "seating" and "dignifying," yet it did not in reality differ much +from 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 figure +in the dull New England church-life was the tithingman. This fairly +burlesque creature impresses me always with a sense of unreality, of +incongruity, of strange happening, like a jesting clown in a procession of +monks, like a strain of low comedy in the sober religious drama of early +New England Puritan life; so out of place, so unreal is this fussy, +pompous, restless tithingman, with his fantastic wand of office fringed +with dangling foxtails,--creaking, bustling, strutting, peering around the +quiet meeting-house, prodding and rapping the restless boys, waking the +drowsy sleepers; for they slept in country churches in the seventeenth +century, notwithstanding dread of fierce correction, just as they nod +and doze and softly puff, unawakened and unrebuked, in village churches +throughout New England in the nineteenth century. + +This absurd and distorted type of the English church beadle, this colonial +sleep banisher, was equipped with a long staff, heavily knobbed at one end, +with which he severely and pitilessly rapped the heads of the too sleepy +men, and the too wide-awake boys. From the other end of this wand of office +depended a long foxtail, or a hare's-foot, which he softly thrust in the +faces of the sleeping Priscillas, Charitys, and Hopestills, and which +gently brushed and tickled them into reverent but startled wakefulness. + +One zealous but too impetuous tithingman in his pious ardor of office +inadvertently applied the wrong end, the end with the heavy knob, the +masculine end, to a drowsy matron's head; and for this severely ungallant +mistake he was cautioned by the ruling elders to thereafter use "more +discresing and less heist." + +Another over-watchful Newbury "awakener" rapped on the head a nodding man +who protested indignantly that he was wide-awake, and was only bowing in +solemn assent and approval of the minister's arguments. Roger Scott, of +Lynn, in 1643 struck the tithingman who thus roughly and suddenly wakened +him; and poor sleepy and bewildered Roger, who is branded through all time +as "a common sleeper at the publick exercise," was, for this most naturally +resentful act, but also most shockingly grave offence, soundly whipped, as +a warning both to keep awake and not to strike back in meeting. + +Obadiah Turner, of Lynn, gives in his Journal a sad, sad disclosure of +total 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 in +meeting. And being much proude of his place, must needs have a fox taile +fixed to ye ende of a long staff wherewith he may brush ye faces of them yt +will have napps in time of discourse, likewise a sharpe thorne whereby he +may pricke such as be most sound. On ye last Lord his day, as hee strutted +about 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 and +give him a grievous prick upon ye hand. Whereupon Mr. Tomlins did spring +vpp mch above ye floore, and with terrible force strike hys hand against +ye wall; and also, to ye great wonder of all, prophanlie exclaim in a loud +voice, curse ye wood-chuck, he dreaming so it seemed yt a wood-chuck had +seized and bit his hand. But on coming to know where he was, and ye greate +scandall he had committed, he seemed much abashed, but did not speak. And I +think he will not soon again goe to sleepe in meeting." + +How clear the picture! Can you not see it?--the warm June sunlight +streaming in through the narrow, dusty windows of the old meeting-house; +the armed watcher at the door; the Puritan men and women in their +sad-colored mantles seated sternly upright on the hard narrow benches; the +black-gowned minister, the droning murmur of whose sleepy voice mingles +with the out-door sounds of the rustle of leafy branches, the song of +summer birds, the hum of buzzing insects, and the muffled stamping of +horses' feet; the restless boys on the pulpit-stairs; the tired, sleeping +Puritan with his head thrown back in the corner of the pew; the vain, +strutting, tithingman with his fantastic and thorned staff of office; and +then--the sudden, electric wakening, and the consternation of the whole +staid and pious congregation at such terrible profanity in the house of +God. Ah!--it was not two hundred and forty years ago; when I read the +quaint words my Puritan blood stirs my drowsy brain, and I remember it all +well, just as I saw it last summer in June. + +Another catastrophe from too fierce zeal on the part of the tithingman +is recorded. An old farmer, worn out with a hard Saturday's work at +sheep-washing, fell asleep ere the hour-glass had once been turned. Though +he was a man of dignity, for he sat in his own pew, he could not escape the +rod of the pragmatical tithingman. Being rudely disturbed, but not wholly +wakened, the bewildered sheep-farmer sprung to his feet, seized his +astonished and mortified wife by the shoulders and shook her violently, +shouting at the top of his voice, "Haw back! haw back! Stand still, will +ye?" Poor goodman and goodwife! many years elapsed ere they recovered from +that keen disgrace. + +The ministers encouraged and urged the tithingmen to faithfully perform +their allotted work. One early minister "did not love sleepers in ye +meeting-house, and would stop short in ye exercise and call pleasantlie to +wake ye sleepers, and once of a warm Summer afternoon he did take hys hat +off from ye pegg in ye beam, and put it on, saying he would go home and +feed 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 he +suggested that they might like better the Church of England service of +sitting down and standing up, and we can be sure that this "was competent +to keepe their eyes open for a twelvemonth." + +All this was in the church of Mr. Whiting, of Lynn, a somewhat jocose +Puritan,--if jocularity in a Puritan is not too anomalous an attribute +to have ever existed. We can be sure that there was neither sleeping nor +jesting allusion to such an irreverence in Mr. Mather's, Mr. Welde's, or +Mr. Cotton's meetings. In many rigidly severe towns, as in Portsmouth in +1662 and in Boston in 1667, it was ordered by the selectmen as a proper +means of punishment that a "cage be made or some other means invented for +such as sleepe on the Lord's Daie." Perhaps they woke the offender up and +rudely and summarily dragged him out and caged him at once and kept him +thus prisoned throughout the nooning,--a veritable jail-bird. + +A rather unconventional and eccentric preacher in Newbury awoke one sleeper +in a most novel manner. The first name of the sleeping man was Mark, and +the preacher in his sermon made use of these Biblical words: "I say unto +you, mark the perfect man and behold the upright." But in the midst of his +low, monotonous sermon-voice he roared out the word "mark" in a loud shout +that brought the dozing Mark to his feet, bewildered but wide awake. + +Mr. Moody, of York, Maine, employed a similar device to awaken and mortify +the sleepers in meeting. He shouted "Fire, fire, fire!" and when the +startled and blinking men jumped up, calling out "Where?" he roared back in +turn, "In hell, for sleeping sinners." Rev. Mr. Phillips, of Andover, in +1755, openly rebuked his congregation for "sleeping away a great part of +the sermon;" and on the Sunday following an earthquake shock which was felt +throughout New England, he said he hoped the "Glorious Lord of the Sabbath +had given them such a shaking as would keep them awake through one +sermon-time." Other and more autocratic parsons did not hesitate to call +out their sleeping parishioners plainly by name, sternly telling them also +to "Wake up!" A minister in Brunswick, Maine, thus pointedly wakened one of +his sweet-sleeping church-attendants, a man of some dignity and standing +in the community, and received the shocking and tautological answer, "Mind +your own business, and go on with your sermon." + +The women would sometimes nap a little without being discovered. "Ye women +may sometimes sleepe and none know by reason of their enormous bonnets. Mr. +Whiting doth pleasantlie say from ye pulpit hee doth seeme to be preaching +to 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 obscuring +headgear in public assemblies are not entirely complaining protests of +modern growth. Other records refer to the annoyance from the exaggerated +size of bonnets. In 1769 the church in Andover openly "put to vote whether +the parish Disapprove of the Female sex sitting with their Hats on in the +Meeting-house in time of Divine Service as being Indecent." The parish did +Disapprove, with a capital D, for the vote passed in the affirmative. There +is no record, however, to tell whether the Indecent fashion was abandoned, +but I warrant no tithingman was powerful enough to make Andover women take +off their proudly worn Sunday bonnets if they did not want to. Another town +voted that it was the "Town's Mind" that the women should take off their +bonnets and "hang them on the peggs," as did the men their headgear. But +the Town's Mind was not a Woman's Mind; and the big-bonnet wearers, vain +though they were Puritans, did as they pleased with their own bonnets. +And indeed, in spite of votes and in spite of expostulations, the female +descendants of the Puritans, through constantly recurring waves of fashion, +have ever since been indecently wearing great obscuring hats and bonnets in +public assemblies, even up to the present day. + +The tithingman had other duties than awakening the sleepers and looking +after "the boyes that playes and rapping those boyes,"--in short, seeing +that every one was attentive in meeting except himself,--and the duties +and powers of the office varied in different communities. Several of these +officers were appointed in each parish. In Newbury, in 1688, there were +twenty tithingmen, and in Salem twenty-five. They were men of authority, +not only on Sunday, but throughout the entire week. Each had several +neighboring families (usually ten, as the word "tithing" would signify) +under his charge to watch during the week, to enforce the learning of the +catechism at home, especially by the children, and sometimes he heard them +"Say their Chatachize." These families he also watched specially on the +Sabbath, and reported whether all the members thereof attended public +worship. Not content with mounting guard over the boys on Sundays, he also +watched on weekdays to keep boys and "all persons from swimming in the +water." Do you think his duties were light in July and August, when school +was out, to watch the boys of ten families? One man watching one family +cannot prevent such "violations of the peace" in country towns now-a-days. +He sometimes inspected the "ordinaries" and made complaint of any disorders +which he there discovered, and gave in the names of "idle tiplers and +gamers," and he could warn the tavern-keeper to sell no more liquor to any +toper whom he knew or fancied was drinking too heavily. Josselyn complained +bitterly that during his visit to New England in 1663 at "houses of +entertainment called ordinaries into which a stranger went, he was +presently followed by one appointed to that office who would thrust himself +into his company uninvited, and if he called for more drink than the +officer thought in his judgment he could soberly bear away, he would +presently countermand it, and appoint the proportion beyond which he could +not 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 the +ministerial rate, though his principal duty was by no means the collecting +of tithes. He "worned peple out of ye towne." This warning was not at all +because the new-comers were objectionable or undesired, but was simply a +legal form of precaution, so that the parish would never be liable for the +keeping of the "worned" ones in case they thereafter became paupers. He +administered the "oath of fidelity" to new inhabitants. The tithingman +also watched to see that "no young people walked abroad on the eve of the +Sabbath,"--that is, on a Saturday night. He also marked and reported all +those "who lye at home," and others who "prophanely behaved, lingered +without dores at meeting time on the Lordes Daie," all the "sons of Belial +strutting about, setting on fences, and otherwise desecrating the +day." These last two classes of offenders were first admonished by the +tithingman, then "Sett in stocks," and then cited before the Court. They +were also confined in the cage on the meeting-house green, with the Lord's +Day sleepers. The tithingman could arrest any who walked or rode at too +fast a pace to and from meeting, and he could arrest any who "walked or +rode unnecessarily on the Sabath." Great and small alike were under his +control, 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 his +vigilance on the Sabbath. We all remember the amusing incident in "Oldtown +Folks." A similar one really happened. Two gay young sparks driving through +the town on the Sabbath were stopped by the tithingman; one offender said +mournfully in excuse of his Sabbath travel, "My grandmother is lying dead +in the next town." Being allowed to drive on, he stood up in his wagon when +at a safe distance and impudently shouted back, "And she's been lying dead +in 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 and +out of meeting,--a very necessary, but somewhat odious, and certainly at +times very absurd officer. He was in a degree a constable, a selectman, a +teacher, a tax-collector, an inspector, a sexton, a home-watcher, and above +all, a Puritan Bumble, whose motto was _Hie et ubique_. He was, in +fact, a general law-enforcer and order-keeper, whose various duties, +wherever still necessary and still performed, are now apportioned to +several individuals. The ecclesiastical functions and authority of the +tithingman lingered long after the civil powers had been removed or had +gradually passed away from his office. Persons are now living who in their +early and unruly youth were rapped at and pointed at by a New England +tithingman 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 a +long time after their introduction both watches and clocks were costly and +rare. John Davenport of New Haven, who died in 1670, left a clock to his +heirs; and E. Needham, who died in 1677, left a "Striking clock, a watch, +and a Larum that dus not Strike," worth L5; these are perhaps the first +records of the ownership of clocks and watches in New England. The time of +the day was indicated to our forefathers in their homes by "noon marks" on +the floor or window-seats, and by picturesque sundials; and in the +civil and religious meetings the passage of time was marked by a strong +brass-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 the +members of the congregation could easily watch "the sands that ran i' the +clock'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 often +as the sands ran out. This was a very ostentatious way of reminding the +clergyman how long he had preached; but if it were a hint to bring the +discourse to an end, it was never heeded; for contemporary historical +registers tell of most painfully long sermons, reaching up through long +sub-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 his +parishioners also) by preaching between four and five hours. Sermons which +occupied two or three hours were customary enough. One old Scotch clergyman +in Vermont, in the early years of this century, bitterly and fiercely +resented the "popish innovation and Sabbath profanation" of a Sunday-school +for the children, which some daring and progressive parishioners proposed +to hold at the "nooning." This canny Parson Whiteinch very craftily and +somewhat maliciously prolonged his morning sermons until they each occupied +three hours; thus he shortened the time between the two services to about +half an hour, and victoriously crowded out the Sunday-school innovators, +who had barely time to eat their cold lunch and care for their waiting +horses, ere it was time for the afternoon service to begin. But one man +cannot stop the tide, though he may keep it for a short time from one +guarded and sheltered spot; and the rebellious Vermont congregation, after +two or three years of tedious three-hour sermons, arose in a body and +crowded out the purposely prolix preacher, and established the wished-for +Sunday-school. The vanquished parson thereafter sullenly spent the noonings +in the horse-shed, to which he ostentatiously carried the big church-Bible +in order that it might not be at the service of the profaning teachers. + +An irreverent caricature of the colonial days represents a phenomenally +long-preaching clergyman as turning the hour-glass by the side of his +pulpit and addressing his congregation thus, "Come! you are all good +fellows, we'll take another glass together!" It is recorded of Rev. Urian +Oakes that often the hour-glass was turned four times during one of his +sermons. The warning legend, "Be Short," which Cotton Mather inscribed over +his study door was not written over his pulpit; for he wrote in his diary +that at his own ordination he prayed for an hour and a quarter, and +preached for an hour and three quarters. Added to the other ordination +exercises these long Mather addresses must have been tiresome enough. +Nathaniel Ward deplored at that time, "Wee have a strong weakness in New +England that when wee are speaking, wee know not how to conclude: wee make +many ends before wee make an end." + +Dr. Lord of Norwich always made a prayer which was one hour long; and an +early Dutch traveller who visited New England asserted that he had heard +there on Fast Day a prayer which was two hours long. These long prayers +were universal and most highly esteemed,--a "poor gift in prayer" being a +most deplored and even despised clerical short-coming. Had not the Puritans +left the Church of England to escape "stinted prayers"? Whitefield prayed +openly for Parson Barrett of Hopkinton, who could pray neither freely, nor +well, that "God would open this dumb dog's mouth;" and everywhere in the +Puritan Church, precatory eloquence as evinced in long prayers was felt to +be 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 the +middle of his petition the minister usually made a long pause in order that +any who were infirm or ill might let down their slamming pew-seats and sit +down; those who were merely weary stood patiently to the long and painfully +deferred end. This custom of standing during prayer-time prevailed in the +Congregational churches in New England until quite a recent date, and is +not yet obsolete in isolated communities and in solitary cases. I have seen +within a few years, in a country church, a feeble, white-haired old deacon +rise tremblingly at the preacher's solemn words "Let us unite in prayer," +and stand with bowed head throughout the long prayer; thus pathetically +clinging to the reverent custom of the olden time, he rendered tender +tribute to vanished youth, gave equal tribute to eternal hope and faith, +and formed a beautiful emblem of patient readiness for the last solemn +summons. + +Sometimes tedious expounding of the Scriptures and long "prophesying" +lengthened out the already too long service. Judge Sewall recorded that +once when he addressed or expounded at the Plymouth Church, "being afraid +to look at the glass, ignorantly and unwittingly I stood two hours and a +half," which was doing pretty well for a layman. + +The members of the early churches did not dislike these long preachings and +prophesyings; they would have regarded a short sermon as irreligious, +and lacking in reverence, and besides, would have felt that they had not +received in it their full due, their full money's worth. They often fell +asleep and were fiercely awakened by the tithingman, and often they could +not have understood the verbose and grandiose language of the preacher. +They were in an icy-cold atmosphere in winter, and in glaring, unshaded +heat in summer, and upon most uncomfortable, narrow, uncushioned seats at +all seasons; but in every record and journal which I have read, throughout +which ministers and laymen recorded all the annoyances and opposition which +the preachers encountered, I have never seen one entry of any complaint or +ill-criticism of too long praying or preaching. Indeed, when Rev. Samuel +Torrey, of Weymouth, Massachusetts, prayed two hours without stopping, upon +a public Fast Day in 1696, it is recorded that his audience only wished +that the prayer had been much longer. + +When we consider the training and exercise in prayer that the New England +parsons had in their pulpits on Sundays, in their own homes on Saturday +nights, on Lecture Days and Fast Days and Training Days, and indeed upon +all times and occasions, can we wonder at Parson Boardman's prowess in New +Milford in 1735? He visited a "praying" Indian's home wherein lay a sick +papoose over whom a "pow-wow" was being held by a medicine-man at the +request of the squaw-mother, who was still a heathen. The Christian warrior +determined to fight the Indian witch-doctor on his own grounds, and while +the medicine-man was screaming and yelling and dancing in order to cast the +devil out ol the child, the parson began to pray with equal vigor and power +of lungs to cast out the devil of a medicine-man. As the prayer and +pow-wow proceeded the neighboring Indians gathered around, and soon became +seriously alarmed for the success of their prophet. The battle raged for +three hours, when the pow-wow ended, and the disgusted and exhausted Indian +ran out of the wigwam and jumped into the Housatonic River to cool his +heated blood, leaving the Puritan minister triumphant in the belief, and +indeed with positive proof, that he could pray down any man or devil. + +The colonists could not leave the meeting-house before the long sen ices +were ended, even had they wished, for the tithingman allowed no deserters. +In Salem, in 1676, it was "ordered by ye Selectmen yt the three Constables +doe attend att ye three greate doores of ye meeting-house every Lordes Day +att ye end of ye sermon, both forenoone and afternoone, and to keep ye +doores fast and suffer none to goe out before ye whole exercises bee +ended." Thus Salem people had to listen to no end of praying and +prophesying from their ministers and elders for they "couldn't get out." + +As the years passed on, the church attendants became less referential and +much more impatient and fearless, and soon after the Revolutionary War one +man in Medford made a bargain with his minister--Rev. Dr. Osgood--that he +would attend regularly the church services every Sunday morning, provided +he could always leave at twelve o'clock. On each Sabbath thereafter, as +the obstinate preacher would not end his sermon one minute sooner than +his habitual time, which was long after twelve, the equally stubborn +limited-time worshipper arose at noon, as he had stipulated, and stalked +noisily out of meeting. + +A minister about to preach in a neighboring parish was told of a custom +which prevailed there of persons who lived at a distance rising and leaving +the 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 the +sinners, and the latter part to the saints, and that the sinners would of +course all leave as soon as their portion had been delivered. Every soul +remained until the end of the service. + +At last, when other means of entertainment and recreation than church-going +became common, and other forms of public addresses than sermons were +frequently given, New England church-goers became so restless and +rebellious under the regime of hour-long prayers and indefinitely +protracted sermons that the long services were gradually condensed and +curtailed, 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 have +been hard to endure in the unheated churches in bitter winter weather, so +bitter that, as Judge Sewall pathetically recorded, "The communion bread +was frozen pretty hard and rattled sadly into the plates." Sadly down +through the centuries is ringing in our ears the gloomy rattle of that +frozen sacramental bread on the Church plate, telling to us the solemn +story of the austere and comfortless church-life of our ancestors. Would +that the sound could bring to our chilled hearts the same steadfast and +pure Christian faith that made their gloomy, freezing services warm with +God's loving presence! + +Again Judge Sewall wrote: "Extraordinary Cold Storm of Wind and Snow. Blows +much more as coming home at Noon, and so holds on. Bread was frozen at +Lord's Table. Though 't was so cold John Tuckerman was baptized. At six +o'clock my ink freezes, so that I can hardly write by a good fire in my +Wives chamber. Yet was very Comfortable at Meeting." In the penultimate +sentence of this quotation may be found the clue and explanation of the +seemingly incredible assertion in the last sentence. The reason why he was +comfortable in church was that he was accustomed to sit in cold rooms; even +with the great open-mouthed and open-chimneyed fireplaces full of blazing +logs, so little heat entered the rooms of colonial dwelling-houses that one +could not be warm unless fairly within the chimney-place; and thus, even +while sitting by the fire, his ink froze. Another entry of Judge Sewall's +tells 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 first +Sunday after birth, even in the most bitter weather. There are no entries +in Judge Sewall's diary which exhibit him in so lovable and gentle a light +as the records of the baptism of his fourteen children,--his pride when +the child did not cry out or shrink from the water in the freezing winter +weather, thus early showing true Puritan fortitude; and also his noble +resolves and hopes for their future. On this especially cold day when a +baby was baptized, the minister prayed for a mitigation of the weather, +and on the same day in another town "Rev. Mr. Wigglesworth preached on the +text, Who can stand before His Cold? Then by his own and people's sickness +three Sabbaths passed without public Worship." February 20 he preached from +these words: "He sends forth his word and thaws them." And the very next +day a thaw set in which was regarded as a direct answer to his prayer and +sermon. Sceptics now-a-days would suggest that he chose well the time to +pray for milder weather. + +Many persons now living can remember the universal and noisy turning up +of great-coat collars, the swinging of arms, and knocking together of the +heavy-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, have +a 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 irreverent +protest and complaint against the severity of the weather, rather than as a +hint to him to conclude his long sermon. He suddenly and noisily closed his +sermon-book, leaned forward out of his high pulpit, and thundered out these +Biblical words of rebuke at his freezing congregation, whose startled faces +stared up at him through dense clouds of vapor. "Out of whose womb came the +ice? And the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? The waters are +hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. Knowest thou the +ordinance of heaven? Canst thou set the dominion thereof on the earth? +Great things doth God which we cannot comprehend. He saith to the snow, Be +thou on the earth. By the breath of God frost is given. He causeth it to +come, whether for correction, or for his land, or for mercy. Hearken unto +this. _Stand still_, and consider the wondrous works of God." We can +believe that he roared out the words "stand still," and that there was no +more noise in that meeting-house on cold Sundays during the remainder of +that winter. + +The ministers might well argue that no one suffered more from the freezing +atmosphere than they did. In many records I find that they were forced to +preach and pray with their hands cased in woollen or fur mittens or heavy +knit gloves; and they wore long camlet cloaks in the pulpit and covered +their heads with skull caps--as did Judge Sewall--and possibly wore, as he +did also, a _hood_. Many a wig-hating minister must, in the Arctic +meeting-house, have longed secretly for the grateful warmth to his head and +neck of one of those "horrid Bushes of Vanity," a full-bottomed flowing +wig. + +On bitter winter days Dr. Stevens of Kittery used to send a servant to the +meeting-house to find out how many of his flock had braved the piercing +blasts. If only seven persons were present, the servant asked them to +return with him to the parsonage to listen to the sermon; but if there were +eight members in the meeting-house he so reported to the Doctor, who then +donned his long worsted cloak, tied it around his waist with a great +handkerchief, and attired thus, with a fur cap pulled down over his ears, +and with heavy mittens on his hands, ploughed through the deep snow to +the church, and in the same dress preached his long, knotty sermon in +his pulpit, while fierce wintry blasts rattled the windows and shook the +turret, and the eight godly, shivering souls wished profoundly that one of +their number had "lain at home in a slothfull, lazey, prophane way," and +thus permitted the seven others and the minister to have the sermon in +comfort in the parsonage kitchen before the great blazing logs in the open +fireplace. + +Ah, it makes one shiver even to think of those gloomy churches, growing +colder, and more congealed through weeks of heavy frost and fierce +northwesters until they bore the chill of death itself. One can but +wonder whether that fell scourge of New England, that hereditary +curse--consumption--did not have its first germs evolved and nourished in +our Puritan ancestors by the Spartan custom of sitting through the long +winter services in the icy, death-like meeting-houses. + +Of the insufficient clothing of the church attendants of olden times it +is unnecessary to speak with much detail. The goodmen with their heavy +top-boots or jack-boots, their milled or frieze stockings, their warm +periwigs surmounted by fur caps or beaver hats or hoods; and with their +many-caped great-coats or full round cloaks were dressed with a sufficient +degree of comfort, though they did not possess the warm woollen and silken +underclothing which now make a man's winter attire so comfortable. They +carried muffs too, as the advertisements of the times show. The "Boston +News Letter" of 1716 offers a reward for a man's muff lost on the Sabbath +day in the street. In 1725 Dr. Prince lost his black bearskin muff, and in +1740 a "sableskin man's muff" was advertised as having been lost. + +But the Puritan goodwives and maidens were dressed in a meagre and scanty +fashion that when now considered seems fairly appalling. As soon as +the colonies grew in wealth and fashion, thin silk or cotton hose were +frequently worn in midwinter by the wives and daughters of well-to-do +colonists; and correspondingly thin cloth or kid or silk slippers, +high-channelled pumps, or low shoes with paper soles and "cross-cut" or +wooden heels were the holiday and Sabbath-day covering for the feet. In wet +weather clogs and pattens formed an extra and much needed protection +when the fair colonists walked. Linen underclothing formed the first +superstructure of the feminine costume and threw its penetrating chill to +the very marrow of the bones. Often in mid-winter the scant-skirted French +calico gowns were made with short elbow sleeves and round, low necks, and +the throat and shoulders were lightly covered with thin lawn neckerchiefs +or dimity tuckers. The flaunting hooped-petticoat of another decade was +worn with a silk or brocade sacque. A thin cloth cape or mantle or spencer, +lined with sarcenet silk, was frequently the only covering for the +shoulders. In examining the treasured contents of old wardrobes, trunks, +and high-chests, and in reading the descriptions of women's winter attire +worn throughout the eighteenth and half through the nineteenth century, I +am convinced that the only portions of Puritan female anatomy that were +clothed with anything approaching respectable regard for health in the +inclement New England climate were the head and the hands. The hands of +"New English dames" were carefully protected with embroidered kid or +leather gloves (for the early New Englanders were great glove wearers) or +with warm knit woollen mittens, though mittens for women's wear were +always fingerless. The well-gloved hands were moreover warmly ensconced in +enormous stuffed muffs of bearskin which were almost as large as a +flour barrel, or in smaller muffs of rabbit-skin or mink or beaver. The +goodwives' heads bore, besides the close caps so universally worn, mufflers +and veils and hoods,--hoods of all kinds and descriptions, from the hoods +of serge and camlet and gauze and black silk that Mistress Estabrook, wife +of the Windham parson, proudly owned and wore, from the prohibited "silk +and tiffany hoods" of the earliest planters down through the centuries' +inflorescence of "hoods of crimson colored persian," "wild bore and hum-hum +long hoods," "pointed velvet capuchins," "scarlet gipsys," "pinnered +and tasselled hoods," "shirred lustring hoods," "hoods of rich pptuna," +"muskmelon hoods," to the warm quilted "punkin hoods" worn within this +century in country churches. These "punkin-hoods" were quilted with great +rolls of woollen wadding and drawn tight between the rolls with strong +cords. They formed a deafening and heating head-covering which always had +to be loosened and thrust back when the wearer was within doors. It +was only equalled in shapeless clumsiness and unique ugliness by its +summer-sister of the same date, the green silk calash,--that funniest and +quaintest of all New England feminine headgear,--a great sunshade that +could not be called a bonnet, always made of bright green silk shirred on +strong lengths of rattan or whalebone, and extendible after the fashion of +a chaise top. It could be drawn out over the face by a little green ribbon +or "bridle" that was fastened to the extreme front at the top; or it could +be pushed in a close-gathered mass on the back of the head These calashes +were frequently a foot and a half in diameter, and thus stood well up from +the 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 of +green silk or black vehet, with silver mouthpieces to place within the lips +and thus enable the wearer to keep the mask firmly in place. Sometimes two +little strings with a silver bead at one end were fastened to the mask, and +seined as mouthpieces. With a string and bead at either corner of the +mouth the mask-wearer could talk quite freely while still retaining her +face-covering in its protecting position. These masks were never worn +within doors. In the list of goods ordered by George Washington from Europe +for his fair bride Martha were several of these riding-masks, and the kind +step-father even ordered a supply of small masks for "Miss Custis," his +little step-daughter. + +In bitter winter weather women carried to meeting little +foot-stoves,--metal boxes which stood on legs and were filled with hot +coals at home, and a second time during the morning from the hearthstone of +a neighboring farm-house or a noon-house. These foot-warmers helped to make +endurable to the goodwives the icy chill of the meeting-house; and round +their mother's foot-stove the shivering little children sat on their low +crickets, warming their half-frozen fingers. + +Some of these foot-stoves were really pretentious church-furnishings. I +have seen one "brassen foot-stove" which had the owner's cipher cut out of +the sheet metal, and from the side was hung a wrought brass chain. By this +chain, a century ago, the shining polished brass stove was carried into +church in the hands of a liveried black man, who held it ostentatiously at +arms' length, that neither ash nor scorch might touch his scarlet velvet +breeches. And after he had tucked it under my lady's tiny feet as she sat +in 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 and +warmed himself with a bottle of "kill-devil" which he had smuggled into +church, until he fell ignominiously asleep and his drunken snores so +disturbed the minister and the congregation, that two tithingmen were +forced to climb the ladder-like staircase and pull him down and out of +the church and to the neighboring tavern to sleep off the effects of the +liquor. For being "a man and a brother" and, above all, in spite of his +petty idiosyncrasies, a very good and cherished servant, he could not be +thrust out into the snow to freeze to death. + +But with the extreme Puritan contempt of comfort even foot-stoves were +not always allowed. The First Church of Roxbury, after having one church +edifice destroyed by fire in 1747, prohibited the use of footstoves in +meeting, and the Roxbury matrons sat with frozen toes in their fine new +meeting-house. The Old South Church of Boston was not so rigid, though it +felt the same dread of fire; for we find this entry on the records of the +church under the date of January 10, 1771: "Whereas, danger is apprehended +from the [foot] stoves that arc frequently left in the meeting-house after +the publick worship is over; Voted, that the Saxton make diligent search on +the Lord's Day evening and in the evening after a lecture, to see if any +stoves are left in the house, and that if he find any there he take them +to his own house; and it is expected that the owners of such stoves make +reasonable satisfaction to the Saxton for his trouble before they take them +away." + +In Hardwicke, in 1792, it was ordered that "no stows be carried into our +new meeting-house with fire in them." The Hardwicke women may have found +comfort 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 of +coarse skins, such as wolf-skin, were nailed or tied to the edges of the +benches, 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 days +its "dogg" to meeting; where, lying at or on his master's feet, he proved +a source of grateful warmth. These animal stoves became such an abounding +nuisance, however, that dog-whippers had to be appointed to serve on +Sundays to drive out the dogs. All through the records of the early +churches we find such entries as this: "Whatsoever doggs come into the +meeting-house in time of public worship, their owners shall each pay +sixpence." Sixpence seems little, but the thrifty and poor Puritans would +rather freeze their toes than pay sixpence for their calorific dogs. + +The church members made many rules and regulations to keep the cold out of +the meeting-house during service-time, or perhaps we should say to keep the +wind 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 very +cold and windy seasons according to the lying of the wind from time to +time; and that people in such windy weather come in at the leeward doors +only, and take care that they are easily shut both to prevent the breaking +of the doors and the making of a noise." In other churches it was ordered +that "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 its +meeting-house in 1662, but five years later it was removed, perhaps through +the colonists' dread lest the building be destroyed by a conflagration +caused by the combustible nature of the materials of which the chimney was +composed. Felt, in his "Annals of Salem," asserts that the First Church of +Boston was the first New England congregation to have a stove for heating +the meeting-house at the time of public worship; this was in 1773. This +statement is incorrect. Mr. Judd says the Hadley church had an iron stove +in their meeting-house as early as 1734--the Hadley people were such +sybarites and novelty-lovers in those early days! The Old South Church of +Boston followed in the luxurious fashion in 1783, and the "Evening Post" +of January 25, 1783, contained a poem of which these four lines show the +criticising 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 into +this century. The Longmeadow church, early in the field, had a stove in +1810; the Salem people in 1815; and the Medford meeting in 1820. The church +in Brimfield in 1819 refused to pay for a stove, but ordered as some +sacrifice to the desire for comfort, two extra doors placed on the +gallery-stairs to keep out draughts; but when in that town, a few years +later, a subscription was made to buy a church stove, one old member +refused to contribute, saying "good preaching kept him hot enough without +stoves." + +As all the church edifices were built without any thought of the +possibility of such comfortable furniture, they had to be adapted as best +they might to the ungainly and unsightly great stoves which were usually +placed in the central aisle of the building. From these cast-iron monsters, +there extended to the nearest windows and projected through them, hideous +stove-pipes that too often spread, from every leaky and ill-fastened +joint, smoke and sooty vapors, and sometimes pyroligneous drippings on the +congregation. Often tin pails to catch the drippings were hung under the +stove-pipes, forming a further chaste and elegant church-decoration. Many +serious objections were made to the stoves besides the aesthetic ones. +It was alleged that they would be the means of starting many destructive +conflagrations; that they caused severe headaches in the church attendants; +and worst of all, that the _heat warped the ladies' tortoise-shell +back-combs_. + +The church reformers contended, on the other hand, that no one could +properly receive spiritual comfort while enduring such decided bodily +discomfort. They hoped that with increased physical warmth, fervor in +religion 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 England +communities over the purchase and use of stoves, and many were the meetings +held and votes taken upon the important subject. + +"Peter Parley"--Mr. Samuel Goodrich--gave, in his "Recollections," a very +amusing account of the sufferings endured by the wife of an anti-stove +deacon. She came to church with a look of perfect resignation on the +Sabbath of the stove's introduction, and swept past the unwelcome intruder +with 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 and +unhealthful stove-heat to her mind, and she fainted. She was carried out of +church, and upon recovering said languidly that it "was the heat from the +stove." A most complete and sudden resuscitation was effected, however, +when she was informed of the fact that no fire had as yet been lighted in +the new church-furnishing. + +Similar chronicles exist about other New England churches, and bear a +striking resemblance to each other. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher in an address +delivered in New York on December 20, 1853, the anniversary of the Landing +of the Pilgrims, referred to the opposition made to the introduction of +stoves into the old meeting-house in Litchfield, Connecticut, during the +ministry of his father, and gave an amusing account of the results of the +introgression. This allusion called up many reminiscences of anti-stove +wars, and a writer in the "New York Enquirer" told the same story of the +fainting woman in Litchfield meeting, who began to fan herself and at +length swooned, saying when she recovered "that the heat of the horrid +stove had caused her to faint." A correspondent of the "Cleveland Herald" +confirmed the fact that the fainting episode occurred in the Litchfield +meeting-house. The editor of the "Hartford Daily Courant" thus added his +testimony:-- + + "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 the +event really happened in Litchfield, and that the honor was stolen for +other towns by unveracious chroniclers; otherwise we must believe in an +amazing unanimity of church-joking and sham-fainting all over New England. + +The very nature, the stern, pleasure-hating and trial-glorying Puritan +nature, which made our forefathers leave their English homes to come, for +the love of God and the freedom of conscience, to these wild, barren, and +unwelcoming shores, made them also endure with fortitude and almost with +satisfaction all personal discomforts, and caused them to cling with +persistent firmness to such outward symbols of austere contempt of +luxury, and such narrow-minded signs of love of simplicity as the lack of +comfortable warmth during the time of public worship. The religion which +they had endured such bitter hardships to establish, did not, in their +minds, need any shielding and coddling to keep it alive, but thrived far +better on Spartan severity and simplicity; hence, it took two centuries of +gradual and most tardy softening and modifying of character to prepare the +Puritan mind for so advanced a reform and luxury as proper warmth in the +meeting-houses in winter. + + + + +IX. + +The Noon-House. + + + +There might have been seen a hundred years ago, by the side of many an old +meeting-house in New England, a long, low, mean, stable-like building, with +a rough stone chimney at one end. This was the "noon-house," or "Sabba-day +house," or "horse-hows," as it was variously called. It was a place of +refuge in the winter time, at the noon interval between the two services, +for the half-frozen members of the pious congregation, who found there the +grateful warmth which the house of God denied. They built in the rude stone +fireplace a great fire of logs, and in front of the blazing wood ate their +noon-day meal of cold pie, of doughnuts, of pork and peas, or of brown +bread with cheese, which they had brought safely packed in their capacious +saddlebags. The dining-place smelt to heaven of horses, for often at the +further end of the noon-house were stabled the patient steeds that, doubly +burdened, had borne the Puritans and their wives to meeting; but this +stable-odor did not hinder appetite, nor did the warm equine breaths that +helped to temper the atmosphere of the noon-house offend the senses of the +sturdy Puritans. From the blazing fire in this "life-saving station" the +women replenished their little foot-stoves with fresh, hot coals, and thus +helped to make endurable the icy rigor of the long afternoon service. + +If the winter Sabbath Day were specially severe, a "hired-man," or one of +the grown sons of the family, was sent at an early hour to the noon-house +in advance of the other church-attendants, and he started in the rough +fireplace a fire for their welcome after their long, cold, morning ride; +and before its cheerful blaze they thoroughly warmed themselves before +entering the icy meeting-house. The embers were carefully covered over +and left to start a second blaze at the nooning, covered again during the +afternoon service, and kindled up still a third time to warm the chilled +worshippers ere they started for their cold ride home in the winter +twilight. And when the horses were saddled, or were harnessed and hitched +into the great box-sleighs or "pungs," and when the good Puritans were well +wrapped up, the dying coals were raked out for safety and the noon-house +was left as quiet and as cold as the deserted meeting-house until the +following Sabbath or Lecture day. + +If the meeting-house chanced to stand in the middle of the town (as was +the universal custom in the earliest colonial days) of course a noon-house +would be rarely built, for it would plainly not be needed. Nor was a +"Sabba-day house" always seen in more lonely situations, if the sanctuary +were placed near the substantial farm-house of a hospitable farmer; for to +that friendly shelter the whole congregation would at noon-time repair and +absorb to the fullest degree the welcome cider and warmth. + +In Lexington for many years after the Revolutionary War, the winter +church-goers who came from any distance spent the nooning at the Dudley +Tavern, where a roaring fire was built in the inn-parlor, and there the +women and children ate their midday lunch. The men gathered in the bar-room +and drank flip, and ate the tavern gingerbread and cheese, and talked over +the horrors and glories of the war. In Haverhill, Derby, and many other +towns, the school-house, which was built on the village green beside the +church, was used for a noon-house by the church members, though not by +their horses. The house of learning was never chimneyless and fireless, as +was the house of God. + +As churches and towns multiplied, a meeting-house was often built to +accommodate two little settlements or villages (and thus was convenient for +neither), and was frequently placed in an isolated or inconvenient place, +the top of a high hill being perhaps the most inconvenient and the most +favored site. Thus a noon-house became an absolute necessity to Puritan +health and existence, and often two or three were built near one +meeting-house; while in some towns, as in Bristol, a whole row of +disfiguring little "Sabba-day houses" stood on the meeting-house green, +and in them the farmers (as they quaintly expressed in their petitions for +permission to erect the buildings) "kept their duds and horses." + +In Derby, after several petitions had been granted to build noon-houses, it +was found necessary, in 1764, to place some restrictions as to the location +of the buildings, which had hitherto evidently been placed with the +characteristically Puritanical indifference to general convenience or +appearance. While the town still permitted the little log-huts to be +erected, and though they could be placed on either side of the highway, it +was ordered that the builders must not so locate them as to "incommode any +highways." 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 the +express purpose of having a place where their minister, Rev. Mr. Noyes, +could thaw out between services. The New Canaan Church built on the green +beside their meeting-house a fine "Society House," twenty-one feet long +and sixteen feet wide, with a big chimney and fireplace. The horses were +plainly "not in society" in New Canaan, for they were excluded from the +occupancy 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 a +Commodate for their conveniency of comeing to meeting on the Sabbath;" at +the same time James Slason of the same village was given permission to "set +yp 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 for +Shelter for Horss" were made in company by several farmers for their joint +use and comfort, as shown by entries in the town and church records of +Norwalk, 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 weekly +between Sunday services until within the memory of persons now living; +and some of the buildings still exist, though changed into granaries or +stables. There was one also in use for many years and until recent years in +Topsfield, in Massachusetts. We chanced upon one still standing on a lonely +Narragansett road. A little enclosed burial-place, with moss-grown and +weather-smoothed head-stones and neglected graves, was by the side of a +filled-in cellar, upon which a church evidently had once stood. At a short +distance from the church-site was a long, low, gray, weather-beaten wooden +building, with a coarse stone-and-mortar chimney at one end, and a great +door at the other. Two small windows, destitute of glass, permitted us +to peer into the interior of this dilapidated old structure, and we saw +within, a floor of beaten earth, a rough stone fireplace, and a few rude +horse-stalls. We felt sure that this tumble-down building had been neither +a dwelling-house nor a stable, but a noon-house; and the occupants of a +neighboring 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 the +new means of conveyance crowded out the old-fashioned saddle and pillion, +and the trotting horse superseded the once fashionable but quickly despised +pacer, that the great stretches of horse-sheds were built which now +surround and disfigure all our country churches. These sheds protect, +of course, both horse and carriage from wind and rain. Few churches had +horse-sheds until after the War of the Revolution, and some not until after +the War of 1812. In 1796 the Longmeadow Church had "liberty to erect a +Horse 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 the +minister and the deacons that the Bible should be read and expounded +to them, or a sermon be read to keep them quiet during the nooning. +Occasionally some old patriarch would explain to them the notes that he +had taken during the morning sermon. More unbearable still, the boys were +sometimes ordered to explain the notes which they had taken themselves. I +would I had heard some of those explanations! Thus they literally, as was +written 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 church +as an expression of interest and hope that the "laudable practice of +reading between services may be continued so long as even a small number +shall be disposed to attend the exercise." Mr. Abbott left another silver +flagon to the Andover Church to encourage reading between services; though +how this piece of plate encouraged personally, since neither the deacons +nor the boys got it as a prize, cannot be precisely understood. The +noon-house in Andover was a large building with a great chimney and open +fireplace at either end. It has always seemed to me a piece of gratuitous +posthumous cruelty in Judge Phillips and Mr. Abbott to try to cheat those +Andover boys of their noon-time rest and relaxation, and to expect them, +wriggling and twisting with repressed vitality, to listen to a long extra +sermon, read perhaps by some unskilled reader, or explained by some +incapable expounder. The Sabbath-school did not then exist, and was not in +general favor until the noon-houses had begun to disappear. The Reverend +Jedediah Morse, father of the inventor of the electric telegraph, was +almost the first New England clergyman who approved of Sabbath-schools and +established them in his parish. In Salem they were opened in 1808, and the +scholars came at half-past six on Sunday mornings. Fancy the chill and +gloom of the unheated, ill-lighted churches at that hour on winter +mornings. The "Salem Gazette" openly characterized Sunday-schools, when +first suggested, as profanations of the Sabbath, and for years they were +not allowed in many Congregational churches. When the Sabbath-schools +were universally established, and thus the attention and interest of the +children was gained during the noon interval (the time the schools were +usually 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 in +all parts of New England. In many villages the meetings in the society +noon-houses were to the townspeople what a Sunday newspaper is to Sunday +readers now-a-days, an advertisement and exposition of all the news of the +past week, and also a suggestion of events to come. At noon they discussed +and wondered at the announcements and publishings which were tacked on +the door of the meeting-house or the notices that had been read from the +pulpit. The men talked in loud voices of the points of the sermon, of the +doctrines of predestination pedobaptism and antipedobaptism, of original +sin, and that most fascinating mystery, the unpardonable sin, and in lower +voices of wolf and bear killing, of the town-meeting, the taxes, the crops +and 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 was +suggested, bargained over, and clinched in the "Sabba'-day house." Many a +piece of village electioneering was also discussed and "worked" between the +services. The shivering women crowded around the blazing and welcome fire, +and seated themselves on rude benches and log seats while they ate and +exchanged doughnuts, slices of rusk, or pieces of "pumpkin and Indian mixt" +pie, and also gave to each other receipts therefor; and they discoursed +in low voices of their spinning and weaving, of their candle-dipping +or candle-running, of their success or failure in that yearly trial of +patience and skill--their soap-making, of their patterns in quilt-piecing, +and sometimes they slyly exchanged quilt-patterns. A sentence in an old +letter reads thus: "Anne Bradford gave to me last Sabbath in the Noon House +a peecing of the Blazing Star; tis much Finer than the Irish Chain or the +Twin Sisters. I want yelloe peeces for the first joins, small peeces will +do. I will send some of my lilac flowered print for some peeces of Cicelys +yelloe India bed vallants, new peeces not washed peeces." They gave one +another medical advice and prescriptions of "roots and yarbs" for their +"rheumatiz," "neuralgy," and "tissick;" and some took snuff together, while +an ancient dame smoked a quiet pipe. And perhaps (since they were women as +well as Puritans) they glanced with envy, admiration, or disapproval, or +at any rate with close scrutiny, at one another's gowns and bonnets and +cloaks, which the high-walled pews within the meeting-house had carefully +concealed from any inquisitive, neighborly view. + +The wood for these beneficent noon-house fires was given by the farmers +of 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 1782 +for six shillings "Old Tenor" a barrel, so it was worth about the same +as the wood both in money value and calorific qualities. A hundred years +previously--in 1679--cider was worth ten shillings a barrel. In 1650, when +first made in America, it was a costly luxury, selling for L4 4s. a barrel. +That this thawed-out Sunday barrel of cider would prove invariably a source +of much refreshment, inspiration, solace, tongue-loosing, and blood-warming +to the chilled and shivering deacons, elders, and farmers who gathered in +the noon-house, any one who has imbibed that all-potent and intoxicating +beverage, oft-frozen "hard" cider, can fervently testify. + +Sometimes a very opulent farmer having built a noon-house for his own and +his family's exclusive use, would keep in it as part of his "duds" a few +simple cooking utensils in which his wife or daughters would re-heat or +partially cook his noon-day Sabbath meal, and mix for him a hot toddy or +punch, or a mug of that "most insinuating drink"--flip. Flip was made of +home-brewed beer, sugar, and a liberal dash of Jamaica rum, and was mixed +with a "logger-head"--a great iron "stirring-stick" which was heated in the +fire until red hot and then thrust into the liquid. This seething iron made +the flip boil and bubble and imparted to it a burnt, bitter taste which was +its most attractive attribute. I doubt not that many a "loggerhead" was +kept in New England noon-houses and left heating and gathering insinuating +goodness in the glowing coals, while the pious owner sat freezing in the +meeting-house, also gathering goodness, but internally keeping warm at the +thought of the bitter nectar he should speedily brew and gladly imbibe at +the close of the long service. + +The comfort of a hot midday dinner on the Sabbath was not regarded with +much favor, though perhaps with secret envy, by the neighbors of the +luxury-loving farmer, who saw in it too close an approach to "profanation +of 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, the +noon-day lunches were eaten within the pews inside the sanctuary, and the +noon-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 regular +duties on the Lord's Day, and their special duties on communion Sabbaths, +the charge of prudential concerns, and of providing for the poor of the +church. They also "dispensed the word" on Sabbaths to the congregation +during the absence of the ordained minister. Judge Sewall thus describes +in his diary under the date of November, 1685, the method at that time of +appointing 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 generally +raised a foot or two above the level of the meeting-house floor, and which +contained, usually, several high-backed chairs and a table or a broad +swinging-shelf for use at the communion service. These venerable men were +a group of awe-inspiring figures, who, next to the parson, received the +respect of the community. In Bristol, Connecticut, the deacons wore +starched white linen caps in the meeting-house to indicate their office,--a +singular local custom. One of their duties in many communities was +naturally to furnish the sacramental wines, and the money for the payment +thereof was allowed to them from the church-rates, or was raised by special +taxation. In Farmington, Connecticut, in 1669, each male inhabitant was +ordered to pay a peck of wheat or one shilling to the deacons of the church +to defray the expenses of the sacrament. In Groton church, in 1759, "4 +Coppers 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. This +special tax was somewhat modified in case a man had no wife, or if he were +not 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 1734 +the Milton church ordered the deacons to procure "good Canary Wine for +the Communion Table." Abuses sometimes arose,--abominably poor wines were +furnished, though full rates were paid for the purchase of wine of +good quality; and in Newbury the man who was appointed to furnish the +sacramental wines, sold, under that religious cover, wine and liquors at +retail. + +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 in +a little closet which opened into "the Ministers wives pue," and which was +fabled to be at the disposal of the tithingmen and deacons for the darksome +incarceration of unruly and Sabbath-breaking boys. The communion vessels +were not always of valuable metal; John Cotton's first church had wooden +chalices; the wealthier churches owned pieces of silver which had been +given 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, and +the 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 prized +relic. Until 1753 the church in Andover used a pewter communion service, +but when a silver service was given to it, the Andover church sent the +vessels of baser metal to a sister church in Methuen. In Haverhill the will +of a church-member named White gave to the church absolutely the pewter +dishes which were used at the sacrament, and which had been his personal +property. The "ffirst church" of Hartford had "one Puter fflagon, ffower +pewter dishes, and a bason" left to it by the bequest of one of its +members. When the Danvers church was burned in 1805, the pewter communion +vessels were saved while the silver ones were either burnt or stolen. As +pewter was, in the early days of New England, far from being a despised +metal, and as pewter dishes and plates were seen on the tables of the +wealthiest families, were left by will as precious possessions, were +engraved with initials and stamped with coats of arms, and polished with +as much care as were silver vessels, a communion service of pewter was +doubtless felt to be a thoroughly satisfactory acquisition and appointment +to 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 Boston +church 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 public +contribution; and other gifts of value to the church and minister were +often 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 insulting +contribution of an old periwig. One Puritan goodwife, sternly unforgiving, +never saw a contribution taken for proselyting the Indians without +depositing in the contribution-box a number of leaden bullets, the only +tokens she wished to see ever dispersed among the red men. + +Even our pious forefathers were not always quite honest in their church +contributions, and had to be publicly warned, as the records show, that +they must deposit "wampum without break or deforming spots," or "passable +peage without breaches." The New Haven church was particularly tormented by +canny Puritans who thus managed to dispose of their broken and worthless +currency with apparent Christian generosity. In 1650 the New Haven "deacons +informed the Court that the wampum which is putt into the Church Treasury +is generally so bad that the Elders to whom they pay it cannot pay it +away." + +In 1651, as the bad wampum was still paid in by the pious New Haven +Puritans, it was ordered that "no money save silver or bills" be accepted +by the deacons. After this order the deacons and elders found tremendous +difficulty in getting any contributions at all, and many are the records of +the 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 were +the most opulent of the New England planters, save the wealthy settlers +of Narragansett, that money of all kinds was scarce, and that the Indian +money, wampum-peag, being made of a comparatively frail sea-shell, was more +easily disfigured and broken than was metal coin; and that there was little +transferable wealth in the community anyway, even in "Country Pay." The +broken-wampum-giver of the seventeenth century, who contributed with intent +to defraud and deceive the infant struggling church was the direct and +lineal ancestor of the sanctimonious button-giver of nineteenth-century +country churches. + +In Revolutionary times, after the divine service, special contributions +were taken for the benefit of the Continental Army. In New England large +quantities of valuable articles were thus collected. Not only money, but +finger-rings, earrings, watches, and other jewelry, all kinds of male +attire,--stockings, hats, coats, breeches, shoes,--produce and groceries of +all kinds, were brought to the meeting-house to give to the soldiers. Even +the leaden weights were taken out of the window-sashes, made into bullets, +and brought to meeting. On one occasion Madam Faith Trumbull rose up in +Lebanon meeting-house in Connecticut, when a collection was being made for +the army, took from her shoulders a magnificent scarlet cloak, which had +been a present to her from Count Rochambeau, the commander-in-chief of the +French allied army, and advancing to the altar, gave it as her offering to +the gallant men, who were fighting not only the British army, but terrible +want and suffering. The fine cloak was cut into narrow strips and used as +red trimmings for the uniforms of the soldiers. The romantic impressiveness +of Madam Trumbull's patriotic act kindled warm enthusiasm in the +congregation, and an enormous collection was taken, packed carefully, and +sent to the army. + +One early duty of the deacons which was religiously and severely performed +was to watch that no one but an accepted communicant should partake of the +holy sacrament. One stern old Puritan, having been officially expelled from +church-membership for some temporal rather than spiritual offence, though +ignored by the all-powerful deacon, still refused to consider himself +excommunicated, and calmly and doggedly attended the communion service +bearing his own wine and bread, and in the solitude of his own pew communed +with God, if not with his fellow-men. For nearly twenty years did this +austere man rigidly go through this lonely and sad ceremonial, until he +conquered by sheer obstinacy and determination, and was again admitted to +church-fellowship. + +A very extraordinary custom prevailed in several New England churches. +Through it the deacons were assigned a strange and serious duty which +appeared to make them all-important and possibly self-important, and +which must have weighed heavily upon them, were they truly godly, and +conscientious in the performance of it. In the rocky little town of Pelham +in the heart of Massachusetts, toward the close of the eighteenth century +and during the pastorate of the notorious thief, counterfeiter, and forger, +Rev. Stephen Burroughs, that remarkable rogue organized and introduced to +his parishioners the custom of giving during the month a metal check to +each worthy and truly virtuous church-member, on presentation of which the +check-bearer was entitled to partake of the communion, and without which he +was temporarily excommunicated. The duty of the deacon in this matter was +to walk up and down the aisles of the church at the close of each service +and deliver to the proper persons (proper in the deacon's halting human +judgment) the significant checks. The deacon had also to see that this +religionistic ticket was presented on the communion Sabbath. Great must +have been the disgrace of one who found himself checkless at the end of the +month, and greater even than the heart-burnings over seating the meeting +must have been the jealousies and church quarrels that arose over the +communion-checks. And yet no records of the protests or complaints of +indignant or grieving parishioners can be found, and the existence of +the too worldly, too business-like custom is known to us only through +tradition. + +Many of the little chips called "Presbyterian checks" are, however, still +in existence. They are oblong discs of pewter, about an inch and a half +long, bearing the initials "P. P.," which stand, it is said, for "Pelham +Presbyterian." I could not but reflect, as I looked at the simple little +stamped slips of metal, that in a community so successful in the difficult +work of counterfeiting coin, it would have been very easy to form a mould +and cast from it spurious checks with which to circumvent the deacons and +preserve due dignity in the meeting. + +The Presbyterian checks have never been attributed in Massachusetts to +other than the Pelham church, and are usually found in towns in the +vicinity of Pelham; and there the story of their purpose and use is +universally and implicitly believed. A clergyman of the Pelham church gave +to many of his friends these Presbyterian checks, which he had found among +the disused and valueless church-properties, and the little relics of the +old-time deacons and services have been carefully preserved. + +In New Hampshire, however, a similar custom prevailed in the churches of +Londonderry and the neighboring towns.. The Londonderry settlers were +Scotch-Irish Presbyterians (and the Pelham planters were an off-shoot of +the Londonderry settlement), and they followed the custom of the Scotch +Presbyterians in convening the churches twice a year to partake of the +Lord's Supper. This assembly was always held in Londonderry, and ministers +and congregations gathered from all the towns around. Preparatory services +were held on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Long tables were placed in +the aisles of the church on the Sabbath; and after a protracted and solemn +address upon the deep meaning of the celebration and the duties of the +church-members, the oldest members of the congregation were seated at the +table and partook of the sacrament. Thin cakes of unleavened bread were +specially prepared for this sacred service. Again and again were the tables +refilled with communicants, for often seven hundred church-members were +present. Thus the services were prolonged from early morning until +nightfall. When so many were to partake of the Lord's Supper, it seemed +necessary to take means to prevent any unworthy or improper person from +presenting himself. Hence the tables were fenced off, and each communicant +was obliged to present a "token." These tokens were similar to the +"Presbyterian checks;" they were little strips of lead or pewter stamped +with the initials "L. D.," which may have stood for "Londonderry" or +"Lord's Day." They were presented during the year by the deacons and elders +to worthy and pious church-members. This bi-annual celebration of the +Lord's Supper--this gathering of old friends and neighbors from the rocky +wilds of New Hampshire to join, in holy communion--was followed on Monday +by cheerful thanksgiving and social intercourse, in which, as in every +feast, our old friend, New England rum, played no unimportant part. The +three days previous to the communion Sabbath were, however, solemnly +devoted to the worship of God; a Londonderry man was reproved and +prosecuted for spreading grain upon a Thursday preceding a communion +Sunday, just as he would have been for doing similar work upon the Sabbath. +The use of these "tokens" in the Londonderry church continued until the +year 1830. + +In the coin collection of the American Antiquarian Society are little +pewter communion-checks, or tokens, stamped with a heart. These were used +in the Presbyterian church in Philadelphia, and were delivered to pious +church-members at the Friday evening prayer-meeting preceding the communion +Sabbath. Long tables were set in the aisles, as at Londonderry. In +practice, belief, and origin, the New Hampshire and Pennsylvania churches +were sisters. + +The deacons had many minor duties to perform in the different parishes. +Some of these duties they shared with the tithingman. They visited the +homes of the church-members to hear the children say the catechism, they +visited and prayed with the sick, and they also reported petty offences, +though they were not accorded quite so powerful legal authority as the +tithingmen and constables. + +It was much desired by several of the first-settled ministers that there +should be deaconesses in the New England Puritan church, and many good +reasons were given for making such appointments. It was believed that +for the special duty of visiting the sick and afflicted in the community +deaconesses would be more useful than deacons. There had been an aged +deaconess in the Puritan church in Holland, who with a "little birchen +rod" had kept the children in awe and order in meeting, and who had also +exercised "her guifts" in speaking; but when she died no New England +successor 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, when +John 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 sat +a-spinning. + +There is something especially dear to the lover and dreamer of the olden +time, to the book-lover and antiquary as well, in an old, worn psalm or +hymn book. It speaks quite as eloquently as does an old Bible of loving +daily use, and adds the charm of interest in the quaint verse to reverence +for the sacred word. A world of tender fancies springs into life as I turn +over the pages of any old psalm-book "reading between the lines," and as +I decipher the faded script on the titlepage. But this "psalm-book of +Ainsworth," this book loved and used by the Pilgrims, brought over in one +of those early ships, perhaps in the "Mayflower" itself, this book so +symbolic of those early struggling days in New England, has a romance, a +charm, an interest which thrills every drop of Puritan blood in my veins. + +It is pleasing, too, this "Ainsworth's Version," aside from any thought of +its historic associations; its square pages of diversified type are well +printed, and have a quaint unfamiliar look which is intensely attractive, +and to which the odd, irregular notes of music, the curiously ornamented +head and tail pieces, and the occasional Hebrew or Greek letters add their +undefinable charm. + +It is a square quarto of three hundred and forty-eight closely printed +pages, bound in time-stained but well-preserved parchment, and even the +parchment itself is interesting, and lovely to the touch. The titlepage is +missing, 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 the +last blank page states). The full title was "The Book of Psalms. Englished +both in Prose and Metre. With annotations opening the words and sentences +by conference with other Scriptures. Eph. v: 18,19. Bee yee filled with +the Spirit speaking to yourselves in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual-Songs +singing and making melodie in your hearts to the Lord." The book contains +besides the Psalms and Annotations, on its first pages, a "Preface +declaring the reason and use of the Book;" and at the last pages a "Table +directing to some principal things observed in the Annotations of the +Psalms," a list of "Hebrew phrases observed which are somewhat hard and +figurative," and also some "General Observations touching the Psalms." + +I can well imagine what a pious delight this book was to our Pilgrim +Fathers; 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 a +wonderful new metrical version of the Psalms for singing, but a prose +version for comparison as well; and the deeply learned and profoundly +worded annotations placed at the end of each Psalm were doubtless of +special interest to such "scripturists with all their hearts" as they were. + +There were also, "for the use and edification of the saints," printed above +each psalm the airs of appropriate tunes. The "rough-hewn, angular notes" +are irregularly lozenge-shaped, like the notes or "pricks" in Queen +Elizabeth's "Virginal-Book," and are placed on the staff without bars. +Ainsworth, in his preface, says, "Tunes for the Psalms I find none set of +God: so that ech people is to use the most grave decent and comfortable +manner that they know how, according to the general rule. The singing notes +I have most taken from our Englished psalms when they will fit the mesure +of the verse: and for the other long verses I have also taken (for the most +part) the gravest and easiest tunes of the French and Dutch psalmes." Easy +the 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 in +Italics, the prose in Roman type, and the annotation in black-letter and +small Roman text with close-spaced lines. This variety though picturesque +makes the text rather difficult to read; for while one can decipher +black-letter readily enough when reading whole pages of it, when it is +interspersed with other type it makes the print somewhat confusing to the +unaccustomed eye. + +One curious characteristic of the typography is the frequent use of the +hyphen, compound words or rather compound phrases being formed apparently +without English rule or reason. Such combinations as these are given as +instances: "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 the +accompaniment of Master Mace's "excellent-large-plump-lusty-fullspeaking- +organ." + +Ainsworth's Version when read proves to be a scholarly book, exhibiting far +better grammar and punctuation and more uniformity of spelling than "The +New England Psalm-book," which at a later date displaced Ainsworth in the +affections and religious services of the New England Puritans and Pilgrims. +Both versions are somewhat confused in sense, and of uncouth and grotesque +versification; though the metre of Ainsworth is better than the rhyme. It +is all written in "common metre," nearly all in lines of eight and six +syllables alternately. + +The name of the author of this version was Henry Ainsworth; he was the +greatest of all the Holland Separatists, a typical Elizabethan Puritan, +who left the church in which he was educated and attached himself to the +Separatists, or Brownists, as they were called. He went into exile in +Amsterdam in 1593, and worked for some time as a porter in a book-seller's +shop, living (as Roger Williams wrote) "upon ninepence in the weeke with +roots boyled." He established, with the Reverend Mr. Johnson, the new +church in Holland; and when it was divided by dissension, he became the +pastor 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 scarce +in Europe." Hence, naturally, he was constantly engaged upon some work of +translating or commentating, and still so highly prized is some of his work +that it has been reprinted during this century. He also, being a skilful +disputant, wrote innumerable controversial pamphlets and books, many +of which still exist. It is said that he once had a long and spirited +controversy with a brother divine as to whether the ephod of Aaron were +blue or green. I fear we of to-day have lost much that the final, decisive +judgment from so learned scholars and students as to the correct color has +not descended to us, and now, if we wish to know, we shall have to fight it +all over again. + +In spite of his power of argument (or perhaps on account of it) the most +prominent part which Ainsworth seemed to take in Amsterdam for many years +was that of peacemaker, as many of his contemporaries testify: for they +quarrelled fiercely among themselves in the exiled church, though they +had such sore need of unity and good fellowship; and they had many church +arguments and judgments and lawsuits. They quarrelled over the exercise of +power 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 their +Bibles during the preaching or on their Psalm-books during the singing; +whether they should sing at all in their meetings; over the power of the +office of ruling elder (a fruitful source of dissension and disruption in +the New England congregations likewise) and above all, they quarrelled long +and bitterly over the unseemly and gay dress of the parson's wife, Madam +Johnson. These were the terrible accusations that were brought against that +bedizened Puritan: that she wore "her bodies tied to the petticote with +points 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 vaunting +in the shop dores;" and that "men called her a bounceing girl" (as if +she could help that!). And one of her worst and most bitterly condemned +offences was that she wore "a topish hat." This her husband vehemently +denied; and long discussions and explanations followed on the hat's +topishness,--"Mr. Ainsworth dilating much upon a greeke worde" (as of +course so learned a man would). For the benefit of unlearned modern +children of the Puritans let me give the old Puritan's precise explanation +and classification of topishness. "Though veluet in its nature were not +topish, yet if common mariners should weare such it would be a sign of +pride and topishness in them. Also a gilded raper and a feather are not +topish in their nature, neither in a captain to weare them, and yet if a +minister should weare them they would be signs of great vanity topishness +and lightness." I wonder that topish hat had not undone the whole Puritan +church 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 died +in 1623. This romantic story of his death is told by Neal. "It was sudden +and not without suspicion of violence; for it is reported that, having +found a diamond of very great value in the streets of Amsterdam, he +advertised it in print; and when the owner, who was a Jew, came to demand +it, he offered him any acknowledgment he would desire, but Ainsworth though +poor would accept of nothing but conference with some of his rabbis upon +the prophecies of the Old Testament relating to the Messiah, which the +other promised, but not having interest enough to obtain it he was +poisoned." This rather ambiguous sentence means that Ainsworth was +poisoned, not the Jew. Brooks's account of the story is that the conference +took place, the Jews were vanquished, and in revenge poisoned the champion +of Christianity afterwards. Dexter most unromantically throws cold water on +this poisoning story, and adduces much circumstantial testimony to prove +its improbability; but it could hardly have been invented in cold blood by +the Puritan historians, and must have had some foundation in truth. And +since he is dead, and the thought cannot harm him, I may acknowledge that I +firmly 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 division +of the church came under strong influences from Geneva and Wittenberg, the +birth-places of psalm-singing, that made them doubly fond of "worship in +song." Hence the Pilgrim Fathers, Brewster, Bradford, Carver, and Standish, +for love of music as well as in affectionate testimony to their old pastor +and friend, brought to the New World copies of his version of the Psalms +and sang from it with delight and profit to themselves, if not with ease +and elegance. + +Dexter says very mildly of Ainsworth's literary work that "there are +diversities of gifts, and it is no offence to his memory to conclude that +he shone more as an exegete than as a poet." Poesy is a gift of the gods +and cometh not from deep Hebrew study nor from vast learning, and we must +accept Ainsworth's pious enthusiasm in the place of poetic fervor. Of the +quality of his work, however, it is best to judge for one's self. Here is +his rendition of the Nineteenth Psalm, so well known to us in verse by +Addison's glorious "The spacious firmament on high." The prose version is +printed 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 indicate +the mental traits of the author, let me state that this psalm, in both +prose and metrical versions, occupies about one page; while the closely +printed annotations fill over three pages; which is hardly "explaining with +brevitie," as Ainsworth says in his preface. With this psalm the notes +commence thus:-- + +"2. (the out-spred-firmament) the whole cope of heaven, with the aier which +though it be soft and liquid and spred over the Earth, yet it is fast and +firm and therefore called of us according to the common Greek version a +firmament: the holy Ghost expresseth it by another term Mid-heaven. +This out-spred-firmament of expansion God made amidds the waters for a +separation and named it Heaven, which of David is said to be stretched out +as courtayn and elsewhere is said to be as firm as moulten glass. So under +this name firmament be commised the orbs of the heav'ns and the aier and +the whole spacious country above the earth." + +These annotations must have formed to the Pilgrims not only a dictionary +but a perfect encyclopaedia of useful knowledge. Things spiritual and things +temporal were explained therein. Scientific, historic, and religious +information were dispensed impartially. Much and varied instruction was +given in Natural History, though viewed of course from a strictly religious +point of view. The little Pilgrims learned from their Psalm-Book that the +"Leviathan is the great whalefish or seadragon, so called of the fast +joyning together of his scales as he is described Job 40: 20, 41 and +is used to resemble great tyrants." They also learned that "Lions of +sundry-kinds have sundry-names. Tear-in-pieces like a lion. That he ravin +not, make-a-prey; called a plueker Renter or Tearer, and elsewhere Laby +that is, Harty and couragious; Kphir, this lurking, Couchant. The reason +of thier names is shewed, as The renting-lion as greedy to tear, and the +lurking-Lion as biding in covert places. Other names are also given to this +kind as Shachal, of ramping, of fierce nature; and Lajith of subduing his +prey. 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 lip +which may be taken both for mowing and thrusting out of the lip and for +licentious opening thereof to speak reproach." The expression "Keep thou me +as the black of the apple of the eye" is thus annotated: "The black, that +is, the sight in the midds of the eye wherein appeareth the resemblance of +a little man, and thereupon seemeth to be called in Hebrew Ishon which is a +man. And as that part is blackish so this word is also used for other black +things as the blackness of night. The apple so we call that which the +Hebrew here calleth bath and babath that is the babie or little image +appearing in the eye." Anger receives this definition: "ire, outward in +the face, grauue, grimnes or fiercenes of countenance. The original Aph +signifieth both the nose by which one breatheth, and Anger which appeareth +in 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 it +up gladly to show honor to the work of their loved pastor, and perhaps also +with a sense of pleasure in not having to sing any verses which had been +used and authorized by the Church of England. In doing this they had to +abandon, 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 such +confused verses? The tune, too, set in the psalm-book seems absolutely +unfitted to the metre. I fear when she sang from the pages "the old Puritan +anthem" that she was forced to turn it into a chant, else the irregular +lines could never have been brought within the compass of the melody; and +yet, the metre is certainly better than the sense. + +It may be thought that these selections of the Psalms have been chosen for +their crudeness and grotesqueness. I have tried in vain to find othersome +that would show more elegant finish or more of the spirit of poetry; the +most poetical lines I can discover are these, which are beautiful for the +reason that the noble thoughts of the Psalmist cannot be hidden, even by +the 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 few +indeed came to New England. Elder Brewster owned one, as is shown by +the inventory of the books in his library. Not every member of the +congregation, not every family possessed one; many were too poor, many +"lacked skill to read," and in some communities only one psalm-book was +owned 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 or +elder and then sung by the congregation. There is no doubt, however, +that this Ainsworth's Version was used in many of the early New England +meetings. Reverend Thomas Symmes, in his "Joco-Serious Dialogue," printed +in 1723, wrote: "Furthermore the Church of Plymouth made use of Ainsworths +Version of the Psalms until the year 1692. For altho' our New England +version of the Psalms was compiled by sundry hands and completed by +President Dunster about the year 1640; yet that church did not use it, it +seems, 'till two and fifty years after but stuck to Ainsworth; and until +about 1682 their excellent custom was to sing without reading the lines." + +John Cotton's account of the Salem church written in 1760, says, "On June +19, 1692, the pastor propounded to the church that seeing many of the +psalms in Mr. Ainsworth's translation which had hitherto been sung in the +congregation 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 voted +that when the tunes were difficult in the translation then used, they +would make use of the New England psalm-book, long before received in +the churches of the Massachusetts colony, not one brother opposing the +conclusion. But finding it inconvenient to use two psalm-books, they at +length, in June 1696 agreed wholly to lay aside Ainsworth and with general +consent introduced the other which is used to this day, 1760. And here it +will be proper to observe that it was their practice until the beginning of +October, 1681 to sing the psalms without reading the lines; but then, at +the motion of a brother who otherwise could not join in the ordinance [I +suppose because he could not read] they altered the custom, and reading +was introduced, the elder performing that service after the pastor had +first expounded the psalm, which were usually sung in course." + +On the blank leaf of the copy of Ainsworth now lying before me are written +these words, "This was used in Salem half-a-century from the first +settlement." In a record of the Salem church is this entry of a church +meeting: "4 of 5th month, 1667. The pastor having formerly propounded +and 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 well +as formerly and _that there was a singularity in our using Ainsworths +tunes_: but especially because we had not the liberty of singing all the +scripture Psalms according to Col. iii. 16. He did not again propound the +same, and after several brethren had spoken, there was at last a unanimous +consent with respect to the last reason mentioned, that the Bay Psalm Book +should 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 too +difficult for the colonists to sing. To such a condition had church-music +been reduced by "lining the psalm" and by the lack of musical instruments +to 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 in +1643 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 than +Ainsworth was ever used in the colonies until the New England Version was +published. But if any one was used in one or two of the churches it was +Sternhold and Hopkins." I cannot feel convinced of this, but believe that +both Ravenscroft's and Sternhold and Hopkins' Versions were used at first +in many of the Bay settlements. Salem church had a peculiar connection in +its origin with the church of Plymouth, which would account, doubtless, +for its protracted use of the version so loved by the Pilgrims; but the +Puritans of the Bay, coming directly from England, must have brought with +them the version which they had used in England, that of Sternhold and +Hopkins; and they would hardly have wished, nor would it have been possible +for them to acquire speedily in the new land the Ainsworth's Version used +by the Pilgrims from Holland. + +The second edition of Ainsworth's Version was printed in 1617, a third +in 1618; the fourth, in London in 1639, was a folio; and the sixth, in +Amsterdam in 1644, was an octavo. A little 24mo copy is in the Essex +Institute in Salem, and an octavo is in the Prince Library, now in the +custody of the Public Library of the City of Boston. The latter copy has +a note in it written by the Rev. Thomas Prince: "Plymouth, May 1, 1732. I +have seen an edition of this version of 1618; and this version was sung +in Plymouth Colony and I suppose in the rest of New England 'till the New +England Version was printed." + +There is a copy of the first edition of Ainsworth in the Bodleian Library +and one in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. The American Antiquarian +Society and the Lenox Library are the only public libraries in America that +possess copies, so far as I know. The one in the library of the American +Antiquarian Society was presented to it in 1815 by the Rev. William Bentley +of Salem, Massachusetts, to whom also belonged the copy of the Bay Psalm +Book now in the library at Worcester. He was a divine and a bibliophile and +an antiquary, but there also ran in his veins blood of warmer flow. During +the war of 1812, when the report came, in meeting-time, that the frigate +"Constitution" was being chased into Marblehead harbor, the loyal parson +Bentley locked up his church, and tucked up his gown, and sallied forth +with his whole flock of parishioners to march to Marblehead with the +soldiers, ready to "fight unto death" if necessary. Being short and fat, +and the mercury standing at eighty-five degrees, the doctor's physical +strength gave out, and he had to be hoisted up astride a cannon to ride to +the scene of conflict,--martial in spirit though weak in the legs. + +But this association with the old book is comparatively of our own day; and +the most pleasing fancy which the "psalm-book of Ainsworth" brings to my +mind, the most sacred and reverenced thought, is of a far more remote, a +more peaceful and quiet scene; though men of warlike blood and fighting +stock were there present and took part therein. It is with that Sabbath Day +before the Landing at Plymouth which was spent by the Pilgrims, as Mather +says, "in the devout and pious exercises of a sacred rest." And though +Matthew Arnold thought that the Mayflower voyagers would have been +intolerable company for Shakespeare and Virgil, yet in that quiet day of +devout prayer and praise they show a calm religious peace and trust that +is, perhaps, the highest spiritual type of "sweetness and light." And from +this quaint old book their lips found words and music to express in song +their pure and holy faith. + + + + +XII. + +The Bay Psalm-Book. + + + +It seems most proper that the first book printed in New England should be +now its rarest one, and such is the case. It was also meet that the first +book published by the Puritan theocracy should be a psalm-book. This New +England psalm-book, being printed by the colony at Massachusetts Bay, is +familiarly known as "The Bay Psalm-Book," and was published two hundred +and fifty years ago with this wording on the titlepage: "The Whole Book of +Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre. Whereunto is prefixed a +discourse declaring not only the lawfullnes, but also the necessity of the +Heavenly 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 spirituall +Songs, singing to the Lord with grace in your hearts. + +"James V. If any be afflicted, let him pray; and if any be merry let him +sing psalmes. Imprinted 1640." + +The words "For the Use, Edification, and Comfort of the Saints in Publick +and Private especially in New England," though given in Thomas's "History +of Printing," Lowndes's "Bibliographers Manual," Hood's "History of Music +in New England," and many reliable books of reference, as part of the +correct title, were in fact not printed upon the titlepage of this first +edition, but appeared on subsequent ones. Mr. Thomas, at the time he wrote +his history, knew of but one copy of the first edition; "an entire copy +except the title-page is now in the possession of rev. mr. Bentley of +Salem." The titlepage being missing, he probably fell into the error of +copying the title of a later edition, and other cataloguers and manualists +have blindly followed him. + +There were in 1638 thirty ministers in New England, all men of intelligence +and education; and to three of them, Richard Mather, Thomas Welde, and John +Eliot was entrusted the literary part of the pious work. They managed to +produce one of the greatest literary curiosities in existence. The book +was printed in the house of President Dunster of Harvard College upon a +"printery," or printing-press, which had cost L50, and was the gift of +friends in Holland to the new community in 1638, the name-year of Harvard +College. Governor Winthrop in his journal tells us that the first sheet +printed on this press was the Freeman's Oath, certainly a characteristic +production; the second an almanac for New England, and the third, "The Bay +Psalm-Book." Some, who deem an almanac a book, call this psalm-book the +second book printed in British America. + +A printer named Steeven Daye was brought over from England to do the +printing on this new press. Now Steeven must have been given entire charge +of the matter, and could not have been a very literate fellow (as we +know positively he was a most reprehensible one), or the three reverend +versifiers must have been most uncommonly careless proof-readers, for +certainly a worse piece of printer's work than "The Bay Psalm Book" could +hardly have been struck off. Diversity and grotesqueness of spelling were +of 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 paper +strong and firm, and with ordinary care a very presentable book might have +been issued. The punctuation was horrible. A few commas and periods and +a larger number of colons were "pepered and salted" _a la_ Timothy +Dexter, apparently quite by chance, among the words. Periods were placed +in the middle of sentences; words of one syllable were divided by hyphens; +capitals and italics were used after the fashion of the time, apparently +quite at random; and inverted letters were common enough. The pages were +unnumbered, and on every left-hand page the word "Psalm" in the title was +spelled correctly, while on the right-hand page it is uniformly spelled +"Psalme." But after all, these typographical blemishes might be forgiven if +the substance, the psalms themselves, were worthy; but the versification +was certainly the most villainous of all the many defects, though the +sense was so confused that many portions were unintelligible save with +the friendly aid of the prose version of the Bible; and the grammatical +construction, 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 the +production 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 calm +and kindly account of the production of "The Bay-Psalm-Book." He was a +scholarly man, and doubtless felt keenly and groaned inwardly at the +inelegance, the appalling and unscholarly errors in the New England +version; and yet all he mildly said was that "it was thought that a little +more of art was to be employed upon them," and that he "wishes the poetry +hereof was mended." Such justice, such self-repression, such fairness +make me almost forgive him for riding around the scaffold on which his +fellow-clergyman was being executed for witchcraft, and urging the crowd +not to listen to the poor martyr's dying words. I can even almost overlook +the mysterious fables, the outrageous yarns which he imposed upon us under +the guise of history. + +The three reverend versifiers who turned out such questionable poetry are +known to have been writers of clear, scholarly, and vigorous prose. They +were all graduated at Emanuel College, Cambridge, the nursery of Puritans. +Mr. Welde soon returned to England and published there two intelligent +tracts vindicating the purity of the New England worship. Richard Mather +was the general prose-scribe for the community; he drafted the "Cambridge +Platform" and other important papers, and was clear and scholarly enough +in all his work _except_ the "Bay Psalm-Book." From his pen came the +tedious, prolix preface to the work; and the first draft of it in his own +handwriting is preserved in the Prince Library. The other co-worker was +John Eliot, that glory of New England Puritanism, the apostle to the +Indians. His name heads my list of the saints of the Puritan calendar; but +I confess that when I consider his work in "The Bay Psalm-Book," I have +sad misgivings lest the hymns which he wrote and published in the Indian +language may not have proved to the poor Massachusetts Indians all that our +loving and venerating fancy has painted them. It is said also that Francis +Quarles, the Puritan author of "Divine Emblems," sent across the Atlantic +some of his metrical versions of the psalms as a pious contribution to the +new version of the new church in the new land. + +The "little more of art" which was bestowed by the improving President +Dunster left the psalms still improvable, as may be seen by opening at +random at any page of the revised editions. Mr. Lyon conferred also upon +the New England church the inestimable boon of a number of hymns or +"Scripture-Songs placed in order as in the Bible." They were printed in +that order from the third until at least the sixteenth edition, but in +subsequent editions the hymns were all placed at the end of the book after +the psalms. I doubt not that the Puritan youth, debarred of merry catches +and roundelays, found keen delight in these rather astonishing renditions +of the songs of Solomon, portions of Isaiah, etc. Those Scripture-Songs +should be read quite through to be fully appreciated, as no modern +Christian could be full enough of grace to sing them. Here is a portion of +the 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, and +sang them gratefully; but we know the spirit of poesy could never have +existed in them, else they would have fought hard against abandoning such +majestic 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 as +they were printed in the English Bible; it would certainly be quite as +practicable 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, there +is after all something so pathetic in the thought of those good, scholarly +old New England saints, hampered by poverty, in dread of attack of Indians, +burdened with hard work, harassed by "eighty-two pestilent heresies," still +laboring faithfully and diligently in their strange new home at their +unsuited work,--something so pathetic, so grand, so truly Christian, that +when I point out any of the absurdities or failures in their work, I dread +lest the shades of Cotton, of Sewall, of Mather, of Eliot, brand me as of +old, "in capitall letters," as "AN OPEN AND OBSTINATE CONTEMNER OF GOD'S +HOLY ORDINANCES," or worse still, with that mysterious, that dread name, "A +WANTON 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-five +dollars. The third edition was the one revised by President Dunster and +Mr. Lyon, and was printed in 1650. In 1691 the unfortunate book was again +"pollished" by a committee of ministers, who thus altered the last two +stanzas 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, and +Mather mounted the restive steed Pegasus, Hebrew psalter in hand, and +trotted in warm haste over the rough roads of Shemitic roots and metrical +psalmody. Other divines rode behind, and after cutting and slashing, +mending and patching, twisting and turning, finally produced what must ever +remain the most unique specimen of poetical tinkering in our literature." + +Other editions quickly followed these "pollishings" until, in 1709, sixteen +had been printed. Mr. Hood stated that at least seventy editions in all +were brought out. Some of these were printed in England and Scotland, in +exceedingly fine and illegible print, and were intended to be bound up with +the Bible; and occasionally duodecimo Bibles were sent from Scotland to +New 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 in +some of the English dissenting congregations and Scotch kirks, instead of +the 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 was +adopted by his church, the Old South, of Boston, the week previous to his +death. It was used by his congregation until 1786. He clung closely to the +form of the old editions, changing only an occasional word. In his preface +Dr. Prince says that "The Bay Psalm-Book" "had the honor of being the +first book printed in North America, and as far as I can find, in this +New World." We have fuller means of information now-a-days than had the +reverend reviser, and we know that as early as 1535 a book called "The +Book of St. John Climacus or The Spiritual Ladder" had been printed in the +Spanish tongue, in Mexico; and no less than one hundred and sixteen other +Spanish works in the sixteenth century, as the "Bibliografia Mexicana" +testifies. + +If the printing of all these various editions was poor, and the diction +worse, the binding certainly was good and could be copied in modern times +to much advantage. No flimsy cloth or pasteboard covers, no weak paper +backs, no ill-pasted leaves, no sham-work of any kind was given; securely +sewed, firmly glued, with covers of good strong leather, parchment, kid, or +calfskin, these psalm-books endured constant _daily_ (not weekly) use +for years, for decades, for a century, and are still whole and firm. +They were carried about in pockets, in saddle-bags, and were opened, and +handled, and conned, as often as were the Puritan Bibles, and they bore the +usage well. They were distinctively characteristic of the unornamental, +sternly pious, eminently honest, and sturdily useful race that produced +them. + +Judge Sewall makes frequent mention in his famous diary of "the New Psalm +Book." He bought one "bound neatly in Kids Leather" for "3 shillings & +sixpence" and gave it to a widow whom he was wooing. Rather a serious +lover's gift, but characteristic of the giver, and not so gloomy as +"Dr. Mathers Vials of Wrath," "Dr. Sibbs Bowels," "Dr. Preston's Church +Carriage," and "Dr. Williard's Fountains opened," all of which he likewise +presented 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 "Humbell +acknowledgement" made to God of the "great comfort and merciful kindness +received through singing of His Psalmes;" and the pages of the diary bear +ample testimony that whatever the book may appear to us now, it was to the +early colonists the very Word of God. + +As years passed on, however, and singing-schools multiplied, it became much +desired, and even imperative that there should be a better style and manner +of singing, and open dissatisfaction arose with "The Bay Psalm-Book;" the +younger members of the congregations wished to adopt the new and smoother +versions of Tate and Brady, and of Watts. Petitions were frequently made in +the churches to abolish the century-used book. Here is an opening sentence +of one church-letter which is still in existence; it was presented to the +ministers and elders of the Roxbury church September 11th, 1737, and was +signed by many of the church members:-- + +"The New England Version of Psalms however useful it may formerly have +been, has now become through the natural variableness of Language, not only +very uncouth but in many Places unintelligible; whereby the mind instead +of being Raised and spirited in Singing The Praises of Almighty God and +thereby being prepared to Attend to other Parts of Divine Service is Damped +and made Spiritless in the Performance of the Duty at least such is the +Tendency of the use of that Version," etc., etc. + +Great controversy arose over the abolition of the accustomed book, and +church-quarrels were rife; but the end of the century saw the dearly loved +old version consigned to desuetude, uever again to be opened, alas! but by +critical or inquisitive readers. + +There is owned by the American Antiquarian Society, and kept carefully +locked in the iron safe in the building of that Society in Worcester, a +copy of the first edition of "The Bay Psalm Book." It is a quarto (not +octavo, as Thomas described it in his "History of Printing") and is in very +good condition, save that the titlepage is missing. It is in the original +light-colored, time-stained parchment binding, and contains the autograph +of Stephen Sewall. It also bears on the inside of the front cover the +book-plate of Isaiah Thomas, and at the back, in the veteran printer's +clear and beautiful handwriting, this statement: "After advertising for +another 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 is +therefore invaluable and must be preserved with the greatest care. Isaiah +Thomas, Sep. 20. 1820." His "History of Printing," was published in 1810, +and the Society had acquired through the gift of "the rev. mr. Bentley" the +copy which Thomas mentioned in his book. + +It is strange that Thomas should have been ignorant of the existence of +other copies of the first edition of "The Bay Psalm-Book," for there were +at that time six copies belonging to the Prince Library in the possession +of the Old South Church of Boston. One would fancy that the Prince Library +would have been one of his first objective points of search, save that a +dense cloud of indifference had overshadowed that collection for so long +a time. Five of those copies remained in the custody of the deacons and +pastor of the Old South Church until 1860, and they were at one time all +deposited in the Public Library of the City of Boston. Two still remain in +that suitable place of deposit; they are almost complete in paging, but are +in 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. Edward +Crowninshield of Boston, Dr. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff of Boston, and Mr. +George Livermore of Cambridge. Governor Armstrong surrendered these three +books in consideration of certain modern books being given to the Prince +Library, and of the modern bindings bestowed on the two other copies; which +seems 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 in +1862 in the Riverside Press at Cambridge. He wrote for it a preface. It was +published by subscription; one copy on India paper, fifteen on thick paper, +and fifty on common paper. Copies on the last named paper have sold readily +for thirty dollars each. All the typographical errors of the original were +carefully reproduced in this reprint. + +At Dr. Shurtleffs death, his "Bay Psalm-Book" was catalogued with the rest +of his library, which was to be sold on Dec. 2, 1875; but an injunction was +obtained by the deacons of the Old South Church, to prevent the sale of the +old psalm-book. They were rather late in the day however, to try to obtain +again the too easily parted with book, and the ownership of it was adjudged +to 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 the +library of Mrs. John Carter Brown, of Providence, Rhode Island. Special +interest 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 of +extra value. Cotton Mather, a grandson of Richard, was the close friend of +the Reverend Thomas Prince, who founded the Prince Library, and who left it +by will to the Old South Church in 1758. Mr. Prince's book-plate is on the +reverse of the titlepage of this copy of "The Bay Psalm-Book," and is in +itself 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 in +1830 when Dr. Wisner wrote his four sermons on the Old South Church of +Boston,--a copy annotated by Dr. Prince and used by him while he was +engaged on his revision. It has disappeared, together with many other +important books and manuscripts belonging to the same library. The +vicissitudes through which this most valuable collection has passed--lying +neglected for years on shelves, in boxes, and in barrels in the +steeple-room of the Old South Church, depleted to use for lighting fires, +injured by British soldiery, but injured still more by the neglect and +indifference of its custodians--are too painful to contemplate or relate. +They contribute to the scholarly standing and honor of neither pastors nor +congregations during those years. It is enough to state, however, that it +is to the noble and ill-requited forethought of Dr. Prince that we owe all +but three of the copies of the Bay Psalm-Book which are now known to be in +existence. + +There is also a perfect copy of the first edition of the old book in the +Lenox Library in New York, and the manner in which it was acquired (and +also some further accounts of two of our old friends of the Prince Library, +the acquisitions of Messrs. Crowninshield and Liverraore) is told so +entertainingly by Henry Stevens, of Vermont, in his charming book, +"Recollections of Mr. James Lenox" that it is best to quote his account in +full:-- + + "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 L80. 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 L150. 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 Bay +Psalm-Book," in the Library of the American Antiquarian Society, weighs +nine ounces, hence Mr. Vanderbilt paid at least seven times its weight in +gold for his precious book. Lowndes's "Bibliographers' Manual" says, "This +volume, which is extremely rare and would at an auction in America produce +from four to six thousand dollars, is familiarly termed 'The Bay Psalm +Book.'" This must have been intended to be printed four to six hundred +dollars, and is about as correct as the remainder of the description in +that manual. + +The copy which is spoken of by Mr. Stevens as being in the Bodleian Library +at 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 edition +of "The Bay Psalm-Book" now in existence in America, instead of "five or +at 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-Book +comparatively few copies now remain. Occasionally one is discovered in an +old church library or seen in the collection of an antiquary. It is usually +found 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 of +the pages: "Sung this the day Betty was baptized"--"This Psalm was sung at +Mothers Funeral" "Gods Grace help me to heed this word." Sometimes we see +on the blank pages, in a fine, cramped handwriting, the record of the +births and deaths of an entire family. More frequently still we find the +familiar and hackneyed verses of ancient titlepage lore, such as are +usually seen on the blank leaves of old Bibles. This script was written in +a "Bay Psalm-Book" of the sixteenth edition, and with the characteristic +indifference of our New England forefathers for tiresome repetition, or +possibly with their disdain of novelty, was seen on each and every blank +page 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 the +spelling, which was painstakingly different on each page. + +Another Psalm-Book bore, inscribed in an elegant, minute handwriting, these +lines, which were probably intended for verse, since the first word of each +line 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 necessary +aspiration; for power of Grace was plainly needed to enable Abednego or any +one else to sing from those pages; and our pious New England forefathers +must have been under special covenant of grace when they persevered against +such obstacles and under such overwhelming disadvantages in having singing +in 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 and +properly proud of this rhyming couplet; it formed a sort of patent of +nobility. They wrote the pious injunction to their descendants in their +Psalm-Books and their Bibles, in their wills, their letters; and they, +with the greatest unanimity of feeling, had it cut upon their several +tombstones. It was their own family motto,--their totem, so to speak. + +In a New England Psalm-Book in the possession of the American Antiquarian +Society there is written in the distinct handwriting of Isaiah Thomas these +explanatory words:-- + +"This was the Pocket Psalm-book of John Symmons who died at Salem at +100 years. He was born at North Salem went a-fishing in his youth was a +prisoner with the Indians in Nova Scotia afterwards followed his labours in +a Shipyard and till great old age laboured upon his lands and died +without pain Aet 100. 31 October, 1791. He was a worthy conscientious and +well-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 any +one than the simple words, "He was agreeable until the last hour of his +life." What share in the production and maintenance of that amiable and +enviable condition of disposition may be attributed to the ever-present +influence of the Pocket Psalm-Book cannot be known; but the constant +study of the holy though clumsy verses may have largely caused that sweet +agreeability which so characterized John Symmons. + +There lies now before me a copy of one of the early editions of "The Bay +Psalm-Book." As I open the little dingy octavo volume, with its worn +and torn edges, I am conscious of that distinctive, penetrating, +_old-booky_ smell,--that ancient, that fairly _obsolete_ odor that +never is exhaled save from some old, infrequently opened, leather-bound +volume, which has once in years far past been much used and handled. A book +which has never been familiarly used and loved cannot have quite the same +antique perfume. The mouldering, rusty, flaky leather comes off in a +yellow-brown powder on my fingers as I take up the book; and the cover +nearly breaks off as I open it, though with tender, book-loving usage. The +leather, though strong and honest, has rotted or disintegrated until it has +almost 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 seem +flatter even than the close-pressed pages that form their home. + +Fair Puritan hands once held this dingy little book, honest Puritan eyes +studied its ill-expressed words, and sweet Puritan lips sang haltingly but +lovingly 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 a +quoif or ciffer covering her smooth hair, and a red whittle on her slender +shoulders, a-singing in the old New England meeting-house through the +long, tedious psalms, which were made longer and more tedious still by the +drawling singing and the deacons' "lining." Truly that were a pretty sight +for our eyes, and for other eyes than ours, without doubt. Staid Puritan +youth may have glanced soberly across the old meeting-house at the fair +girl as she sung the Song of Solomon, with its ardent wording, without any +very 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--that +safety-valve of young New England life--had not then been established or +even thought of, and I doubt not many a warm and far from Puritanical +love-glance was cast from the "doves-eyes" across the "alley" of the old +meeting-house at Cicely as she sung. + +But Cicely vas not young when she last used the old psalm-book. She may +have 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 she +may have been careworn and sad, tired of fighting against poverty, worn +with dread of fierce Indians, weary of the howls of the wolves in the dense +forests so near, and home-sick and longing for the yonderland, her "faire +Englishe home;" but were she sad or careworn or heartsick, in her treasured +psalm-book she found comfort,--comfort in the halting verses as well as +in the noble thoughts of the Psalmist. And the glamour of eternal, +sweet-voiced youth hangs around the gentle Cicely, through the power of the +inscription in the old psalm-book,-- + + "In youth I praise + And walk thy ways,"-- + +the romance of the time when Cicely, the Puritan commonwealth, the whole +New 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 the +early New England settlements, especially those of the Connecticut River +Valley, though the old register of the town of Ipswich is the only local +record that gives positive proof of its use in the Puritan church. In +1693 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 a +book would be printed for reference or comparison only; and to thus publish +the 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' Version +was employed far more extensively in the colonial churches and homes than +we now have records of, and than many of our church historians now fancy. +Certainly the familiar English psalm-books must have been brought across +the ocean and used temporarily until the newly landed colonists could +acquire the version of Ainsworth or of the New England divines. + +An everlasting interest attaches to this metrical arrangement of the +Psalms, to Americans as well as to Englishmen, because it was the earliest +to be adopted in public worship in England. According to Strype, in his +Memorial, the singing of psalms was allowed in England as early as 1548, +but it was not until 1562 that the versified psalms of Sternhold and +Hopkins 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 verse +to the English public. + +Very little is known of the authors of this version. Sternhold was educated +at 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 told +of John Hopkins is that he was a minister and schoolmaster, and that he +assisted the work of Sternhold. + +The full reason for Sternhold's pious work is thus given by an old English +author, Wood: "Being a most zealous reformer and a very strict liver he +became so scandalyzed at the loose amorous songs used in the court that he +forsooth turned into English metre fifty-one of Davids Psalms, and caused +musical notes to be set to them, thinking thereby that the courtiers +would sing them instead of their sonnets; but they did not, only some few +excepted." The preface printed in the book stated Sternhold's wish and +intention that the verses should be sung by Englishmen, not only in church, +but "moreover in private houses for their godly solace and comfort; laying +apart all ungodly Songs & Ballads which tend only to the nourishment of +vice & corrupting of youth." + +The first edition contained nineteen psalms only, which were all versified +by Sternhold. It was published in 1548 or 1549, under this title, "Certayn +Psalmes chosen out of the Psalter of Daid and drawen into English Metre by +Thomas Sternhold Groom of ye Kynges Maiesties Roobes." I believe no copy of +this edition is now known to exist. + +The praise which Sternhold received for his pious rhymes had the same +effect upon him as did similar encomiums upon his predecessor, the French +psalm-writer Marot,--it encouraged him to write more psalm-verses. + +The second edition was printed in 1549, and contained thirty-seven psalms +by Sternhold and seven by Hopkins. It bore this title, "Al such Psalmes of +David as Thomas Sternehold late grome of his maiesties robes did in his +lyfe tyme drawe into English metre." It was a well-printed book and copies +are still preserved in the British Museum and the Public Library of +Cambridge, England. This second and enlarged edition was dedicated, in a +four-page preface, to King Edward VI., and a pretty story is told of the +young king's interest in the verses. The delicate and gentle boy of twelve +heard Sternhold when "singing them to his organ" as Strype says, and +wandered in to hear the music and listen to the words. So great was his +awakened interest in the sacred songs that Sternhold resolved to write in +verse for him still further of the psalms. The dedication reads: "Seeing +that your tender and godly zeale dooth more delight in the holye songs of +veritie than in any fayncd rymes of vanytie, I am encouraged to travayle +further in the said booke of Psalmes." This young king restored to the +English people the free reading of the Bible, which his wicked father, +Henry VIII., had forbidden them, and he was of a sincerely religious +nature. He also was a music-lover, and encouraged the art as much as his +short life and troubled reign permitted. + +Hopkins also wrote a preface for his share of the work, in which he spoke +with much modesty of himself and much praise of Sternhold. He said his own +verses were not "in any parte to bee compared with his [Sternhold's] most +exquisite dooynges." He thinks, however, that his owne are "fruitfull +though they bee not fyne." + +The third edition, in 1556, contained fifty-one psalms; the fourth, in +1560, had sixty-seven psalms; the fifth, in 1561, increased the number to +eighty-seven; and in 1562 or 1563 the whole book of psalms appeared. Other +authors had some share in this work: Norton, Whyttyngham (a Puritan divine +who married Calvin's sister), Kethe, who wrote the 100th Psalm, "All people +that on earth do dwell," which is still seen in some of our hymn-books. Of +all these men, sly old Thomas Fuller truthfully and quaintly said, "They +were men whose piety was better than their poetry, and they had drunk more +of Jordan than of Helicon." + +For over one hundred years from the first publication there was a steady +outpour of editions of these Psalms. Before the year 1600 there were +seventy-four editions,--a most astonishing number for the times; and from +1600 to 1700 two hundred and thirty-five editions. In 1868 six hundred and +one editions were known, including twenty-one in this nineteenth century +and doubtless there were still others uncatalogued and forgotten. Among +other editions this version had in the time of Charles II. two in +shorthand, one printed by "Thos. Cockerill at the Three Legs and Bible in +the Poultry." Two copies of these editions are in the British Museum. They +are tiny little 64mos, of which half a dozen could be laid side by side on +the palm of the hand. Sternhold and Hopkins' Version had also in 1694 the +honor of having arranged for it a Concordance. + +Upon no production of the religious Muse in the English tongue has greater +diversity of criticism been displayed or more extraordinary or varied +judgment been rendered than upon Sternhold and Hopkins' Psalms. A world of +testimony could be adduced to fortify any view which one chose to take +of them. At the time of their early publication they induced a swarm of +stinging lampoons and sneering comments, that often evince most plainly +that a difference in religious belief or scorn for an opposing sect brought +them forth. The poetry of that and the succeeding century abounds in +allusions 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 healthy +sturdiness 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 sing +praises to God we do it, not in the scandalous doggrel of Hopkins and +Sternhold, but in psalms and hymns which are both sense and poetry, such +as 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 then +called Church Tunes. They formed the basis of all future collections of +psalm-music for over a century. They soon were published in harmony in four +parts, "which may be sung to all musical instrumentes set forth for the +encrease of vertue and abolyshing of other vayne and tryfling ballads." In +1592 a very important collection of psalm-tunes was published to use with +Sternhold and Hopkins' words. It is called "The Whole Booke of Psalmes: +with their wonted tunes as they are sung in Churches composed into four +parts." This book is noteworthy because in it the tunes are for the first +time named after places, as is still the custom. The music contained square +or 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 as +the note that goeth before." + +Music at that time was said to be pricked, not printed,--the word being +derived from the prick or dot which formed the head of the note. Any song +which was printed in various parts was called a prick-song, to distinguish +it from one sung extemporaneously or by ear. The word prick-song occurs not +only in all the musical books, but in the literature of the time, and in +Shakespeare. "Tom Sternhold's" songs were entitled to be called prick-songs +because they had notes of music printed with them. Many of the tunes +in this collection were taken from the Genevan Psalter and Luther's +Psalm-Book, or from Marot and Beza's French Book of Psalms. Hence they were +irreverently called "Genevan Jiggs," and "Beza's Ballets." + +There is much difference shown in the wording of these various editions of +Sternhold and Hopkins' Psalms. The earlier ones were printed as Sternhold +wrote them; but with the Genevan editions began great and astonishing +alterations. Warton, who was no lover of Sternhold and Hopkins' verses, +calling them "the disgrace of sacred poetry," said of these attempted +improvements, with vehemence, that "many stanzas already too naked and weak +like a plain old Gothic edifice stripped of its signatures of antiquity, +have lost that little and almost only strength and support which they +derived 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 it +the Genevan edition printed in 1556. The second verse of that presumptuous +rendering 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 as +one of the inelegancies of Sternhold, but he surely ought not to be held +responsible for the "improvements" of the Genevan edition published after +his 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 and +weakening alterations and interpolations; they are so unjust and +so degrading to the reputation of Sternhold. It seems worse than +forgery--worse than piracy; for instead of stealing from the defenceless +dead poet, it foists upon him a spurious and degrading progeny; there is no +word to express this tinkering libellous literary crime. + +Cromwell had a prime favorite among these psalms; it was the one hundred +and ninth and is known as the "cursing psalm." Here are a few lines from +it:-- + + "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 King +James's version; but there is nothing in "The heavens declare the glory of +God," &c. to justify the nickname of "cursing." + +It is said when the tyrannical ruler Andros visited New Haven and attended +church there that (Sternhold and Hopkins' Version being used) the fearless +minister very inhospitably gave out the fifty-second psalm to be sung. The +angry governor, who took it as a direct insult, had to listen to the lining +and singing of these words, and I have no doubt they were roared out with a +lusty 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 also +was insulted by having the same psalm given out in his presence by the +boorish chaplain of the troops. After the cruel words were ended the +heartsick king rose and asked the soldiers to sing the fifty-sixth psalm. +Whenever I read the beautiful and pathetic words, as peculiarly appropriate +as if they had been written for that occasion only, I can see it all before +me,--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 of +hundreds 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 gather +only a florilege of noble verses from Sternhold and Hopkins' Version and +point out none of the "weedy-trophies," the quaint and even uncouth lines +which disfigure the work. We must, however, in considering and judging +them, remember that many words and even phrases which at present +seem rather ludicrous or undignified had, in the sixteenth century, +significations which have now become obsolete, and which were then neither +vulgar nor unpoetical. I also have been forced to take my selections from +a copy of Sternhold and Hopkins printed in 1599, and bound up with a +"Breeches Bible;" for I have access to no earlier edition. Sternhold +and Hopkins themselves may not be in truth responsible for many of +the crudities. Hopkins, in his rendition of the 12th verse of the +seventy-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 does +now-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 exact +thought of the Psalmist, and are as well expressed as the desire to be +literal as well as poetic will permit them to be. Sternhold's verses +compare quite favorably, when looked at either as a whole or with regard to +individual lines, with those of other poets of his day, for Chaucer was the +only great poet who preceded him. + +I must acknowledge quite frankly in the face of critics of both this and +the past century that I always read Sternhold and Hopkins' Psalms with a +delight, a satisfaction that I can hardly give reasons for. Many of the +renderings, though unmelodious and uneven, have a rough vigor and a +sweeping swing that is to me wonderfully impressive, far more so than many +of the elegant and polished methods of modern versifiers. And they are so +thoroughly antique, so devoid of any resemblance to modern poems, that I +love them for their penetrating savor of the olden times; and they seem no +more to be compared and contrasted with modern verses than should an old +castle tower be compared with a fine new city house. We prefer the latter +for a habitation, it is infinitely better in every way, but we can admire +also the rough grandeur of the old ruin. + + + + +XIV. + +Other Old Psalm-Books. + + + +There are occasionally found in New England on the shelves of old +libraries, in the collections of antiquaries, or in the attics of old +farm-houses, hidden in ancient hair-trunks or painted sea-chests or among a +pile of dusty books in a barrel,--there are found dingy, mouldy, tattered +psalm-books of other versions than the ones which we know were commonly +used in the New England churches. Perhaps these books were never employed +in public worship in the new land; they may have been brought over by some +colonist, in affectionate remembrance of the church of his youth, and sung +from only with tender reminiscent longing in his own home. But when groups +of settlers who were neighbors and friends in their old homes came to +America and formed little segregated communities by themselves, there is no +doubt that they sung for a time from the psalm-books that they brought with +them. + +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 them +until (and perhaps after) the owners had learned the new tongue. Some of +the Huguenots became members of the Puritan churches in America, others +were Episcopalians. In Boston the Fancuils, Baudoins, Boutineaus, +Sigourneys, and Johannots were all Huguenots, and attended the little brick +church built on School Street in 1704, which was afterwards occupied by +the Twelfth Congregational Society of Boston, and in 1788 became a Roman +Catholic church. + +The pocket psalm-book of Gabriel Bernon, the builder of the old French Fort +at Oxford, is one of Marot and Beza's Version, and is still preserved and +owned by one of his descendants; other New England families of French +lineage cherish as precious relics the French psalm-books of their Huguenot +ancestors. There has been in France no such incessant production of new +metrical versions of the psalms as in England. From the time of the +publication of the first versified psalms in 1540, through nearly three +centuries the psalm-book of all French Protestants has been that of Marot +and Beza. This French version of the psalms is of special interest to all +thoughtful students of the history of Protestantism, because it was the +first metrical translation of the psalms ever sung and used by the people; +and it was without doubt one of the most powerful influences that assisted +in the religious awakening of the Reformation. + +Clement Marot was the "Valet of the Bed-chamber to King Francis I.," and +was one of the greatest French poets of his time; in fact, he gave his +name to a new school of poetry,--"Marotique." He had tried his hand at +an immense variety of profane verse, he had written ballades, chansons, +pastourelles, vers equivoques, eclogues, laments, complaints, epitaphs, +chants-royals, blasons, contreblasons, dizains, huitains, envois; he had +been, Warton says, "the inventor of the rondeau and the restorer of the +madrigal;" and yet, in spite of his well-known ingenuity and versatility, +it occasioned much surprise and even amusement when it was known that the +gay poet had written psalm-songs and proposed to substitute them for the +love-songs of the French court. I doubt if Marot thought very deeply of the +religious influence of his new songs, in spite of Mr. Morley's belief in +the versifier's serious intent. He was doubtless interested and perhaps +somewhat infected by "Lutheranisme," though perhaps he was more of a +free-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 a +manuscript copy of his thirty new psalm-songs to Charles V., king of Spain, +receiving therefor two hundred gold doubloons. Francis encouraged him by +further gifts, and so praised his work that the author soon published the +thirty in a book which he dedicated to the king; and to which he also +prefixed a metrical address to the ladies of France, bidding these fair +dames to place their + + "doigts sur les espinettes + Pour dire sainctes chansonnettes." + +These "sainctes chansonnettes" became at once the rage; courtiers and +princes, lords and ladies, ever ready for some new excitement, seized at +once upon the novel psalm-songs, and having no special or serious music for +them, cheerfully sang the sacred words to the ballad-tunes of the times, +and to their gailliards and measures, without apparently any very deep +thought of their religious meaning. Disraeli says that each of the royal +family and each nobleman chose for his favorite song a psalm expressive of +his 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, o 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 pensee." + + "From the depth of my heart." + +But when from interest in her psalm-song she wished to further read and +study the Bible, she was warned from the danger with horror by the Cardinal +of Lorraine. This religious awakening and inquiry was of course deprecated +and dreaded by the Romish Church; to the Sorbonne all this rage for +psalm-singing was alarming enough. What right had the people to sing God's +word, "I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall be continually +in my mouth"? The new psalm-songs were soon added to the list of "Heretical +Books" forbidden by the Church, and Marot fled to Geneva in 1543. He had +ere 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 be +lost, and the king had then interested himself and obtained the release of +the versatile song writer. The fickle king abandoned for a second time the +psalm versifier, who never again returned to France. + +The austere and far-seeing Calvin at once adopted Marot's version of the +Psalms, now enlarged to the number of fifty, and added them to the Genevan +Confession of Faith,--recommending however that they be sung with the grave +and suitable strains written, for them by Guillaume Frane. + +The collection was completed with the assistance of Theodore Beza, the +great theologian, and the demand for the books was so great that the +printers could not supply them quickly enough. Ten thousand copies were +sold at once,--a vast number for the times. + +But Marot was not happy in Geneva with Calvin and the Calvinists, as we can +well understand. Beza, in his "History of the French Reformed Churches" +said, "He (Marot) had always been bred up in a very bad school, and could +not live in subjection to the reformation of the Gospel, and therefore +went and spent the rest of his days in Piedmont, which was then in the +possession of the king, where he lived in some security under the favor of +the governor." He lived less than a year, however, dying in 1544. + +These psalms of Marot's passed through a great number and variety of +editions. In addition to the Genevan publications, an immense number were +printed in England. Nearly all the early editions were elegant books; +carefully printed on rich paper, beautifully bound in rich moroccos and +leathers, often emblazoned with gold on the covers, and with corners and +clasps of precious metals,--they show the wealth and fashion of the owners. +When, however, it came to be held an infallible sign of "Lutheranisme" to +be a singer of psalms, simpler and cheaper bindings appear; hence the dress +of the French Psalm-Book found in New England is often dull enough, but +invariably 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 even +metres used by the early English writers. Some are graceful and smooth, +however, and are canorous though never sonorous. They are pleasing to read +with 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 grad sapience" + +Another much-employed metre was this, of the hundred and thirty-third +psalm:-- + + "Asais aux bors do ce superbe fleuve + Que de Babel les campagnes abreuve, + Nos tristes coeurs ne pensoient qu' a 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 la tiendra place? + Le homine de mains et coeur lave, + En vanite non esleve + Et qui n'a jure 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 never +have foreseen what has proved one of the most curious facts in religious +history,--that from the airy and unsubstantial seed sown by the French +courtier in such a careless, thoughtless manner, would spring the +great-spreading and deep-rooted tree of sacred song. + +Little volumes of the metrical rendering of the Psalms, known as "Tate and +Brady's Version," are frequently found in New England. It was the first +English collection of psalms containing any smoothly flowing verses. Many +of the descendants of the Puritans clung with affection to the more literal +renderings of the "New England Psalm-Book," and thought the new verses were +"tasteless, bombastic, and irreverent." The authors of the new book were +certainly 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 able +to make his fortune or to raise himself above necessity. He was not too +modest, however, to dare to make a metrical version of the Psalms, to write +an improvement of King Lear, and a continuation of Absalom and Achitophel. +Brady--equally modest--translated the Aeneid in rivalry of Dryden. "This +translation," says Johnson, "when dragged into the world did not live long +enough to cry." + +Such commonplace authors could hardly compose a version that would have a +stable foundation or promise of long existence. But few of Tate and Brady's +hymns are now seen in our church-collections of Hymns and Psalms. To them +we 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 this +title, "The Book of Psalms, a new version in metre fitted to the tunes used +in Churches. By N. Tate and N. Brady." It was dedicated to King William, +and though its use was permitted in English churches, it never supplanted +Sternhold and Hopkins' Version. In New England Tate and Brady's Psalms +became more universally popular,--not, however, without fierce opposing +struggles from the older church-members at giving up the venerated "Bay +Psalm-Book." + +Another version of Psalms which is occasionally found in New England is +known as "Patrick's Version." The title is "The Psalms of David in Metre +Fitted to the Tunes used in Parish Churches by John Patrick, D.D. Precentor +to the Charter House London." A curious feature of this octavo edition of +1701, which I have, is, "An Explication of Some Words of less Common +Use 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 far +reconciled the Nonconformists that diverse of them use his Psalms in +their congregation." I doubt if the version were used in New England +Nonconformist 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 more +attention than it received was written by Cotton Mather. He was doomed to +disappointment in seeing his version adopted by the New England churches +just as his ambitions and hopes were disappointed in many other ways. This +book was published in 1718. It was called "Psalterium Americanum. A Book +of Psalms in a translation exactly conformed unto the Original; but all +in blank verse. Fitted unto the tunes commonly used in the Church." By a +curious arrangement of brackets and the use of two kinds of print these +psalms could be divided into two separate metres and could be sung to +tunes of either long or short metre. After each psalm were introduced +explanations written in Mather's characteristic manner,--a manner both +scholarly 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 Psalter +does not escape the thrusts of laughing critics. Mr. Glass, the English +critic, 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 very +ludicrous 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 the +New England churches. Doubtless they preferred rhyme--even the atrocious +rhyme of "The Bay Psalm Book." And the fact that the "Psalterium +Americanum" contained no musical notes or directions also militated against +its use. + +Other American clergymen prepared metrical versions of the psalms that were +much loved and loudly sung by the respective congregations of the writers. +The work of those worthy, painstaking saints we will neither quote nor +criticise,--saying only of each reverend versifier, "Truly, I would +the gods had made thee poetical." Rev. John Barnard, who preached for +fifty-four years in Marblehead, published at the age of seventy years a +psalm-book for his people. Though it appeared in 1752, a time when "The Bay +Psalm Book" was being shoved out of the New England churches, Barnard's +Version of the Psalms was never used outside of Marblehead. Rev. Abijah +Davis published another book of psalms in which he copied whole pages from +Watts without a word of thanks or of due credit, which was apparently +neither Christian, clerical nor manly behavior. + +Watts's monosyllabic Hymns, which were not universally used in America +until after the Revolution, are too well known and are still too frequently +seen to need more than mention. Within the last century a flood of new +books of psalms of varying merit and existence has poured out upon the New +England churches, and filled the church libraries and church, pews, the +second-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 New +England, the music was the most hopelessly forlorn,--not alone from the +confused versifications of the Psalms which were used, but from the +mournful monotony of the few known tunes and the horrible manner in which +those tunes were sung. It was not much better in old England. In 1676 +Master Mace wrote of the singing in English churches, "'T is sad to +hear what whining, toling, yelling or shreaking there is in our country +congregations." + +A few feeble efforts were made in America at the beginning of the +eighteenth century to attempt to guide the singing. The edition of 1698 of +"The Bay Psalm-Book" had "Some few Directions" regarding the singing added +on the last pages of the book, and simple enough they were in matter if not +in form. They commence, "_First_, observe how many note-compass the +tune is next the place of your first note, and how many notes above and +below that so as you may begin the tune of your first note, as the rest may +be sung in the compass of your and the peoples voices without Squeaking +above or Grumbling below." + +This "Squeaking above and Grumbling below" had become far too frequent in +the churches; Judge Sewall writes often with much self-reproach of his +failure in "setting the tune," and also records with pride when he "set the +psalm well." Here is his pathetic record of one of his mistakes: "He spake +to me to set the tune. I intended Windsor and fell into High Dutch, and +then essaying to set another tune went into a Key much to high. So I pray'd +to Mr. White to set it which he did well. Litchfield Tune. The Lord Humble +me and Instruct me that I should be the occasion of any interruption in the +worship of God." + +The singing at the time must have been bad beyond belief; how much of its +atrocity was attributable to the use of "The Bay Psalm-Book," cannot now +be known. The great length of many of the psalms in that book was a fatal +barrier to any successful effort to have good singing. Some of them were +one hundred and thirty lines long, and occupied, when lined and sung, a +full half-hour, during which the patient congregation stood. It is told of +Dr. West, who preached in Dartmouth in 1726, that he forgot one Sabbath Day +to bring his sermon to meeting. He gave out a psalm, walked a quarter of a +mile to his house, got his sermon, and was back in his pulpit long before +the psalm was finished. The irregularity of the rhythm in "The Bay Psalm +Book" must also have been a serious difficulty to overcome. Here is the +rendering 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 by +unskilled singers who possessed no guiding notes of music is difficult +to comprehend. Small wonder that Judge Sewall was forced to enter in his +diary, "In the morning I set York tune and in the second going over, the +gallery carried it irresistibly to St. Davids which discouraged me very +much." We can fancy him stamping his foot, beating time, and roaring York +at the top of his old lungs, and being overcome by the strong-voiced +gallery, and at last sadly succumbing to St. David's. Again he writes: "I +set York tune and the Congregation went out of it into St. Davids in the +very 2nd going over. They did the same 3 weeks before. This is the 2nd +Sign. It seems to me an intimation for me to resign the Praecentor's Place +to a better Voice. I have through the Divine Long suffering and Favour done +it for 24 years and now God in his Providence seems to call me off, my +voice being enfeebled." Still a third time he "set Windsor tune;" they "ran +over into Oxford do what I would." These unseemly "running overs" became +so common that ere long each singer "set the tune" at his own will and the +loudest-voiced carried the day. A writer of the time, Rev. Thomas Walter, +says of this reign of _concordia discors_: "The tunes are now +miserably tortured and twisted and quavered, in some Churches, into a +horrid Medly of confused and disorderly Voices. Our tunes are left to the +Mercy 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 the +Congregation quaver alike or together, it sounds in the Ears of a Good +Judge like five hundred different Tunes roared out at the same Time, with +perpetual Interfearings with one another." + +Still, confused and poor as was the singing, it was a source of pure and +unceasing delight to the Puritan colonists,--one of the rare pleasures they +possessed,--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 cacophonous +melodies--they clung with a devotion almost phenomenal. + +Nor should we underrate the cohesive power that psalm-singing proved in the +early communities; it was one of the most potent influences in gathering +and holding the colonists together in love. And they reverenced their poor +halting tunes in a way quite beyond our modern power of fathoming. Whenever +a Puritan, even in road or field, heard at a distance the sound of a +psalm-tune, though the sacred words might be quite undistinguishable, he +doffed his hat and bowed his head in the true presence of God. We fain must +believe, 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 moved +to 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 tears +at the words, _bought with thy blood_." He also, with a vehemence of +language most unusual in him and which showed his deep feeling, wrote that +he had an intense passion for music. And yet, the only tunes he or any of +his 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 previously +prepared "A very Plain and Easy Introduction to the Art of Singing +Psalm-tunes," issued a collection of tunes in three parts. These +thirty-seven tunes, all of which but one were in common metre, were bound +often with "The Bay Psalm-Book." They were reprinted from Playford's "Book +of 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 great +number of new tunes appeared fairly monstrous, and formed the signal for +bitter objections and fierce quarrels. + +In 1647 a tract had appeared on church-singing which had attracted much +attention. It was written by Rev John Cotton to attempt to influence the +adoption and universal use of "The Bay Psalm-Book." This tract thoroughly +considered the duty of singing, the matter sung, the singers, and the +manner of singing, and, like all the literature of the time, was full of +Biblical allusion and quotation. It had been said that "man should sing +onely and not the women. Because it is not permitted to a woman to speake +in the Church, how then shall they sing? Much lesse is it permitted to them +to prophecy in the church and singing of Psalms is a kind of Prophecying." +Cotton fully answered and contradicted these false reasoners, who would +have had to face a revolution had they attempted to keep the Puritan women +from singing in meeting. The tract abounds in quaint expressions, such as, +"they have scoffed at Puritan Ministers as calling the people to sing one +of _Hopkins-Jiggs_ and so _hop_ into the pulpit." Though he wrote +this tract to encourage good singing in meeting, his endorsement of "lining +the Psalm" gave support to the very element that soon ruined the singing. +His reasons, however, were temporarily good, "because many wanted books and +skill to read." At that time, and for a century later, many congregations +had but one or two psalm-books, one of which was often bound with the +church Bible and from which the deacon lined the psalm. + +So villanous had church-singing at last become that the clergymen arose in +a body and demanded better performances; while a desperate and disgusted +party was also formed which was opposed to all singing. Still another band +of old fogies was strong in force who wished to cling to the same way of +singing that they were accustomed to; and they gave many objections to the +new-fangled idea of singing by note, the chief item on the list being the +everlasting objection of all such old fossils, that "the old way was good +enough for our fathers," &c. They also asserted that "_the names of +the notes were blasphemous_;" that it was "popish;" that it was a +contrivance to get money; that it would bring musical instruments into the +churches; 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 jealousy +that if we begin to _sing_ by _rule_, the next thing will be +to _pray_ by rule and _preach_ by rule and _then comes popery_." + +It is impossible to overestimate the excitement, the animosity, and the +contention which arose in the New England colonies from these discussions +over "singing by rule" or "singing by rote." Many prominent clergymen wrote +essays and tracts upon the subject; of these essays "The Reasonableness of +Regular Singing," also a "Joco-serious Dialogue on Singing," by Reverend +Mr. Symmes; "Cases of Conscience," compiled by several ministers; "The +Accomplished Singer," by Cotton Mather, were the most important. "Singing +Lectures" also were given in many parts of New England by various prominent +ministers. So high was party feud that a "Pacificatory Letter" was +necessary, which was probably written by Cotton Mather, and which soothed +the troubled waters. The people who thought the "old way was the best" were +entirely 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 glimpse +of the colonial manner of conducting a meeting:-- + +"July 2. 1736. At a Society meeting at which Capt. Pelatiah Allyn +Moderator. The business of the meeting proceeded in the following manner +Viz. the Moderator proposed as to the consideration of the meeting in the +1st Place what should be done respecting that part of publick Woiship +called Singing viz. whether in their Publick meetings as on Sabbath day, +Lectures &c they would sing the way that Deacon Marshall usually sung in +his lifetime commonly called the 'Old Way' or whether they would sing the +way taught by Mr. Beal commonly called 'Singing by Rule,' and when the +Society had discoursed the matter the Moderator pioposed to vote for said +two ways as followeth viz. that those that were for singing in publick in +the way practiced by Deacon Marshall should hold up their hands and be +counted, and then that those that were desirous to sing in Mr. Beals way +called 'by Rule' would after show their minds by the same sign which method +was proceeded upon accordingly. But when the vote was passed there being +many voters it was difficult to take the exact number of votes in order to +determine on which side the major vote was; whereupon the Moderator ordered +all the voters to go out of the seats and stand in the alleys and then +those that were for Deacon Marshalls way should go into the mens seats and +those that were for Mr. Beals way should go into the womens seat and +after much objections made against that way, which prevailed not with the +Moderator, it was complied with, and then the Moderator desired that those +that were of the mind that the way to be practiced for singing for the +future on the Sabbath &c should be the way sung by Deacon Marshall as +aforesaid would signify the same by holding up their hands and be counted, +and then the Moderator and myself went and counted the voters and the +Moderator asked me how many there was. I answered 42 and he said there was +63 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. Beals +way of Singing called 'by Rule' but it was offered whether it would not be +better to order the voters to pass out of the Meeting House door and there +be counted who did accordingly and their number was 44 or 45. Then the +Moderator proceeded and desired that those who were for singing in Public +the way that Mr. Beal taught would draw out of their seats and pass out of +the door and be counted. They replied they were ready to show their minds +in any proper way where they were if they might be directed thereto but +would not go out of the door to do the same and desired that they might be +led to a vote where they were and they were ready to show their minds which +the Moderator refused to do and thereupon declared that it was voted that +Deacon Marshalls way of singing called the 'Old Way' should be sung in +Publick for the future and ordered me to record the same as the vote of the +Said Society which I refused to do under the circumstances thereof and have +recorded 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, an +idealized memory of pure and pious harmony, in the hearts of your old +church friends. Warmly did they fight for your "way of singing;" with +most undeniable and open partiality, with most dubious ingenuousness and +rectitude, did your old neighbor, Captain Pelatiah Allyn, conduct that hot +July music-meeting, counting up boldly sixty-three votes in favor of your +way, when there were only forty-three voters on your side of the alley, and +crowding a final decision in your favor. It is sad to read that when icy +winter chilled the blood, warm partisanship of old friends also cooled, and +innovative Windsor youth carried the day and the music vote, and your good +old way was abandoned for half the Sunday services, to allow the upstart +new fashion to take control. + +One happy result arose throughout New England from the victory of the +ardent advocates of the "singing by rule,"--the establishment of the New +England "singing-school,"--that outlet for the pent-up, amusement-lacking +lives of young people in colonial times. What that innocent and +happy gathering was in the monotonous existence of our ancestors and +ancestresses, we of the present pleasure-filled days can hardly comprehend. + +Extracts from the records of various colonial churches will show how soon +the respective communities yielded to the march of improvement and "seated +the taught singers" together, thus forming choirs. In 1762 the church +at Rowley, Massachusetts, voted "that those who have learned the art of +Singing may have liberty to sit in the front gallery." In 1780 the same +parish "requested Jonathan Chaplin and Lieutenant Spefford to assist the +deacons in Raising the tune in the meeting house." In Sutton, in 1791, the +Company of Singers were allowed to sit together, and $13 was voted to pay +for "larning to sing by Rule." The Roxbury "First Church" voted in 1770 +"three seats in the back gallery for those inclined to sit together for +the purpose of singing" The church in Hanover, in 1742, took a vote to +see whether the "church will sing in the new way" and appoint a tuner. In +Woodbury, Connecticut, in 1750 the singers "may sitt up Galery all day if +they please but to keep to there own seat & not to Infringe on the Women +Pues." In 1763, in the Ipswich First Parish, the singers were allowed to +sit "two back on each side of the front alley." Similar entries may be +found in nearly every record of New England churches in the middle or +latter part of that century. + +The musical battle was not finished, however, when the singing was at last +taught by rule, and the singers were allowed to sit together and form a +choir. There still existed the odious custom of "lining" or "deaconing" +the psalm. To this fashion may be attributed the depraved condition of +church-singing of which Walters so forcibly wrote, and while it continued +the case seemed hopeless, in spite of singing-schools and singing-teachers. +It would be trying to the continued uniformity of pitch of an ordinary +church choir, even now-a-days, to have to stop for several seconds between +each line to listen to a reading and sometimes to an explanation of the +following line. + +The Westminster Assembly had suggested in 1664 the alternate reading and +singing of each line of the psalm to those churches that were not well +supplied with psalm-books. The suggestion had not been adopted without +discussion, It was in 1680 much talked over in the church in Plymouth, and +was adopted only after getting the opinion of each male church member. +When once taken into general use the custom continued everywhere, through +carelessness and obstinacy, long after the churches possessed plenty of +psalm-books. An early complaint against it was made by Dr. Watts in the +preface of his hymns, which were published by Benjamin Franklin in 1741. As +Watts' Psalms and Hymns were not, however, in general use in New England +until after the Revolution, this preface with its complaint was for a long +time little seen and little heeded. + +It is said that the abolition came gradually; that the impetuous and +well-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 sung +boldly on without stopping at all to be "deaconed." This brought down +a tempest of indignation from the older church-members, who protested, +however, in vain. A vote in the church usually found the singers +victorious, and whether the church voted for or against the "lining," the +choir would always by stratagem vanquish the deacon. One old soldier took +his revenge, however. Being sung down by the rampant choir, he still showed +battle, 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 was +allowed "to sing once on the Lord's Day without reading by the Deacon." In +five years the Rowley singers were wholly victorious, and "lining out" the +psalm was entirely discontinued. + +In 1770, dissatisfaction at the singing in the church was rife in +Wilbraham, and a vote was taken to see whether the town would be willing +to have singing four times at each service; and it was voted to "take into +consideration the Broken State of this Town with regard to singing on the +Sabbath Day." Special and bitter objection was made against the leader +beating time so ostentatiously. A list of singers was made and a +singing-master appointed. The deacon was allowed to lead and line and beat +time in the forenoon, while the new school was to have control in the +afternoon; and "whoever leads the singing shall be at liberty to use the +motion of his hand while singing for the space of three months only." It is +needless to state who came off victorious in the end. The deacon left as a +parting shot a request to "make Inquiry into the conduct of those who call +themselves the Singers in this town." + +In Worcester, in 1779, a resolution adopted at the town meeting was "that +the mode of singing in the congregation here be without reading the psalms +line by line." "The Sabbath succeeding the adoption of this resolution, +after the hymn had been read by the minister, the aged and venerable Deacon +Chamberlain, unwilling to abandon the custom of his fathers and his own +honorable prerogative, rose and read the first line according to his usual +practice. The singers, previously prepared to carry the desired alteration +into effect, proceeded in their singing without pausing at the conclusion +of the line. The white-haired officer of the church with the full power +of his voice read on through the second line, until the loud notes of the +collected body of singers overpowered his attempt to resist the progress +of improvement. The deacon, deeply mortified at the triumph of the musical +reformation, then seized his hat and retired from the meeting-house in +tears." His conduct was censured by the church, and he was for a time +deprived of partaking in the communion, for "absenting himself from the +public services of the Sabbath;" but in a few weeks the unhouselled deacon +was forgiven, and never attempted to "line" again. + +Though the opponents of "lining" were victorious in the larger villages and +towns, in smaller parishes, where there were few hymn-books, the lining +of the psalms continued for many years. Mr. Hood wrote, in 1846, the +astonishing statement that "the habit of lining prevails to this day over +three-fourths of the United States." This I can hardly believe, though I +know that at present the practice obtains in out of the way towns with poor +and ignorant congregations. The separation of the lines often gives a very +strange meaning to the words of a psalm; and one wonders what the Puritan +children thought when they heard this lino of contradictions that Hood +points 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, and +many church petitions have been preserved asking permission to use the +new and more melodious psalm and hymn books. Books of instruction also +abounded,--books in which the notes were not printed on the staff, and +books in which there were staffs but no notes, only letters or other +characters (these were called "dunce notes"); books, too, in which the +notes were printed so thickly that they could scarcely be distinguished one +from 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 "The +Compleat Melody or Harmony of Sion," by William Tansur,--"Ingenious +Tans'ur Skilled in Musicks Art." It was a most superficial, pedantic, and +bewildering composition. The musical instruction was given in the form of a +series of ill-spelled dialogues between a teacher and pupil, interspersed +with occasional miserable rhymes. It was ill-expressed at best, and +such musical terms as "Rations of Concords," "Trilloes," "Trifdiapasons," +"Leaps," "Binding cadences," "Disallowances," "Canons," "Prime Flower +of Florid," "Consecutions of Perfects," and "Figurates," make the book +exceedingly difficult of comprehension to the average reader, though +possibly not to a student of obsolete musical phraseology. + +A side skirmish on the music field was at this time fought between the +treble and the tenor parts. Ravenscroft's Psalms and Walter's book had +given the melody, or plain-song, to the tenor. This had, of course, thrown +additional difficulties in the way of good singing; but when once the +trebles 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 all +the notes of uniform length; and some persons thought that marking and +accenting the measure was a step toward the "Scarlet Woman." The time was +called derisively, "a long leg and a short one." + +These old bigots must have been paralyzed at the new style of psalm-singing +which was invented and introduced by a Massachusetts tanner and +singing-master named Billings, and which was suggested, doubtless, by the +English anthems. It spread through the choirs of colonial villages and +towns like wild-fire, and was called "fuguing." Mr. Billings' "Fuguing +Psalm Singer" was published in 1770. It is a dingy, ill-printed book with +a comically illustrated frontispiece, long pages of instruction, and this +motto:-- + + "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 in +post-Revolutionary years have no hint of "Britain" in them. The names +"Federal Harmony," "Columbian Harmony," "Continental Harmony," "Columbian +Repository," and "United States Sacred Harmony" show the new nation. +Billings also published the "Psalm Singer's Amusement," and other +singing-books. The shades of Cotton, of Sewall, of Mather must have groaned +aloud 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 anxious +and depressing warfare should have so delightedly seized and adopted this +unusual and comparatively joyous style of singing, but perhaps the new +spirit of liberty demanded more animated and spirited expression; and +Billings' psalm-tunes were played with drum and fife on the battlefield to +inspire the American soldiers. Billings wrote of his fuguing invention, "It +has more than twenty times the power of the old slow tunes. Now the solemn +bass 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 agree +with Billings and Byles as to its angelic and ecstatic properties. Some +thought it "heartless, tasteless, trivial, and irreverent jargon." Others +thought the tunes were written more for the absurd inflation of the singers +than for the glory of God; and many fully sympathized with the man who +hung two cats over Billings's door to indicate his opinion of Billings's +caterwauling. An old inhabitant of Roxbury remembered that when fuguing +tunes were introduced into his church "they produced a literally fuguing +effect on the older people, who went out of the church as soon as the first +verse was sung." One scandalized and belligerent old clergyman, upon the +Sabbath following the introduction of fuguing into his church, preached +upon the prophecy of Amos, "The songs of the temple shall be turned +into howling," while another took for his text the sixth verse of the +seventeenth chapter of Acts, "Those that have turned the world upside down, +are come hither also." One indignant and disgusted church attendant thus +profanely 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 some +ridiculous 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 until +bass, treble, alto, counter, and tenor had bow-wowed for about twenty +seconds; yet I doubt if the simple hearts that sung ever saw the absurdity. + +It is impossible while speaking of fuguing to pass over an extraordinary +element of the choir called "singing counter." The counter-tenor parts in +European church-music were originally written for boys' voices. From +thence followed the falsetto singing of the part by men; such was also +the "counter" of New England. It was my fortune to hear once in a country +church an aged deacon "sing counter". Reverence for the place and song, and +respect for the singer alike failed to control the irrepressible start +of amazement and smile of amusement with which we greeted the weird and +apparently demented shriek which rose high over the voices of the choir, +but which did not at all disconcert their accustomed ears. Words, however +chosen, would fail in attempting to describe the grotesque and uncanny +sound. + +It is very evident, when once choirs of singers were established and +attempts made for congregations to sing the same tune, and to keep +together, and upon the same key, that in some way a decided pitch must be +given to them to start upon. To this end pitch-pipes were brought into the +singers' gallery, and the pitch was given sneakingly and shamefacedly to +the singers. From these pitch-pipes the steps were gradual, but they led, +as the Puritan divines foresaw, to the general introduction of musical +instruments into the meetings. + +This seemed to be attacking the very foundations of their church; for the +Puritans in England had, in 1557, expressly declared "concerning singing of +psalms we allow of the people joining with one voice in a plain tune, but +not in tossing the psalms from one side to the other with mingling of +organs." The Round-heads had, in 1664, gone through England destroying the +noble organs in the churches and cathedrals. They tore the pipes from the +organ in Westminster Abbey, shouting, "Hark! how the organs go!" and, "Mark +what musick that is, that is lawful for a Puritan to dance," and they sold +the metal for pots of ale. Only four or five organs were left uninjured in +all England. 'Twas not likely, then, that New England Puritans would take +kindly to any musical instruments. Cotton Mather declared that there was +not a word in the New Testament that authorized the use of such aids to +devotion. The ministers preached often and long on the text from the +prophecy of Amos, "I will not hear the melody of thy viols;" while, +Puritan-fashion, they ignored the other half of the verse, "Take thou away +from me the noise of thy songs." Disparaging comparisons were made with +Nebuchadnezzar's idolatrous concert of cornet, flute, dulcimer, sackbut, +and psaltery; and the ministers, from their overwhelming store of Biblical +knowledge, hurled text after text at the "fiddle-players." + +Some of the first pitch-pipes were comical little apple-wood instruments +that looked like mouse-traps, and great pains was taken to conceal them as +they were passed surreptitiously from hand to hand in the choir. I have +seen one which was carefully concealed in a box that had a leather binding +like a book, and which was ostentatiously labelled in large gilt letters +"Holy Bible;" a piece of barefaced and unnecessary deception on the part of +some pious New England deacon or chorister. + +Little wooden fifes were also used, and then metal tuning-forks. A canny +Scotchman, who abhorred the thought of all musical instruments anywhere, +managed to have one fling at the pitch-pipe. The pitch had been given but +was much too high, and before the first verse was ended the choir had to +cease singing. The Scotchman stood up and pointed his long finger to the +leader, saying in broad accents of scorn, "Ah, Johnny Smuth, now ye can +have a chance to blaw yer braw whustle agaen." At a similar catastrophe +owing to the mistake of the leader in Medford, old General Brooks rose in +his pew and roared in an irritated voice of command, "Halt! Take another +pitch, Bailey, take another pitch." + +In 1713 there was sent to America an English organ, "a pair of organs" it +was called, which had chanced, by being at the manufacturers instead of in +a church, to have escaped the general destruction by the Round-heads. It +was given by Thomas Brattle to the Brattle Street Church in Boston. The +congregation voted to refuse the gift, and it was then sent to King's +Chapel, where it remained unpacked for several months for fear of hostile +demonstrations, but was finally set up and used. In 1740 a Bostonian named +Bromfield made an organ, and it was placed in a meeting-house and used +weekly. In 1794 the church in Newbury obtained an organ, and many +unpleasant and disparaging references were made by clergymen of other +parishes to "our neighbor's box of whistles," "the tooting tub." + +Violoncellos, or bass-viols, as they were universally called, were almost +the first musical instruments that were allowed in the New England +churches. They were called, without intentional irreverence, "Lord's +fiddles." Violins were widely opposed, they savored too much of low, tavern +dance-music. After much consultation a satisfactory compromise was agreed +upon by which violins were allowed in many meetings, if the performers +"would play the fiddle wrong end up." Thus did our sanctimonious +grandfathers cajole and persuade themselves that an inverted fiddle was +not 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 and +did not suit the Old people; one Old Gentleman got up, took his hat off +the peg and marched off. Said they had begun fiddling and there would be +dancing soon." Another church-member, in derisive opposition to a clarinet +which 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 and +the singers. When reproved for this astounding behavior he answered stoutly +that "if one man could blow a horn in the Lord's House on the Sabbath day +he guessed he could too," and he had to be bound over to keep the peace +before the following Sunday. A venerable and hitherto decorous old deacon +of Roxbury not only left the church when the hated bass-viol began its +accompanying notes, but he stood for a long time outside the church door +stridently "caterwauling" at the top of his lungs. When expostulated with +for this unseemly and unchristianlike annoyance he explained that he was +"only mocking the banjo." To such depths of rebellion were stirred the +Puritan instincts of these religious souls. + +Many a minister said openly that he would like to walk out of his pulpit +when the obnoxious and hated flutes, violins, bass-viols, and bassoons were +played upon in the singing gallery. One clergyman contemptuously announced +"We will now sing and fiddle the forty-fifth Psalm." Another complained of +the indecorous dress of the fiddle-player. This had reference to the almost +universal custom, in country churches in the summer time, of the bass-viol +player removing his coat and playing "in his shirt sleeves." Others hated +the 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 resin +religion." + +In 1804 the church in Quincy, being "advanced," granted the singers the +sum of twenty-five dollars to buy a bass-viol to use in meeting, and a few +other churches followed their lead. From the year 1794 till 1829 the +church 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 "Leave +for the Bass Viol to be brought into ye meeting house to be Played On every +other Sabbath & to Play if chosen every Sabbath in the Intermission between +meetings & 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 from +church and were disciplined therefor. Then they voted that the bass-viol +could not be used unless Capt. Gibbs were previously notified (so he and +his family need not come to hear the hated sounds); but at last, after +thirty years, the choir and the "fiddle-player" were triumphant in Wareham +as they were in other towns. + +We were well into the present century before any cheerful and also simple +music was heard in our churches; fuguing was more varied and surprising +than cheerful. Of course, it was difficult as well as inappropriate to +suggest 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, and +encouraging; and the young singers and perhaps the singing-masters craved +new and less sober tunes. Old dance tunes were at first adapted; "Sweet +Anne Page," "Babbling Echo," "Little Pickle" were set to sacred words. The +music of "Few Happy Matches" was sung to the hymn "Lo, on a narrow neck +of land;" and that of "When I was brisk and young" was disguised with +the 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, and +of course demanded singers of capacity and education to sing them. From +this was but a step to a paid quartette, and the struggle over this last +means of improvement and pleasure in church music is of too recent a date +to be more than referred to. + +I attended a church service not many years ago in Worcester, where an old +clergyman, the venerable "Father" Allen, of Shrewsbury, then too aged +and feeble to preach, was seated in the front pew of the church. When a +quartette of singers began to render a rather operatic arrangement of a +sacred song he rose, erect and stately, to his full gaunt height, turned +slowly around and glanced reproachfully over the frivolous, backsliding +congregation, wrapped around his spare, lean figure his full cloak +of quilted black silk, took his shovel hat and his cane, and stalked +indignantly and sadly the whole length of the broad central aisle, out +of the church, thus making a last but futile protest against modern +innovations in church music. Many, in whom the Puritan instincts and blood +are still strong, sympathize internally with him in this feeling; and all +novelty-lovers must acknowledge that the sublime simplicity and deep piety +in which the old Puritan psalm-tunes abound, has seldom been attained in +the 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 and +more 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 religious +meetings were not always quiet and uninterrupted. We know the torment they +endured from the "wretched boys," and they were harassed by other +annoying interruptions. For the preservation of peace and order they made +characteristic laws, with characteristic punishments. "If any interrupt +or oppose a preacher in season of worship, they shall be reproved by the +Magistrate, and on repetition, shall pay L5, or stand two hours on a block +four 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 state +their 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, in +sermon-time came in, in a canvass frock, her hair dishevelled loose like a +Periwig, her face as black as ink, led by two other quakers, and two other +quakers followed. It occasioned the greatest and most amazing uproar that I +ever saw." More grievous irruptions still of scantily clad and even naked +Quaker women were made into other Puritan meetings; and Quaker men shouted +gloomily in through the church windows, "Woe! Woe! Woe to the people!" +and, "The Lord will destroy thee!" and they broke glass bottles before +the minister's very face, crying out, "Thus the Lord will break thee in +pieces!" and they came into the meeting-house, in spite of the fierce +tithingman, and sat down in other people's seats with their hats on their +heads, in ash-covered coats, rocking to and fro and groaning dismally, as +if in a mournful obsession. Quaker women managed to obtain admission to the +churches, 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 say +well," and other unpleasant, though perhaps truthful personalities. It is +hard to believe that the poor, excited, screaming visionaries of those +early days belonged to the same religious sect as do the serene, +low-voiced, sweet-faced, and retiring Quakeresses of to-day. And there is +no doubt that the astounding and meaningless freaks of these half-crazed +fanatics were provoked by the cruel persecutions which they endured from +our much loved and revered, but alas, intolerant and far from perfect +Puritan Fathers. These poor Quakers were arrested, fined, robbed, stripped +naked, imprisoned, laid neck and heels, chained to logs of wood, branded, +maimed, whipped, pilloried, caged, set in the stocks, exiled, sold +into slavery and hanged by our stern and cruel ancestors. Perhaps some +gentle-hearted but timid Puritan souls may have inwardly felt that the +Indian wars, and the destructive fires, and the earthquakes, and the dead +cattle, blasted wheat, and wormy peas, were not judgments of God for small +ministerial pay and periwig-wearing, but punishments for the heartrending +woes of the persecuted Quakers. + +Others than the poor Quakers spoke out in colonial meetings. In Salem +village and in other witch-hunting towns the crafty "victims" of the +witches were frequently visited with their mock pains and sham fits in the +meeting-houses, and they called out and interrupted the ministers most +vexingly. Ann Putnam, the best and boldest actress among those cunning +young Puritan witch-accusers, the protagonist of that New England tragedy +known as the Salem Witchcraft, shouted out most embarrassingly, "There is +a yellow-bird sitting on the minister's hat, as it hangs on the pin in the +pulpit." Mr. Lawson, the minister, wrote with much simplicity that "these +things occurring in the time of public worship did something interrupt me +in my first prayer, being so unusual." But he braced himself up in spite +of Ann and the demoniacal yellow-bird, and finished the service. These +disorderly interruptions occurred on every Lord's Day, growing weekly +more constant and more universal, and must have been unbearable. Some few +disgusted members withdrew from the church, giving as reason that "the +distracting and disturbing tumults and noises made by persons under +diabolical power and delusions, preventing sometimes our hearing and +understanding and profiting of the word preached; we having after many +trials and experiences found no redress in this case, accounted ourselves +under a necessity to go where we might hear the word in quiet." These +withdrawing church-members were all of families that contained at least +one person that had been accused of practising witchcraft. They were thus +severely intolerant of the sacrilegious and lawless interruptions of the +shy young "victims," who received in general only sympathy, pity, and even +stimulating encouragement from their deluded and excited neighbors. + +One very pleasing interruption,--no, I cannot call it by so severe a +name,--one very pleasing diversion of the attention of the congregation +from the parson was caused by an innocent custom that prevailed in many a +country community. Just fancy the flurry on a June Sabbath in Killingly, in +1785, when Joseph Gay, clad in velvet coat, lace-frilled shirt, and white +broadcloth knee-breeches, with his fair bride of a few days, gorgeous in a +peach-colored silk gown and a bonnet trimmed "with sixteen yards of white +ribbon," rose, in the middle of the sermon, from their front seat in the +gallery and stood for several minutes, slowly turning around in order to +show from every point of view their bridal finery to the eagerly gazing +congregation of friends and neighbors. Such was the really delightful and +thoughtful custom, in those fashion-plateless days, among persons of +wealth in that and other churches; it was, in fact, part of the wedding +celebration. Even in midwinter, in the icy church, the blushing bride would +throw aside her broadcloth cape or camblet roquelo and stand up clad in a +sprigged India muslin gown with only a thin lace tucker over her neck, warm +with pride in her pretty gown, her white bonnet with ostrich feathers and +embroidered veil, and in her new husband. + +The services in the meeting-house on the Sabbath and on Lecture days +were sometimes painfully varied, though scarcely interrupted, by a very +distressing and harrowing custom of public abasement and self-abnegation, +which prevailed for many years in the nervously religious colonies. It was +not an enforced punishment, but a voluntary one. Men and women who had +committed crimes or misdemeanors, and who had sincerely repented of their +sins, or who were filled with remorse for some violation of conscience, or +even with regret for some neglect of religious ethics, rose in the Sabbath +meeting before the assembled congregation and confessed their sins, and +humbly asked forgiveness of God, and charity from their fellows. At +other times they stood with downcast heads while the minister read their +confession of guilt and plea for forgiveness. A most graphic account of one +of those painful scenes is thus given by Governor Winthrop in his "History +of 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 sad +because it makes us smile." + +Captain John Underhill was a brave though somewhat bumptious soldier, who +had fought under the Prince of Orange in the War of the Netherlands, and +had been employed as temporal drill-master in the church-militant in New +England. He did good service for the colonists in the war with the Pequot +Indians, and indeed wherever there was any fighting to be done. "He thrust +about and justled into fame" He also managed to have apparently a very good +time in the new land, both in sinning and repenting. When he stood up on +the church-seat before the horrified, yet wide-open eyes of pious Boston +folk, in his studiously and theatrically disarranged garments, and +blubbered out his whining yet vain-glorious repentance, he doubtless acted +his part well, for he had twice before been through the same performance, +supplementing his second rehearsal by kneeling down before an injured +husband in the congregation, and asking earthly forgiveness. I wish I +could believe that this final repentance of the resilient captain were +sincere--but I cannot. Nor did Boston people believe it either, though that +noble and generous-minded man, Winthrop, thought he saw at the time of +confession evidences of a truly contrite heart. The Puritans sternly and +eagerly 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 of +Long Island, where he perhaps found a church-home with members less severe +and less sharp-eyed than those of his Boston place of martyrdom, and a +people less inclined to resent and punish his frailties and his ways of +amusing himself. + +In justice to Underhill (or perhaps to show his double-dealing) I will say +that he left behind him a letter to Hanserd Knollys, complaining of the +ill-treatment he had received; and in it he gives a very different account +of this little affair with the Boston Church from that given us by Governor +Winthrop. The offender says nothing about his hypocrisy, his public and +self-abasing confession, nor of his sanctimonious blubbering and wishes for +death. He explains that his offence was mild and purely mental, that in an +infaust moment he glanced (doubtless stared soldier-fashion) at "Mistris +Miriam Wildbore" as she sat in her "pue" at meeting. The elders, noting his +admiring and amorous glances, thereupon accused him of sin in his heart, +and severely asked him why he did not look instead at Mistress Newell or +Mistress Upham. He replied very spiritedly and pertinently that these dames +were "not desiryable women as to temporal graces," which was certainly +sufficient and proper reason for any man to give, were he Puritan or +Cavalier. Then acerb old John Cotton and some other Boston ascetics +(perhaps Goodman Newell and Goodman Upham, resenting for their wives the +_spretae injuria formae_) at once hunted up some plainly applicable +verses from the Bible that clearly proved him guilty of the alleged +sin--and summarily excommunicated him. He also wrote that the pious church +complained that the attractive, the temporally graced Mistress Wildbore +came vainly and over-bravely clad to meeting, with "wanton open-worked +gloves slitt at the thumbs and fingers for the purpose of taking snuff," +and he resented this complaint against the fair one, saying no harm could +surely come from indulging in the "good creature called tobacco." He would +naturally feel that snuff-taking was a proper and suitable church-custom, +since his own conversion,--dubious though it was,--his religious belief had +come to him, "the spirit fell home upon his heart" while he was indulging +in a quiet smoke. + +The story of his offences as told b his contemporaries does not assign to +him so innocuous a diversion as staring across the meeting-house, but the +account is quite as amusing as his own plaintive and deeply injured version +of his arraignment. + +Other letters of his have been preserved to us,--letters blustering as +was Ancient Pistol, and equally sanctimonious, letters fearfully and +phonetically spelt. Here is the opening of a letter written while he +was under sentence of excommunication from the Boston Church, and of +banishment. 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 you +love it.... Silene can not reduce the hart of youer lovd brother: I would +the rightchous would smite me espechah youerslfe & the honnered Depoti to +whom I also dereckt this letter.... I would to God you would tender me +soule 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 to +the honnored depoti how as I was drouck & like to be cild & both falc, upon +okachon I delt with Wannerton for intrushon & finddmg them resolutli bent +to rout all gud a mong us & advanc there superstischous ways & by boystrous +words indeferd to fritten men to accomplish his end. & he abusing me to +my face, dru upon him with intent to corb his insolent & dastardli +sperrite.... Ister daye on Pickeren their Chorch Warden caim up to us with +intent to make some of ourse drone as is sospeckted but the Lord sofered +him so to misdemen himslfe as he is likli to li by the hielse this too +month.... My homble request is that you will be charitable of me.... Let +justies and merci be goyned.... You may plese to soggest youer will to this +barrer you will find him tracktabel." + +My sense of drollery is always most keenly tickled when I read Underhill's +epistles, with their amazing and highly-varied letter concoctions, and +remember that he also--wrote a book. What that seventeenth-century printer +and proof-reader endured ere they presented his "edited" volume to the +public must have been beyond expression by words. It was a pretty good book +though, and in it, like many another man of his ilk, he tendered to his +much-injured wife loud and diffuse praise, ending with these sententious +words, "Let no man despise advice and counsel of his wife--though she be a +woman." + +And yet, upon careful examination we find a method, a system, in +Underhill's orthography, or rather in his cacography. He thinks a final +tion should be spelt chon--and why not? "proposichon," "satisfackchon," +"oblegachon," "persekuchon," "dereckchon," "himelyachon"--thus he spells +such words. And his plurals are plain when once you grasp his laws: +"poseschouse" and "considderachonse," "facktse," and "respecktse." And +his 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 spelling +these words? A "painful" speller you surely were, my gay Don Juan +Underbill, as your pedantic "writtingse" all show, and the most dramatic +and comic figure among all the early Puritans as well, though you scarcely +deserve 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 a +time-pleaser ... his ground of faith that all who looked on him loved him." + +In keen contrast to this sentimental excitement is the presence of noble +Judge Sewall, white-haired and benignant, standing up calmly in Boston +meeting, with dignified face and demeanor, but an aching and contrite +heart, to ask through the voice of his minister humble forgiveness of God +and man for his sad share as a judge in the unjust and awful condemnation +and cruel sentencing to death of the poor murdered victims of that terrible +delusion the Salem Witchcraft. Years of calm and unshrinking reflection, of +pleading and constant communion with God had brought to him an overwhelming +sense of his mistaken and over-influenced judgment, and a horror and +remorse for the fatal results of his error. Then, like the steadfast and +upright old Puritan that he was, he publicly acknowledged his terrible +mistake. It is one of the finest instances of true nobility of soul and of +absolute self-renunciation that the world affords. And the deep strain, the +sharp wrench of the step is made more apparent still by the fact of the +disapproval 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 when +the anniversary of the fatal judgment-day returned, show that no half-vain +bigotry, no emotional excitement filled and moved him to the open words of +remorse. The lesson of his repentance is farther reaching than he +dreamed, when the story of his confession can so move and affect this +nineteenth-century generation, and fill more than one soul with a nobler +idea of the Puritan nature, and with a higher and fuller conception of the +absolute truth of the Puritan Christianity. + +Some very prosaic and earthly interruptions to the church services are +recorded as being made, and possibly by the church-members themselves. In +one church, in 1661, a fine of five shillings was imposed on any one "who +shot off a gun or led a horse into the meeting-house." These seem to me +quite as unseemly, irreverent, and disagreeable disturbances as shouting +out, Quaker-fashion, "Parson, your sermon is too long;" but possibly the +house 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 been +imported from England, "sufficient mastive dogs, hounds and beagles," and +also Irish wolf-hounds; and they caused an interruption in one afternoon +service by chasing into the meeting-house one of those pungently offensive, +though harmless, animals that abounded even in the earliest colonial +days, and whose mephitic odor, in this case, had power to scatter the +congregation as effectively as would have a score of armed Indian braves. +Officially appointed "Dogg-whippers" and the never idle tithingman expelled +the intruding and unwelcome canine attendants from the meeting-house with +fierce blows and fiercer yelps. The swarming dogs, though they were trained +to hunt the Indians and wolves and tear them in pieces, were much fonder of +hunting and tearing the peaceful sheep, and thus became such unmitigated +nuisances, out of meeting as well as in, that they had to be muzzled and +hobbled, and killed, and land was granted (as in Newbury in 1703) on +condition that no dog was ever kept thereon. As late as the year 1820, it +was ordered in the town of Brewster that any dog that came into meeting +should be killed unless the owner promised to thenceforth keep the intruder +out. + +Alarms of fire in the neighborhood frequently disturbed the quiet of +the early colonial services; for the combustible catted chimneys were +a constant source of conflagration, especially on Sundays, when the +fireplaces with their roaring fires were left unwatched; and all the men +rushed out of the meeting at sound of the alarm to aid in quenching the +flames, which could however be ill-fought with the scanty supply of +water that could be brought in a few leathern fire-buckets and +milk-pails,--though at a very early date as an aid in extinguishing +fires 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 were +kept in the meeting-house, and thus were handy for Sunday fires. + +Sometimes armed men, bearing rumors of wars and of hostile attacks, rode +clattering up to the church-door, and strode with jingling spurs and +rattling swords into the excited assembly with appeal for more soldiers to +bear arms, or for more help for those already in the army, and the whole +congregation felt it no interruption but a high religious privilege and +duty, to which they responded in word and deed. On some happy Sabbaths the +armed riders bore good news of great victories, and great was the rejoicing +thereat in prayer and praise in the old meeting-house. + +But usually through the Sabbath services, though the quiet was not that +of our modern carpeted, cushioned, orderly churches, but few interrupting +sounds were heard. The cry of a waking infant, the scraping of restless +feet on the sanded floor, the lumbering noise of the motions of a cramped +farmer as he stood up to lean over the pew-door or gallery-rail, the +clatter of an overturned cricket, the twittering of swallows in the +rafters, and in the summer-time the bumping and buzzing of an invading +bumble-bee as he soared through the air and against the walls, were +the 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 the +public by the Reverend Samuel Peter, have caused much indignation among all +thoughtful descendants and all lovers of New England Puritans. Three of +his most bitterly resented false laws which refer to the observance of the +Sabbath read thus:-- + +"No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or +shave 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 elsewhere +except reverently to and from meeting." + +Though these laws were worded by Dr. Peters, and though we are disgusted to +hear them so often quoted as historical facts, still we must acknowledge +that though in detail not correct, they are in spirit true records of the +old Puritan laws which were enacted to enforce the strict and decorous +observance of the Sabbath, and which were valid not only in Connecticut and +Massachusetts, but in other New England States. Even a careless glance at +the historical record of any old town or church will give plenty of details +to prove this. + +Thus in New London we find in the latter part of the seventeenth century a +wicked fisherman presented before the Court and fined for catching eels on +Sunday; another "fined twenty shillings for sailing a boat on the Lord's +Day;" while in 1670 two lovers, John Lewis and Sarah Chapman, were accused +of and tried for "sitting together on the Lord's Day under an apple tree in +Goodman Chapman's Orchard,"--so harmless and so natural an act. In Plymouth +a man was "sharply whipped" for shooting fowl on Sunday; another was fined +for carrying a grist of corn home on the Lord's Day, and the miller who +allowed him to take it was also fined. Elizabeth Eddy of the same town was +fined, in 1652, "ten shillings for wringing and hanging out clothes." A +Plymouth man, for attending to his tar-pits on the Sabbath, was set in the +stocks. James Watt, in 1658, was publicly reproved "for writing a note +about common business on the Lord's Day, _at least in the evening +somewhat too soon._" A Plymouth man who drove a yoke of oxen was +"presented" before the Court, as was also another offender, who drove some +cows a short distance "without need" on the Sabbath. + +In Newbury, in 1646, Aquila Chase and his wife were presented and fined for +gathering peas from their garden on the Sabbath, but upon investigation the +fines were remitted, and the offenders were only admonished. In Wareham, +in 1772, William Estes acknowledged himself "Gilty of Racking Hay on the +Lord's Day" and was fined ten shillings; and in 1774 another Wareham +citizen, "for a breach of the Sabbath in puling apples," was fined five +shillings. A Dunstable soldier, for "wetting a piece of an old hat to put +in his shoe" to protect his foot--for doing this piece of heavy work on the +Lord's Day, was fined, and paid forty shillings. + +Captain Kemble of Boston was in 1656 set for two hours in the public stocks +for his "lewd and unseemly behavior," which, consisted in his kissing his +wife "publicquely" on the Sabbath Day, upon the doorstep of his house, when +he had just returned from a voyage and absence of three years. The lewd +offender was a man of wealth and influence, the father of Madam Sarah +Knights, the "fearfull female travailler" whose diary of a journey from +Boston to New York and return, written in 1704, rivals in quality if not in +quantity Judge Sewall's much-quoted diary. A traveller named Burnaby tells +of a similar offence of an English sea-captain who was soundly whipped for +kissing his wife on the street of a New England town on Sunday, and of his +retaliation in kind, by a clever trick upon his chastisers; but Burnaby's +narrative always seemed to me of dubious credibility. + +Abundant proof can be given that the act of the legislature in 1649 was not +a dead letter which ordered that "whosoever shall prophane the Lords daye +by doeing any seruill worke or such like abusses shall forfeite for euery +such default ten shillings or be whipt." + +The Vermont "Blue Book" contained equally sharp "Sunday laws." Whoever was +guilty of any rude, profane, or unlawful conduct on the Lord's Day, in +words or action, by clamorous discourses, shouting, hallooing, screaming, +running, riding, dancing, jumping, was to be fined forty shillings and +whipped upon the naked back not to exceed ten stripes. The New Haven code +of laws, more severe still, ordered that "Profanation of the Lord's Day +shall be punished by fine, imprisonment, or corporeal punishment; and +if proudly, and with a high hand against the authority of God--_with +death_." + +Lists of arrests and fines for walking and travelling unnecessarily on the +Sabbath might be given in great numbers, and it was specially ordered +that none should "ride violently to and from meeting." Many a pious New +Englander, in olden days, was fined for his ungodly pride, and his desire +to "show off" his "new colt" as he "rode violently" up to the meeting-house +green on Sabbath morn. One offender explained in excuse of his unnecessary +driving on the Sabbath that he had been to visit a sick relative, but +his 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 man +from drowning. The Court made him pay his fine, but ordered that the money +should be returned to him when he could prove by witnesses that he had +been on that errand of mercy and duty. As late as the year 1831, in +Lebanon, Connecticut, a lady journeying to her father's home was arrested +within sight of her father's house for unnecessary travelling on the +Sabbath; and a long and fiercely contested lawsuit was the result, and +damages were finally given for false imprisonment. In 1720 Samuel Sabin +complained of himself before a justice in Norwich that he visited on +Sabbath night some relatives at a neighbor's house. His morbidly tender +conscience 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 out +to him," was reproved and warned not to "harden his neck" and be "wholly +destrojed." Poor stiff-necked, lonely, "hankering" Sam! to be so harshly +reproved for his harmlessly sociable intents. Perhaps he "hankered" after +the Puritan maids, and if so, deserved his reproof and the threat of +annihilation. + +Sabbath-breaking by visiting abounded in staid Worcester town to a most +base 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 to +a plan to restrain visiting on the Sabbath. The time had passed when such +offences could be punished either by fine or imprisonment, so it was voted +"that if any person makes unnecessary Vizits on the Sabeth, They shall be +Look't on with Contempt." This was the universal expression throughout the +Puritan colonies; and looked on with contempt are Sabbath-breakers and +Sabbath-slighters in New England to the present day. Even if they committed +no active offence, the colonists could not passively neglect the Church +and its duties. As late as 1774 the First Church of Roxbury fined +non-attendance at public worship. In 1651 Thomas Scott "was fyned ten +shillings unless he have learned Mr. Norton's 'Chatacise' by the next +court" In 1760 the legislature of Massachusetts passed the law that "any +person able of Body who shall absent themselves from publick worship of God +on the Lord's Day shall pay ten shillings fine." By the Connecticut code +ten shillings was the fine, and the law was not suspended until the year +1770. By the New Haven code five shillings was the fine for non-attendance +at church, and the offender was often punished as well. Captain Dennison, +one of New Haven's most popular and respected citizens, was fined fifteen +shillings for absence from church. William Blagden, who lived in New Haven +in 1647, was "brought up" for absence from meeting. He pleaded that he had +fallen into the water late on Saturday, could light no fire on Sunday to +dry his clothes, and so had lain in bed to keep warm while his only suit of +garments was drying. In spite of this seemingly fair excuse, Blagden was +found 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 which +they hated, and which also warmly abhorred them; and they were zealously +set in the stocks, and whipped and caged and pilloried as well,--whipped +if they came and expressed any dissatisfaction, and whipped if they stayed +away. + +Severe and explicit were the orders with regard to the use of the "Creature +called Tobacko" on the Sabbath. In the very earliest days of the colony +means had been taken to present the planting of the pernicious weed +except in very small quantities "for meere necessitie, for phisick, for +preseruaceon of health, and that the same be taken privatly by auncient +men." In Connecticut a man could by permission of the law smoke once if +he went on a journey of ten miles (as some slight solace for the arduous +trip), 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 the +law, though we can but suspect that the one unsocial smoke may have been a +long one. In some communities the colonists could not plant tobacco, nor +buy it, nor sell it, but since they loved the fascinating weed then as men +love it now, they somehow invoked or spirited it into their pipes, though +they never could smoke it in public unfined and unpunished. The shrewd and +thrifty New Haven people permitted the raising of it for purposes of trade, +though not for use, thus supplying the "devil's weed" to others, chiefly +the godless Dutch, but piously spurning it themselves--in public. Its use +was absolutely forbidden under any circumstances on the Sabbath within two +miles of the meeting-house, which (since at that date all the homes were +clustered around the church-green) was equivalent to not smoking it at all +on 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 each +offence, and in Portsmouth, not only were fined, but to their shame be it +told, set as jail-birds in the Portsmouth cage. In Sandwich and in Boston +the fine for "drinking tobacco in the meeting-house" was five shillings for +each drink, which I take to mean chewing tobacco rather than smoking it; +many men were fined for thus drinking, and solacing the weary hours, though +doubtless they were as sly and kept themselves as unobserved as possible. +Four Yarmouth men--old sea-dogs, perhaps, who loved their pipe--were, in +1687, fined four shillings each for smoking tobacco around the end of the +meeting-house. Silly, ostrich-brained Yarmouth men! to fancy to escape +detection by hiding around the corner of the church; and to think that the +tithingman had no nose when he was so Argus-eyed. Some few of the ministers +used the "tobacco weed." Mr. Baily wrote with distress of mind and +abasement of soul in his diary of his "exceeding in tobacco." The hatred of +the public use of tobacco lingered long in New England, even in large towns +such as Providence, though chiefly on account of universal dread lest +sparks 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 not +permitted either on weekdays or Sundays. + +Not content with strict observance of the Sabbathday alone, the Puritans +included Saturday evening in their holy day, and in the first colonial +years these instructions were given to Governor Endicott by the New England +Plantation Company: "And to the end that the Sabeth may be celebrated in +a religious man ner wee appoint that all may surcease their labor every +Satterday throughout the yeare at three of the clock in the afternoone, and +that they spend the rest of the day in chatechizing and preparacoon for +the Sabeth as the ministers shall direct." Cotton Mather wrote thus of his +grandfather, old John Cotton: "The Sabbath he begun the evening before, for +which keeping from evening to evening he wrote arguments before his coming +to New England, and I suppose 't was from his reason and practice that the +Christians of New England have generally done so too." He then tells of the +protracted religious services held in the Cotton household every Saturday +night,--services so long that the Sabbath-day exercises must have seemed in +comparison like a light interlude. + +John Norton described these Cotton Sabbaths more briefly thus: "He [John +Cotton] began the Sabbath at evening; therefore then performed family-duty +after supper, being longer than ordinary in Exposition. After which he +catechized his children and servants and then returned unto his study. The +morning following, family-worship being ended, he retired into his study +until the bell called him away. Upon his return from meeting he returned +again into his study (the place of his labor and prayer) unto his private +devotion; where, having a small repast carried him up for his dinner, he +continued until the tolling of the bell. The public service being over, he +withdrew for a space to his pre-mentioned oratory for his sacred addresses +to God, as in the forenoon, then came down, _repeated the sermon in the +family_, prayed, after supper sang a Psalm, and towards bedtime betaking +himself again to his study he closed the day with prayer. Thus he spent the +Sabbath continually." Just fancy the Cotton children and servants listening +to his long afternoon sermon a second time! + +All the New England clergymen were rigid in the prolonged observance of +Sunday. From sunset on Saturday until Sunday night they would not shave, +have rooms swept, nor beds made, have food prepared, nor cooking utensils +and table-ware washed. As soon as their Sabbath began they gathered their +families and servants around them, as did Cotton, and read the Bible and +exhorted and prayed and recited the catechism until nine o'clock, usually +by the light of one small "dip candle" only; on long winter Saturdays it +must have been gloomy and tedious indeed. Small wonder that one minister +wrote back to England that he found it difficult in the new colony to get a +servant who "_enjoyed catechizing and family duties_." Many clergymen +deplored sadly the custom which grew in later years of driving, and even +transacting business, on Saturday night. Mr. Bushnell used to call it +"stealing the time of the Sabbath," and refused to countenance it in any +way. + +It was very generally believed in the early days of New England that +special judgments befell those who worked on the eve of the Sabbath. +Winthrop gives the case of a man who, having hired help to repair a +milldam, worked an hour on Saturday after sunset to finish what he had +intended for the day's labor. The next day his little child, being left +alone for some hours, was drowned in an uncovered well in the cellar of his +house. "The father freely, in open congregation, did acknowledge it the +righteous hand of God for his profaning his holy day." + +Visitors and travellers from other countries were forced to obey the rigid +laws with regard to Saturday-night observance. Archibald Henderson, the +master of a vessel which entered the port of Boston, complained to the +Council for Foreign Plantations in London that while he was in sober Boston +town, being ignorant of the laws of the land, and having walked half an +hour after sunset on Saturday night, as punishment for this unintentional +and trivial offence, a constable entered his lodgings, seized him by the +hair of his head, and dragged him to prison. Henderson claimed L800 damages +for the detention of his vessel during his prosecution. I have always +suspected that the gay captain may have misbehaved himself in Boston +on that Saturday night in some other way than simply by walking in +the streets, and that the Puritan law-enforcers took advantage of the +Sabbath-day laws in order to prosecute and punish him. We know of +Bradford's complaint of the times; that while sailors brought "a greate +deale" of money from foreign parts to New England to spend, they also +brought evil ways of spending it--"more sine I feare than money." + +The Puritans found in Scripture support for this observance of Saturday +night, in these words, "The evening and the morning were the first day," +and they had many followers in their belief. In New England country towns +to this day, descendants of the Puritans regard Saturday night, though in +a modified way, as almost Sunday, and that evening is never chosen for any +kind of gay gathering or visiting. As late as 1855 the shops in Hartford +were never open for customers upon Saturday night. + +Much satire was directed against this Saturday night observance both by +English and by American authors. In the "American Museum" for February, +1787, appeared a poem entitled, "The Connecticut Sabbath." After saying at +some length that God had thought one day in seven sufficient for rest, but +New England Christians had improved his law by setting apart a day and a +half, 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 eighteenth +century a time of general cheerfulness and often merry-making. This sudden +transition from the religious calm and quiet of the afternoon to the noisy +gayety of the evening was very trying to many of the clergymen, especially +to Jonathan Edwards, who preached often and sadly against "Sabbath evening +dissipations and mirth-making." In some communities singing-schools were +held on Sunday nights, which afforded a comparatively decorous and orderly +manner of spending the close of the day. + +Sweet to the Pilgrims and to their descendants was the hush of their calm +Saturday night, and their still, tranquil Sabbath,--sign and token to them, +not only of the weekly rest ordained in the creation, but of the eternal +rest to come. The universal quiet and peace of the community showed the +primitive instinct of a pure, simple devotion, the sincere religion which +knew no compromise in spiritual things, no half-way obedience to God's +Word, 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 was +seen 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. This +absolute obedience to the letter as well as to the spirit of God's Word +was one of the most typical traits of the character of the Puritans, and +appeared 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 criticise +or disparage either the ministers or their teachings, or indeed any of the +religious exercises of the church. In Sandwich a man was publicly whipped +for speaking deridingly of God's words and ordinances as taught by the +Sandwich minister. Mistress Oliver was forced to stand in public with a +cleft stick on her tongue for "reproaching the elders." A New Haven man was +severely whipped and fined for declaring that he received no profit from +the minister's sermons. We also know the terrible shock given the Windham +church in 1729 by the "vile and slanderous expressions" of one unregenerate +Windhamite who said, "I had rather hear my dog bark than Mr. Bellamy +preach." He was warned that he would be "shakenoff and givenup," and +terrified at the prospect of so dire a fate he read a confession of his +sorrow and repentance, and promised to "keep a guard over his tongue," and +also to listen to Mr. Bellamy's preaching, which may have been a still more +difficult task. Mr. Edward Tomlins, of Boston, upon retracting his opinion +which he had expressed openly against the singing in the churches, was +discharged without a fine. William Howes and his son were in 1744 fined +fifty shillings "apeece for deriding such as sing in the congregation, +tearming them fooles." The church music was as sacred to the Puritans as +were the prayers, but it must have been a sore trial to many to keep still +about the vile manner and method of singing. In 1631 Phillip Ratcliffe, +for "speaking against the churches," had his ears cut off, was whipped and +banished. We know also the consternation caused in New Haven in 1646 by +Madam Brewster's saying that the custom of carrying contributions to +the 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 considered +worthy of trial in a higher court, whose decision is now lost. + +The colonists could not let their affection and zeal for an individual +minister cause them to show any disrespect or indifference to the Puritan +Church in general. When the question of the settlement of the Reverend Mr. +Lenthal in the church of Weymouth, Massachusetts, was under discussion, the +tyranny of the Puritan Church over any who dared oppose or question it was +shown in a marked manner, and may be cited as a typical case. Mr. Lenthal +was suspected of being poisoned with the Anne Hutchinson heresies, and he +also "opposed the way of gathering churches." Hence his ordination over the +church in the new settlement was bitterly opposed by the Boston divines, +though apparently desired by the Weymouth congregation. One Britton, who +was friendly towards Lenthal and who spoke "reproachfully" and slurringly +of a book which defended the course of the Boston churches, was whipped +with eleven stripes, as he had no money to pay the imposed fine. John +Smythe, who "got hands to a blank" (which was either canvassing for +signatures to a proxy vote in favor of Lenthal or obtaining signatures +to an instrument declaring against the design of the churches), for thus +"combining to hinder the orderly gathering" of the Weymouth church at this +time, was fined L2. Edward Sylvester for the same offence was fined and +disfranchised. Ambrose Martin, another friend of Lenthal's, for calling +the church covenant of the Boston divines "a stinking carrion and a human +invention," was fined L10, while Thomas Makepeace, another Weymouth +malcontent, 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 church +followers must have bitterly despised; he was "quickly convinced of his +error and evil." His conviction was followed with his confession, and in +open court he gave under his hand a laudable retraction, which retraction +he was ordered also to "utter in the assembly at Weymouth, and so no +further censure was passed on him." Thus the chief offender got the +lightest punishment, and thus did the omnipotent Church rule the whole +community. + +The names of loquacious, babbling Quakers and Baptists who spoke +disrespectfully of some or all of the ordinances of the Puritan church +might be given, and would swell the list indefinitely; they were fined and +punished without mercy or even toleration. + +All profanity or blaspheming against God was severely punished. One very +wicked man in Hartford for his "fillthy and prophane expressions," namely, +that "hee hoped to meet some of the members of the Church in Hell before +long, 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 the +time thereof in the pillory, and after sermon to be severely whipped." What +a severe punishment for so purely verbal an offence! New England ideas of +profanity were very rigid, and New England men had reason to guard well +their temper and tongue, else that latter member might be bored with a +hot 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. When +drinking 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 their +good-breeding and their godliness. Two wicked Wells women were punished in +1669 "for using profane speeches in their common talk; as in making answer +to several questions their answer is, The Devil a bit." In 1640, in +Springfield, Goody Gregory, being grievously angered, profanely abused an +annoying neighbor, saying, "Before God I coulde breake thy heade!" But she +acknowledged her "great sine and faulte" like a woman, and paid her fine +and sat in the stocks like a man, since she swore like the members of that +profane sex. + +Sometimes the sins of the fathers were visited on the children in a most +extraordinary manner. One man, "for abusing N. Parker at the tavern," was +deprived of the privilege of bringing his children to be baptized, and was +thus spiritually punished for a very worldly offence. For some offences, +such as "speaking deridingly of the minister's powers," as was done in +Plymouth, "casting uncharitable reflexions on the minister," as did an +Andover man; and also for absenting one's self from church services; for +"sloathefulness," for "walking prophanely," for spoiling hides when tanning +and 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 "suspitions +of stealing pinnes," for "pnishouse Squerilouse Odyouse wordes," and for +"lyeing," church-members were not only fined and punished but were deprived +of partaking of the sacrament. In the matter of lying great distinction was +made as to the character and effect of the offence. George Crispe's wife, +who "told a lie, not a pernicious lie, but unadvisedly," was simply +admonished and remonstrated with. Will Randall, who told a "plain lie," was +fined 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, these +unhouselled Puritans were allowed, if they so desired, to stand outside the +meeting-house door at the time of public worship and catch what few words +of the service they could. This humble waiting for crumbs of God's word was +doubtless regarded as a sign of repentance for past deeds, for it was often +followed by full forgiveness. As excommunicated persons were regarded with +high disfavor and even abhorrence by the entire pious and godly walking +community, this apparently spiritual punishment was more severe in its +temporal effects than at first sight appears. From the Cambridge Platform, +which was drawn up and adopted by the New England Synod in 1648, we learn +that "while the offender remains excommunicated the church is to refrain +from all communion with him in civil things," and the members were +specially "to forbear to eat and drink with him;" so his daily and even his +family life was made wretched. And as it was not necessary to wait for the +action of the church to pronounce excommunication, but the "pastor of a +church might by himself and authoritatively suspend from the Lord's table +a brother _suspected_ of scandal" until there was time for full +examination, we can see what an absolute power the church and even the +minister had over church-members in a New England community. + +Nor could the poor excommunicate go to neighboring towns and settlements to +start afresh. No one wished him or would tolerate him. Lancaster, in 1653, +voted not to receive into its plantation "any excommunicat or notoriously +erring 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 place +of refuge for outcast Puritans. Universal freedom and religious toleration +were in Rhode Island the foundations of the State. Josiah Quincy said that +liberty of conscience would have produced anarchy if it had been permitted +in the New England Puritan settlements in the seventeenth century, but the +flourishing Narragansett, Providence, and Newport plantations seem to prove +the 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 at +all." The Gortonians, the Foxians, and Hutchinsonians, the Anabaptists, the +Six Principle Baptists, the Church of England, apparently all the followers +of the eighty-two "pestilent heresies" so sadly enumerated and so bitterly +hated and "cast out to Satan" by the Massachusetts Puritan divines,--all +the excommunicants and exiles found in Rhode Island a home and +friends--other friends than the Devil to whom they had been consigned. + +Though the early Puritan ministers had such powerful influence in every +other respect, they were not permitted to perform the marriage-service +nor to raise their voices in prayer or exhortation at a funeral. Sewall +jealously notes when the English burial-service began to be read at +burials, saying, "the office for Burial is a Lying very bad office makes no +difference between the precious and the vile." The office of marriage was +denied the parson, and was generally relegated to the magistrate. In this, +Governor Bradford states, they followed "ye laudable custome of ye Low +Countries." Not rulers and magistrates only were empowered to perform the +marriage ceremony; squires, tavern-keepers, captains, various authorized +persons might wed Puritan lovers; any man of dignity or prominence in the +community could apparently receive authority to perform that office except +the otherwise all-powerful parson. + +As years rolled on, though the New Englanders still felt great reverence +and pride for their church and its ordinances, the minister was no longer +the just man made perfect, the oracle of divine will. The church-members +escaped somewhat from ecclesiastical power, and some of them found fault +with and openly disparaged their ministers in a way that would in early +days have caused them to be pilloried, whipped, caged, or fined; and often +the derogatory comments were elicited by the most trivial offences. One +parson was bitterly condemned because he managed to amass eight hundred +dollars by selling the produce of his farm. Another shocking and severely +criticised offence was a game of bowls which one minister played and +enjoyed. Still another minister, in Hanover, Massachusetts, was reproved +for his lack of dignity, which was shown in his wearing stockings "footed +up with another color;" that is, knit stockings in which the feet were +colored differently from the legs. He also was found guilty of having +jumped over the fence instead of decorously and clerically walking through +the gate when going to call on one of his parishioners. Rev. Joseph Metcalf +of 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 asking +them to come to him and each cut off a lock of hair from the obnoxious +wig until all the complainers were satisfied that it had been rendered +sufficiently unworldly. Some Newbury church-members, in 1742, asserted that +their minister unclerically wore a colored kerchief instead of a band. This +he indignantly denied, saying that he "had never buried a babe even in most +tempestuous weather," when he rode several miles, but he always wore a +band, and he complained in turn that members of his congregation turned +away from him on the street, and "glowered" at him and "sneered at him." +Still more unseemly demonstrations of dislike were sometimes shown, as in +South Hadley, in 1741, when a committee of disaffected parishioners +pulled the Rev. Mr Rawsom out of the pulpit and marched him out of the +meeting-house because they did not fancy his preaching. But all such +actions were as offensive to the general community then as open expressions +of dissatisfaction and contempt are now. + + + + +XIX. + +The Ordination of the Minister. + + + +The minister's ordination was, of course, an important social as well as +spiritual event in such a religious community as was a New England colonial +town. It was always celebrated by a great gathering of people from far and +near, including all the ministers from every town for many miles around; +and though a deeply serious service, was also an excuse for much +merriment. In Connecticut, and by tradition also in Massachusetts, an +"ordination-ball" was frequently given. It is popularly supposed that at +this ball the ministers did not dance, nor even appear, nor to it in any +way give their countenance; that it was only a ball given at the time of +the ordination because so many people would then be in the town to take +part in the festivity. That this was not always the case is proved by +a letter of invitation still in existence written by Reverend Timothy +Edwards, who was ordained in Windsor in 1694; it was written to Mr. and +Mrs. Stoughton, asking them to attend the ordination-ball which was to be +given in his, the minister's house. But whether the parsons approved and +attended, or whether they strongly discountenanced it, the ordination-ball +was always a great success. It is recorded that at one in Danvers a young +man danced so vigorously and long on the sanded floor that he entirely wore +out a new pair of shoes. The fashion of giving ordination-balls did not die +out with colonial times. In Federal days it still continued, a specially +gay ball being given in the town of Wolcott at an ordination in 1811. + +There was always given an ordination supper,--a plentiful feast, at which +visiting ministers and the new pastor were always present and partook with +true clerical appetite. This ordination feast consisted of all kinds of New +England fare, all the mysterious compounds and concoctions of Indian corn +and "pompions," all sorts of roast meats, "turces" cooked in various ways, +gingerbread and "cacks," and--an inevitable feature at the time of every +gathering of people, from a corn-husking or apple-bee to a funeral--a +liberal amount of cider, punch, and grog was also supplied, which latter +compound beverages were often mixed on the meeting-house green or even in +punch-bowls on the very door-steps of the church. Beer, too, was specially +brewed to honor the feast. Rev. Mr. Thatcher, of Boston, wrote in his diary +on the twentieth of May, 1681, "This daye the Ordination Beare was brewed." +Portable bars were sometimes established at the church-door, and strong +drinks were distributed free of charge to the entire assemblage. As late +as 1825, at the installation of Dr. Leonard Bacon over the First +Congregational Church in New Haven, free drinks were furnished at an +adjacent bar to all who chose to order them, and were "settled for" by the +generous and hospitable society. In considering the extravagant amount of +moneys often recorded as having been paid out for liquor at ordinations, +one must not fail to remember that the seemingly large sums were often +spent in Revolutionary times during the great depreciation of Continental +money. Six hundred and sixty-six dollars were disbursed for the +entertainment of the council at the ordination of Mr. Kilbourn, of +Chesterfield; but the items were really few and the total amount of liquor +was not great,--thirty-eight mugs of flip at twelve dollars per mug; eleven +gills of rum bitters at six dollars per gill, and two mugs of sling at +twenty-four dollars per mug. The church in one town sent the Continental +money in payment for the drinks of the church-council in a wheelbarrow to +the tavern-keeper, and he was not very well paid either. + +It gives one a strange sense of the customs and habits of the olden times +to 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 the +expense of "keeping the ministers" at an ordination in Hartford in 1784, +let me give the items of the bill:-- + + L 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 bread +to this intolerable deal of sack!" I sadly fear me that at that Hartford +ordination our parson ancestors got grievsously "gilded," to use a choice +"red-lattice phrase." + +Many accounts of gay ordination parties have been preserved in diaries for +us. Reverend Mr. Smith, who was settled in Portland in the early part of +the eighteenth century, wrote thus in his journal of an ordination which +he attended: "Mr. Foxcroft ordained at New Gloucester. We had a pleasant +journey 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. Stephen +Longfellow, greatgrandfather of the poet. + +Bills for ordination-expenses abound in items of barrels of rum and cider +and metheglin, of bowls of flip and punch and toddy, of boxes of lemons and +loaves of sugar, in punches, and sometimes broken punchbowls, and in one +case a large amount of Malaga and Canary wine, spices and "ross water," +from which was brewed doubtless an appetizing ordination-cup which may have +rivalled 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 disorders +and irregularities in connection with ordination-services, especially in +country towns, came before the council of the province, who referred +its consideration to a convention of ministers. The ministers at that +convention were recommended to each give instruction, exhortation, and +advice against excesses to the members of his congregation whenever an +ordination was about to take place in the vicinity of his church. In this +way it was hoped that the reformation would be aided, and temperance, +order, and decorum established. The newspapers were free in their +condemnation of the feasting and roistering at ordination-services. When +Dr. 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 occasioned +much comment. A four-column letter of criticism appeared in the Boston +Gazette of March 9, 1761, over the signature of "Countryman," which +provoked several answers and much newspaper controversy. As Dr. Sewall had +been moderator of the meeting of ministers held only two years previously +with the hope, and for the purpose of abolishing ordination revelries, it +is not strange that the circumstance of the feast being given in his house +should cause public comment and criticism. + +"Countryman" complained that "the price of provisions was raised a quarter +cart in Boston for several days before the instalment by reason of the +great preparations therefor, and the readiness of the ecclesiastical +caterers to give almost any price that was demanded. Many Boston people +complained the town had, by this means, in a few days lost a large sum of +money; which was, as it were, levied on and extorted from them. If the +poor were the _better for what remained of so plentiful and splendid a +feast_ I am very glad but yet think it is a pity the charity were not +better timed." He reprovingly enumerates, "There were six tables that held +one with another eighteen persons each, upon each table a good rich plumb +pudding, a dish of boil'd pork and fowls, and a corn'd leg of pork with +sauce proper for it, a leg of bacon, a piece of alamode beef, a leg of +mutton with caper sauce, a roast line of veal, a roast turkey, a venison +pastee, besides chess cakes and tarts, cheese and butter. Half a dozen +cooks were employed upon this occasion, upwards of twenty tenders to wait +upon 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. The +cost 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 the +church, the wealth of the congregation, the character of the guests (among +whom were the Governor and the judges of the Superior Court) all make +this repast appear neither ostentatious nor extravagant. Fifty pounds was +certainly not an enormous sum to spend for a dinner with wine for over one +hundred persons, and such a good dinner too. Nor is it probable that a city +as large as was Boston at that date could through that dinner have been +swept of provisions to such an extent that prices would be raised a quarter +part. I suspect some personal malice caused "Countryman's" attacks, for he +certainly could have found in other towns more flagrant cases to complain +of and condemn. + +Though no record exists to prove that "the poor were the better for +what remained" after this Boston feast, in other towns letters +and church-entries show that any fragments remaining after the +ordination-dinner were well disposed of. Sometimes they furnished forth the +new minister's table. In one case they were given to "a widowed family" +("widowed" here being used in the old tender sense of bereaved). In +Killingly "the overplush of provisions" was sold to help pay the arrearages +of 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 would +naturally be cause for additional gayety. A very interesting and graphic +account of the feast at the dedication of the Old Tunnel Meeting-House of +Lynn 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 by +reason of its goodly size was deemed ye most fit place. It was neatly +adorned with green bows and other hangings and made very faire to look +upon, ye wreaths being mostly wrought by ye young folk, they meeting +together, both maides and young men, and having a merry time in doing ye +work. Ye rough stalls and unbowed posts being gaily begirt and all ye +corners and cubbies being clean swept and well aired, it truly did appear +a meet banquetting hall. Ye scaffolds too from which ye provinder had been +removed were swept cleane as broome could make them. Some seats were put up +on 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 which +was to partake of ye feast of fat things, none others being admitted there +save them that were to wait upon ye same. Ye kine that were wont to be +there were forced to keep holiday in the field." + +Then follows a minute account of how the fowls persisted in flying in +and roosting over the table, scattering feathers and hay on the parsons +beneath. + +"Mr. Shepard's face did turn very red and he catched up an apple and hurled +it at ye birds. But he thereby made a bad matter worse for ye fruit being +well aimed it hit ye legs of a fowl and brought him floundering and +flopping down on ye table, scattering gravy, sauce and divers things upon +our garments and in our faces. But this did not well please some, yet with +most it was a happening that made great merryment. Dainty meats were on ye +table in great plenty, bear-stake, deer-meat, rabbit, and fowle, both wild +and from ye barnyard. Luscious puddings we likewise had in abundance, +mostly apple and berry, but some of corn meal with small bits of sewet +baked 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 ye +inspiring Barbadoes drink. Mr. Shepard and most of ye ministers were +grave and prudent at table, discoursing much upon ye great points of ye +deddication sermon and in silence laboring upon ye food before them. But I +will not risque to say on which they dwelt with most relish, ye discourse +or ye dinner. Most of ye young members of ye Council would fain make a +jolly time of it. Mr. Gerrish, ye Wenham minister, tho prudent in his +meat and drinks, was yet in right merry mood. And he did once grievously +scandalize Mr. Shepard, who on suddenly looking up from his dish did spy +him, as he thot, winking in an unbecoming way to one of ye pretty damsels +on ye scaffold. And thereupon bidding ye godly Mr. Rogers to labor with him +aside for his misbehavior, it turned out that ye winking was occasioned by +some of ye hay seeds that were blowing about, lodging in his eye; whereat +Mr. Shepard felt greatly releaved. + +"Ye new Meeting house was much discoursed upon at ye table. And most thot +it as comely a house of worship as can be found in the whole Collony save +only three or four. Mr. Gerrish was in such merry mood that he kept ye end +of ye table whereby he sat in right jovial humour. Some did loudly laugh +and clap their hands. But in ye middest of ye merryment a strange disaster +did happen unto him. Not having his thots about him he endeavored ye +dangerous performance of gaping and laughing at the same time which he must +now feel is not so easy or safe a thing. In doing this he set his jaws open +in 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 grievous +gioaning. Ye women in ye scaffolds became much distressed for him. We did +our utmost to stay ye anguish of Mr. Gerrish, but could make out little +till Mr. Rogers who knoweth somewhat of anatomy did bid ye sufferer to sit +down 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 blow +and 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 he +talk much for that matter. + +"No other weighty mishap occurred save that one of ye Salem delegates, in +boastfully essaying to crack a walnut atween his teeth did crack, instead +of ye nut, a most usefull double tooth and was thereby forced to appear at +ye evening with a bandaged face." + +This ended this most amusing chapter of disasters to the ministers, though +the banquet was diversified by interrupting crows from invading roosters, +fierce and undignified counter-attacks with nuts and apples by the +clergymen, a few mortifyingly "mawdlin songs and much roistering laughter," +and the account ends, "so noble and savoury a banquet was never before +spread in this noble town, God be praised." What a picture of the good old +times! Different times make different manners; the early Puritan ministers +did 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 should +have "gone to their graves full of years, honor, simplicity, and rum." The +only wonder is, when the ministers had the best places at every table, at +every feast, at every merry-making in New England, that stories of their +roistering excesses should not have come down to us as there have of the +intemperate clergy of Virginia. + +The ordination services within the meeting-houses were not always decorous +and quiet scenes. In spite of the reverence which our forefathers had for +their church and their ministers, it did not prevent them from bitterly +opposing the settlement of an unwished-for clergyman over them, and many +towns were racked and divided, then as now, over the important question. +As years passed on the church members grew bold enough to dare to offer +personal and bodily opposition. At the ordination of the Rev. Peter +Thatcher in the New North Church in Boston, in 1720, there were two +parties. The members who did not wish him to be settled over the church +went into the meeting-house and made a great disorder and clamor. They +forbade the proceedings, and went into the gallery, and threw from thence +water and missiles on the friends of the clergymen who were gathered around +him at the altar. Perhaps they obtained courage for these sacrilegious acts +from the barrels of rum and the bowls of strong punch. And this was in +Puritanical Boston, in the year of the hundredth anniversary of the landing +of the Mayflower. Thus had one century changed the absolute reverence and +affectionate regard of the Pilgrims for their church, their ministers, +and their meeting-houses, to irreverent and obstinate desire for personal +satisfaction. No wonder that the ministers at that date preached and +believed that Satan was making fresh and increasing efforts to destroy the +Puritan church. The hour was ready for Whitefield, for Edwards, for any +new awakening; and was above all fast approaching for the sadly needed +temperance reform. + +In the seventeenth century a minister was ordained and re-ordained at +each church over which he had charge; but after some years the name of +installation was given to each appointment after the first ordination, and +the ceremony was correspondingly changed. + + + + +XX. + +The Ministers. + + + +The picture which Colonel Higginson has drawn of the Puritan minister is so +well 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 whom +he has so clearly shown us. Men of rigid decorum, and grave ceremony there +were, such as Dr. Emmons and Jonathan Edwards; but there were parsons also +of another type,--eccentric, unconventional, and undignified in demeanor +and dress. Parson Robinson, of Duxbury, persisted in wearing in the pulpit, +as part of his clerical attire, a round jacket instead of the suitable +gown or Geneva cloak, and he was known thereby as "Master Jack." With +astonishing inconsistency this Master Jack objected to the village +blacksmith's wearing his leathern apron into the church, and he assailed +the offender again and again with words and hints from his pulpit. He was +at last worsted by the grimaces of the victorious smith (where was the +Duxbury tithingman?), and indignantly left the pulpit, ejaculating, "I'll +not preach while that man sits before me." A remonstrating parishioner +said 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 his +dearly loved wife died he pondered how he, who always wore black, could +express to the world that he was wearing mourning; and his simple heart hit +upon this grotesque device: he left off his full-flowing wig, and tied +up his head in a black silk handkerchief, which he wore thereafter as a +trapping of woe. + +Parson Judson, of Taunton, was so lazy that he used to preach while sitting +down in the pulpit; and was so contemptibly fond of comfort that he would +on summer Sundays give out to the sweltering members of his congregation +the longest psalm in the psalm-book, and then desert them--piously +perspiring and fuguing--and lie under a tree enjoying the cool outdoor +breezes until the long psalm was ended, escaping thus not only the heat but +the singing; and when we consider the quantity and quality of both, and +that he condemned his good people to an extra amount of each, it seems +a piece of clerical inhumanity that would be hard to equal. Surely this +selfish 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. No +primrose path of dalliance was theirs; industrious and hard-working were +nearly all the early parsons, preaching and praying twice on the Sabbath, +and preaching again on Lecture days; visiting the sick and often giving +medical and "chyrurgycal" advice; called upon for legal counsel and +adjudication; occupied in spare moments in teaching and preparing young +men for college; working on their farms; hearing the children say their +catechism; fasting and praying long, weary hours in their own study,--truly +they were "pious and painful preachers," as Colonel Higginson saw recorded +on a gravestone in Watertown. Though I suspect "painful" in the Puritan +vocabulary meant "painstaking," did it not? Cotton Mather called John +Fiske, of Chelmsford, a "plaine but able painful and useful preacher," +while President Dunster, of Harvard College, was described by a +contemporary divine as "pious painful and fit to teach." Other curious +epithets 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 the +New 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 might +be named, for the Puritans were rich in classic sesquipedalian adjectives, +and their active linguistic consciences made them equally fertile in +producing new ones. + +Ready and unexpected were the solemn Puritans in repartee. A party of gay +young sparks, meeting austere old John Cotton, determined to guy him. One +of 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 Lord +make both thee and me wiser than we are." Two young men of like intent met +Mr. Haynes, of Vermont, and said with mock sad faces, "Have you heard the +news? the Devil is dead." Quick came the answer, "Oh, poor, fatherless +children! what will become of you?" + +Gloomy and depressed of spirits they were often. The good Warham, who could +take faithful and brave charge of his flock in the uncivilized wilds +of Connecticut among ferocious savages, was tortured by doubts and +"blasphemous suggestions," and overwhelmed by unbelief, enduring specially +agonizing scruples about administering and partaking of the Lord's Supper, +and was thus perplexed and buffeted until the hour of his sad death. The +ministers went through various stages of uncertainty and gloom, from the +physical terror of Dr. Cogswell in a thunderstorm, through vacillating and +harassing convictions about the Half Way Covenant, through doubt of God, +of salvation, of heaven, of eternite, particularly distressing suspicions +about the reality of hell and the personality of the Devil, to the stage +of deep melancholy which was shown in its highest type in "Handkerchief +Moody," who preached and prayed and always appeared in public with a +handkerchief over his face, and gave to Hawthorne the inspiration for his +story of "The Black Veil." Rev. Mr. Bradstreet, of the First Church of +Charlestown, was so hypochondriacal that he was afraid to preach in the +pulpit, feeling sure that he would die if he entered therein; so he always +delivered his sermons to his patient congregation from the deacons' pew. +Mr. Bradstreet was unconventional in many other respects, and was far from +being a typical Puritan minister. He seldom wore a coat, but generally +appeared in a plaid gown, and was always seen with a pipe in his mouth,--a +most disreputable addition to the clerical toilet at that date, or, in +truth, at any date. He was a learned and pious man, however, and was thus +introduced 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 of +doubt 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 the +depression of spirit which fall on one now, after these centuries of +prosperous and cheerful years, when one considers thoughtfully the deep and +despairing agony of mind endured by these good, brave, steadfast, godly +Puritan ministers. Read, for instance, the sentences from the diary of the +Rev. 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, and +thinks the words from his diary "may be profitable to some discouraged +minds." Profitable! Ah, no; far from it! The overwhelming blackness +of despair, the woful doubts and fears about destruction and utter +annihilation 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 the +full degree the twelve gallons of sack and six gallons of white wine sent +to them by the Court as a testimony of deep respect. And the group of +clergymen who were painted over the mantelpiece of Parson Lowell, of +Newbury, must have been far from gloom, as the punch-bowl and drinking-cups +and tobacco and pipes would testify, and their cheerful motto likewise: "In +essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity." And +the Rev. Mr. ---- no, I will not tell his name--kept an account with +one 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 the +personal potatory capability of the parson, to discover that there was +an ordination in town during that rum-paged week, and that the visiting +ministers probably drank the greater portion of Jerome Ripley's liquor. +But I wish the store-keeper had--to save this parson's reputation among +succeeding generations--called and entered the rum as hay, or tea, or +nails, or anything innocent and virtuous and clerical. When we read of all +these doings and drinkings of the old New England ministers,--"if ancient +tales say true, nor wrong these ancient men"--we feel that we cannot so +fiercely resent nor wonder at the degrading coupling in Byron's sneering +lines:-- + + "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 in +Massachusetts--that which brought the highest price--was known as the +Arminian cider, because the minister who furnished it to the market was +suspected of having Arminian tendencies. A very telling compliment to the +cider 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 Mistress +Whiting giving him a drink of ye cyder, he did sett down ye pot and smaking +his lips say yt Adam and Eve were rightlie damned for eating ye appills in +ye garden of Eden, they should have made them into cyder." This perverse +application of good John Eliot's teaching would have vexed the apostle +sorely. Of so much account were the barrels of cider, and so highly were +they prized by the ministers, that one honest soul did not hesitate to +thank the Lord in the pulpit for the "many barrels of cider vouchsafed to +us this year." + +Stronger liquors than cider were also manufactured by the ministers,--and +by God-fearing, pious ministers also. They did not hesitate to own and +operate distilleries. Rev. Nathan Strong, pastor of the First Church of +Hartford and author of the hymn "Swell the anthem, raise the song," was +engaged 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 public +for some time, except on Sunday, for fear of arrest. This disreputable and +most unclerical affair did not operate against him in the minds of the +contemporaneous public, for ten years later he received the degree of +Doctor of Divinity from Princeton College; and he did not hesitate to joke +about his liquor manufacturing, saying to two of his brother-clergymen, +"Oh, we are all three in the same boat together,--Brother Prime raises the +grain, I distil it, and Brother Flint drinks it." + +Impostors there were--false parsons--in the early struggling days of New +England (since "the devil was never weary and never ceasing in disturbing +the peace of the new English church"), and they plagued the colonists +sorely. The very first shepherd of the wandering flock--Mr. Lyford, who +preached to the planters in 1624--was, as Bradford says, "most unsavory +salt," a most agonizing and unbearable thorn in the flesh and spirit of the +poor homesick Pilgrims; and he was finally banished to Virginia, where it +was supposed that he would find congenial and un-Puritanlike companions. +Another bold-faced cheat preached to the colonists a most impressive sermon +on the text, "Let him that stole steal no more," while his own pockets were +stuffed out with stolen money. "Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth +speaketh." + +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 one +occasion, and his prayer attracted the attention of a woman whose servant +he had formerly been. She promptly exposed his false pretensions and past +villanies, and he left Boston and an army of cheated creditors. In 1699 +two other attractive and plausible scamps--Kingsbury and May--garbed and +curried themselves as ministers, and went through a course of unchecked +villany, building only on their agreeable presence. Cotton Mather wrote +pertinently of one of these charmers, "Fascination is a thing whereof +mankind has more Experience than Comprehension;" and he also wrote very +despitefully of the adventurer's scholarly attainments saying there were +"eighteen horrid false spells and not one point in one very short note I +received from him." As the population increased, so also did the list of +dishonest impostors, who made a cloak of religion most effectively to +aid them in deceiving the religious community; and sometimes, alas! the +ordained clergymen became sad backsliders. + +Nor were the pious and godly Puritan divines above the follies and +frailties of other men in other places and in other times. It can be said +of them, as of the Jew, had they not "eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, +senses, affections, passions?"--were they not as other men? It is recorded +of Rev. Samuel Whiting, of Lynn, that "once coming among a gay partie of +yong people he kist all ye maides and said yt he felt all ye better for +it." And who can doubt it? Even that extreme type, that highest pinnacle +of American Puritanical bigotry,--solemn and learned Cotton Mather,--had, +when he was a mourning widower, a most amusing amorous episode with a +rather doubtful, a decidedly shady, young Boston woman, whom he styled an +"Ingenious Child," but who was far from being an ingenuous child. "She," as +he proudly stated, "became charmed with my person to such a degree that she +could not but break in upon me with her most importunate requests." And a +very handsome and thoroughly attractive person does his portrait show +even to modern eyes. Poor Cotton resisted the wiles of the devil in this +alluring form, though he had to fast and pray three consecutive nights ere +the strong Puritan spirit conquered the weak flesh, and he could consent +and resolve to give up the thought of marrying the siren. His self-denial +and 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 warm +to read. And well did the parsons' wives deserve their ardent wooings and +their tender love-letters. Hard as was the minister's life, over-filled as +was his time, highly taxed as were his resources, all these hardships were +felt in double proportion by the minister's wife. The old Hebrew standard +of praise quoted by Cotton Mather, "A woman worthy to be the wife of a +priest," was keenly epigrammatic; and ample proof of the wise insight +of the standard of comparison may be found in the lives of "the pious, +prudent, and prayerful" wives of New England ministers. What wonder that +their praises were sung in many loving though halting threnodies, in +long-winded but tender eulogies, in labored anagrams, in quaintly spelled +epitaphs?--for the ministers' wives were the saints of the Puritan +calendar. + + + + +XXI. + +The Ministers' Pay. + + + +The salaries of New England clergymen were not large in early days, but the +L60 or L70 which they each were yearly voted was quite enough to suitably +support them in that new country of plain ways and plain living, if they +only received it, which was, alas! not always the case. The First Court of +Massachusetts, in 1630, set the amount of the minister's annual stipend +to be L20 or L30 according to the wealth of the community, and made it a +public charge. In 1659 the highest salary paid in Suffolk County was L100 +to Mr. Thatcher, and the lowest was L40 to the clergyman at Hull. The +minister of the Andover church was voted a salary of L60, and "when he +shall have occacion to marry, L10 more." He was very glad, however, to take +L42 in hard cash instead of L60 in corn and labor, which were at that time +the most popular forms of ministerial remuneration; even though the "hard +cash" were in the form of wampum, beaver-skins, or leaden bullets. + +Many congregations, though the members were so pious and godly, were pretty +sharp in bargaining with their preachers; for instance, the church in New +London made its new parson sign a contract that "in case he remove before +the year is out, he returneth the L80 paid him." Often clergymen would +"supply" (or "Sipploye," or "syploy" or "sipply," or "sciploy," as various +records 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 on +Monday morning a cash payment for preaching (though often the amount was +only twelve shillings), they were richer than with a small yearly salary +that was irregularly and inconveniently paid. Often too they entered by +preference into a yearly contract with a church, without any wish for +regular settlement or ordination. + +A large portion of the stipends in early parishes being paid in corn and +labor, the amounts were established by fixed rate upon the inhabitants; +and the amount of land owned and cultivated by each church-member was +considered in reckoning his assessment. These amounts were called voluntary +contributions. If, however, any citizen refused to "contribute," he +was taxed; and if he refused to pay his church-tax he could be fined, +imprisoned, or pilloried. For one hundred years the ministers' salaries +in Boston were paid by these so-called "voluntary contributions." In one +church it was voted that "the Deacons have liberty for a quarter of a yeare +to 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 it +differed so from the Christian way. + +It is one of the Puritan paradoxes that abounded in New England, that the +community of New Haven, a "State whose Desire was Religion," and religion +alone, was particularly backward in paying the minister who had spiritual +charge there. After much trouble in deciding about the form and quality +of the currency which should be used in pay, since so much bad wampum was +thrust upon the deacons at the public contributions, it was in 1651 enacted +that "whereas it is taken notice of that Divers give not into the Treasury +at all on the Lords Day, it is decreed that all such if they give not +freely, of themselves be rated according to the Jurisdiction order for the +Ministers Maintaynance." The delinquents were ordered to bring their "rate" +to the Deacon's house at once. A presuming young man ventured to suggest +that the recreant members who would not pay in the face of the whole +congregation 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 and +elder people; but time proved his simply wise supposition to be correct; +and many and various were the devices and forces which the deacons were +obliged to use to obtain the minister's rate in New Haven. + +Some few bold Puritan souls dared to protest against being forced to pay +the church rate whether they wished to or not. Lieutenant Fuller, of +Barnstable, was fined fifty shillings for "prophanely" saying "that the law +enacted about the ministers maintenance was a wicked and devilish one, and +that the devil sat at the helm when the law was made." Such courageous +though profane expressions of revolt but little availed; for not only +were members and attendants of the Puritan churches taxed, but Quakers, +Baptists, and Church-of-England men were also "rated," and if they refused +to pay to help support the church that they abhorred, they were fined and +imprisoned. One man, of Watertown, named Briscoe, dared to write a book +against the violent enforcement of "voluntary" subscriptions. He was fined +L10 for his wickedness; and the printer of the book was also punished. A +virago in New London, more openly courageous, threw scalding water on the +head of the tithingman who came to collect the minister's rate. Old John +Cotton preached long and earnestly upon the necessity and propriety of +raising the money for the minister's salary, and for other expenses of the +church, wholly by voluntary and eagerly given contributions,--the "Lord +having directed him to make it clear by Scripture." He believed that tithes +and church-taxes were productive of "pride, contention and sloth," and +indicated a declining spiritual condition of the church. But it was a +strange voluntary gift he wished, that was forced by dread of the pillory +and cage! + +Since, as Higginson said, "New England was a plantation of Religion, not a +plantation of Trade," the church and its support were of course the first +thought in laying out a new town-settlement, and some of the best town-lots +were always set aside for the "yuse of the minister." Sometimes these lots +were a gift outright to the first settled preacher, in other townships they +were set aside as glebes, or "ministry land" as it was called. It was a +universal custom to build at once a house for the minister, and some very +queer contracts and stipulations for the size, shape, and quality of the +parson's home-edifice may be read in church-records. To the construction +of this house all the town contributed, as also to the building of the +meeting-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 very +few, money. At the house-raising a good dinner was provided, and of course, +plenty of liquor. Some malcontents rebelled against being forced to work on +the minister's house. Entries of fines are common enough for "refusing +to dig on the Minister's Selor," for neglecting to send "the Minister's +Nayles," for refusing to "contribute clay-boards," etc. As with the +town-lot, the house sometimes was a gift outright to the clergyman, and +ofttimes the ownership was retained by the church, and the free use only +was given to each minister. + +It was a universal custom to allow free pasturage for the minister's +horse, for which the village burial-ground was assigned as a favorite +feeding-ground. Sometimes this privilege of free pasturage was abused. In +Plymouth, in 1789, Rev. Chandler Robbins was requested "not to have more +horses than shall be necessary, for his many horses that had been pastured +on 'Burial Hill'" had sadly damaged and defaced the gravestones,--perhaps +the very headstones placed over the bones of our Pilgrim Fathers. + +The "strangers' money," which was the money contributed by visitors who +chanced to attend the services, and which was sometimes specified as "all +the silver and black dogs given by strangers," was usually given to the +minister. A "black dog" was a "dog dollar." + +Often a settlement or a sum of money was given outright to the clergyman +when he was first ordained or settled in the parish. At a town meeting in +Sharon, January 8, 1755, which was held with regard to procuring a new +minister, it was voted "that a committe confer with Mr. Smith, and know +which will be more acceptable to him, to have a larger settlement and a +smaller salary, or a larger salary and a smaller settlement, and make +report to this meeting." On Jan. 15th it was voted "that we give to said +Mr. Smith 420 ounces of silver or equivalent in old Tenor bills, for a +settlement, to be paid in three years after settlement. That we give to +said Mr. Smith 220 Spanish dollars or an equivalent in old Tenor bills for +his yearly salary." Mr. Smith was very generous to his new parish, for his +acceptance of its call contains this clause: "As it will come heavy upon +some perhaps to pay salary and settlement together I have thought of +releasing part of the payment of the salary for a time to be paid to me +again. The first year I shall allow you out of the salary you have voted me +40 dollars, the 2nd 30 dollars, the 3rd 15, the 4th year 20 to be repaid +to me again, the 5th year 20 more, the 6th year 20 more and the 25 dollars +that 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 and +pathetically wrote in a petition to his church. + +The Puritan ministers in New England in the eighteenth century were all +good Whigs; they hated the English kings, fully believing that those stupid +rulers, who really cared little for the Church of England, were burning +with pious zeal to make Episcopacy the established church of the colonies, +and knowing that were that deed accomplished they themselves would probably +lose their homes and means of livelihood. They were the most eager of +Republicans and patriots, and many of them were good and brave soldiers in +the Revolution. + +When the minister acquired the independence he so longed and fought for, +it was not all his fancy painted it. He found himself poor +indeed,--practically penniless. He complained sadly that he was paid his +salary in the worthless continental paper money, and he refused to take it. +Often he cannily took merchandise of all kinds instead of the low-valued +paper money, and he became a good and sharp trader, exchanging his various +goods for whatever he needed--and could get. Merchandise was, indeed, far +preferable to money. The petition of Rev. Mr. Barnes to his Willsborough +people has been preserved, and he thus speaks of his salary: "In 1775 the +war comenced & Paper money was emitted which soon began to depreciate and +the depreciation was so rappid that in may 1777 your Pastor gave the whole +of his years Salary for one sucking Calf, the next year he gave the whole +for a small store pig. Your Pastor has not asked for any consideration +being willing to try to Scrabble along with the people while they are in +low circumstances." His neighbor, Rev. Mr. Sprague, of Dublin, formally +petitioned his church not to increase his salary, "as I am plagued to death +to 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 L5,400 in paper money to make +good his salary of L60 in gold which had been voted him. + +"Living low" and "scrabbling along" seems to have been the normal and +universal condition of the New England minister for some time after the War +of Independence. He was obliged to go without his pay, or to take it in +whatever shape it might chance to be tendered. Indeed, from the earliest +colonial days it was true that of whatever they had, the church-members +gave; meal, maize, beans, cider, lumber, merchantable pork, apples, +"English grains," pumpkins,--all were paid to the parson. Part of the +stipend of a minister on Cape Cod was two hundred fish yearly from each +parishioner, with which to fertilize his sandy corn-land. In Plymouth, +in 1662, the following method of increasing the minister's income was +suggested: "The Court Proposeth it as a thing that they judge would be very +commendable and beneficiall to the townes where God's providence shall cast +any whales, if they should agree to set aparte some p'te of every such fish +or oyle for the Incouragement of an able and godly minister among them." In +Sandwich, also, the parson had a part of every whale that came ashore. + +Various gifts, too, came to the preachers. In Newbury the first salmon +caught each year in the weir was left by will to the parson. Judge Sewall +records that he visited the minister and "carried him a Bushel of +Turnips, cost me five shillings, and a Cabbage cost half a Crown." Such a +high-priced cabbage! + +That New England country institution--the "donation party" to the +minister--was evolved at a later date. At these donation parties the +unfortunate shepherd of the flock often received much that neither he +nor the wily donors could use, while more valuable and useful gifts were +lacking. + +A very material plenishing of the minister's house was often furnished in +the latter part of the eighteenth century by the annual "Spinning Bee." On +a given day the women of the parish, each bearing her own spinning-wheel +and 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 use +of the parson and his family. In Newbury, April 20,1768, "Young ladies met +at the house of the Rev. Mr. Parsons, who preached to them a sermon from +Proverbs 31-19. They spun and presented to Mrs. Parsons two hundred and +seventy skeins of good yarn." They drank "liberty tea." This makeshift of +a beverage was made of the four-leaved loosestrife. The herb was pulled +up like flax, its stalks were stripped of the leaves and were boiled. The +leaves were put in a kettle and basted with the liquor distilled from the +stalks. After this the leaves were dried in an oven to use in the same +manner as tea-leaves. Liberty tea sold readily for sixpence a pound. In +1787 these same Newbury women spun two hundred and thirty-six skeins +of thread and yarn for the wife of the Rev. Mr. Murray. Some were busy +spinning, some reeling and carding, and some combing the flax, while the +minister preached to them on the text from Exodus xxxv. 25: "And all +the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands." These +spinning-bees were everywhere in vogue, and formed a source of much profit +to 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 by +the women of the congregation. Sometimes each woman furnished a neatly +pieced square, and all met at the parsonage and joined and quilted the +coverlet. At other times the minister's wife made the patchwork herself, +but the women assembled and transformed it into quilts for her. The parson +was helped also in his individual work. When the rye or wheat or grain on +the minister's land was full grown and ready for reaping and mowing, the +men in his parish gave him gladly a day's work in harvesting, and in turn +he furnished them plenty of good rum to drink, else there were "great +uneasyness." The New England men were not forced to drink liberty tea. + +One universal contribution to the support of the minister all over New +England was cord-wood; and the "minister's wood" is an institution up to +the present day in the few thickly wooded districts that remain. A load of +wood was usually given by each male church-member, and he was expected to +deliver the gift at the door of the parsonage. Sixty loads a year were a +fair allowance, but the number sometimes ran up to one hundred, as was +furnished to Parson Chauncey, of Durham. Rev. Mr. Parsons, of East Hadley, +was the greatest wood-consumer among the old ministers of whom I have +chanced to read. Good, cheerful, roaring fires must the Parsons family have +kept; for in 1774 he had eighty loads of wood supplied to him; in 1751 he +was furnished with one hundred loads; in 1763 the amount had increased to +one hundred and twenty loads, when the parish was glad to make a compromise +with their extravagant shepherd and pay him instead L13 6s 8d annually +in 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 cutting +and hauling to the house. A "load" of wood contained about three quarters +of a cord, and until after the Revolutionary War was worth in the vicinity +of Hadley only three shillings a load. The minister's loads were expected +to be always of good "hard-wood." One thrifty parson, while watching a +farmer unload his yearly contribution, remarked, "Isn't that pretty soft +wood?" "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 the +speaker would have been punished by a fine, since they fined so sharply +anything that savored of "speaking against the minister." In some towns a +day was appointed which was called a "wood-spell," when it was ordered that +all the wood be delivered at the parson's door; and thus the farmers formed +a cheerful gathering, at which the minister furnished plentiful flip, or +grog, to the wood-givers. Rev. Stephen Williams, of Longmeadow, never +failed to make a note of the "wood-sleddings" in his diary. He wrote on +Jan. 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 no +wood." In other towns the wood did not always come in when it was wanted or +needed, and winter found the parsonage woodshed empty. Rev. Mr. French, of +Andover, gave out this notice in his pulpit one Sunday in November: "I will +write two discourses and deliver them in this meeting-house on Thanksgiving +Day, _provided I can manage to write them without a fire_." We can be +sure that Monday morning saw several loads of good hard wood deposited at +the 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 from +house to house one winter afternoon, saying in each that he "wished he had +a slice of their good cheese, for his wife expected company." On his way +home his sleigh, unfortunately, upset, and the gathering darkness could not +conceal from the eyes of the astonished townspeople, who ran to "right the +minister," the nine great cheeses that rolled out into the snow. + +Another source of income to New England preachers was the sale of the +gloves and rings which were given to them (and indeed to all persons of +any importance) at weddings, funerals, and christenings. In reading Judge +Sewall's diary one is amazed at the extraordinary number of gloves he thus +received, and can but wonder what became of them all, since, had he had +as many hands as Briareus, he could hardly have worn them. The manuscript +account-book of the Rev. Mr. Elliot, who was ordained pastor of the New +North Church of Boston in 1742, shows that he, having a frugal mind, sold +both gloves and rings. He kept a full list of the gloves he received, the +kid gloves, the lambswool gloves, and the long gloves,--which were for his +wife. It seems incredible, but in thirty-two years he received two thousand +and nine hundred and forty pairs of gloves. Of these, though dead men's +gloves did not have a very good market, he sold through various salesmen +and dealers about six hundred and forty dollars worth. One wonders that he +did not "combine" with the undertaker or sexton who furnished the gloves to +mourners, and thus do a very thrifty business. + +The parson, especially in a low-salaried, rural district, had to practise a +thousand petty and great economies to eke out his income. He and his family +wore homespun and patched clothing, which his wife had spun and wove and +cut and made. She knitted woollen mittens and stockings by the score. She +unfortunately could not make shoes, and to keep the large family shod was a +serious drain on the clerical purse, one minister declaring vehemently +that he should have died a rich man if he and his family could have gone +barefoot. The pastors of seaboard and riverside parishes set nets, like the +Apostles of old, and caught fish with which they fed their families until +the over-phosphorized brains and stomachs rebelled. They set snares and +traps and caught birds and squirrels and hare, to replenish their tables, +and from the skins of the rabbits and woodchucks and squirrels, the +parsons' wives made fur caps for the husbands and for the children. + +The whole family gathered in large quantities from roadsides and pastures +the oily bayberries, and from them the thrifty and capable wife made scores +of candles for winter use, patiently filling and refilling her few moulds, +or "dipping" the candles again and again until large enough to use. These +pale-green bayberry tallow candles, when lighted in the early winter +evening, sent forth a faint spicy fragrance--a true New England +incense--that fairly perfumed and Orientalized the atmosphere of the +parsonage kitchen. They were very saving, however, even of these home-made +candles, blowing them out during the long family prayers. + +Some parsons could not afford always to use candles. In the home of one +well-known minister the wife always knitted, the children ciphered and +studied, and the husband wrote his sermon by the flickering fire-light (for +they always had wood in plenty), with his scraps of sermon paper placed on +the side of the great leathern bellows as it lay in his lap; a pretty home +scene that was more picturesque to behold than comfortable to take part in. + +Country ministers could scarcely afford paper to write on, as it was taxed +and was high priced. They bought their sermon paper by the pound; but they +made 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 few +newspapers, and copied them when finished in their sermon-books with a +keen regard for economy of space and paper. The manuscript sermons of New +England divines are models of careful penmanship, and may be examined with +interest 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 a +few vegetables to supply his table. One minister, prevented by illness from +planting his garden, complained with bitterness that, save for a few rare +gifts of vegetables from his parishioners, his family had no green thing +all summer save "messes of dandelion greens" which he had dug by the +roadside, and the summer's succession of wild berries and mushrooms. The +children had gathered the berries and had sold them when they could, but of +course no one would buy the mushrooms, hence they had been forced to eat +them at the parsonage; and he spoke despitefully and disdainfully of the +mean, unnourishing, and doubtfully healthful food. + +In winter the parson's family fared worse; one minister declared that he +had 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 with +the composure and capacity of a Sioux brave at a war feast. + +Often the low state of the parsonage larder was quite unknown to the +unthinking members of the congregation, who were not very luxuriously fed +themselves; and in the profession of preaching as in all other walks of +life much depended on the way the parson's money was spent,--economy and +good judgment in housekeeping worked wonders with the small salary. Dr. +Dwight, in eulogizing Abijah Weld, pastor at Attleborough, declared that +on a salary of two hundred and twenty dollars a year Mr. Weld brought up +eleven children, kept a hospitable house, and gave liberally in charity to +the poor. I fear if we were to ask some carnal-minded person, who knew not +the probity of Dr. Dwight, how Mr. Weld could possibly manage to accomplish +such wonderful results with so little money, that we should meet with +scepticism as to the correctness of the facts alleged. Such cases were, +however, too common to be doubted. My answer to the puzzling financial +question would be this: examine and study the story of the home life, the +work of _Mrs_. Weld, that unsalaried helper in clerical labor; therein +the 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 of +tributes, tithes and windfalls--in country parishes especially--the +minister, unless he fortunately had some private wealth, felt it incumbent +upon him to follow some money-making vocation on week-days. Many were +farmers on week-days. Many took into their families young men who wished +to be taught, or fitted for college. Rev. Mr. Halleck in the course of his +useful and laborious life educated over three hundred young Puritans in his +own household. It is not recorded how Mrs. Halleck enjoyed the never ending +cooking for this regiment of hungry young men. Some parsons learned to draw +up wills and other legal documents, and thus became on a small scale the +lawyers of the town. Others studied the mystery of medicine, and bought a +small stock of the nauseous drugs of the times, which they retailed +with accompanying advice to their parishioners. Some were coopers, some +carpenters, rope-makers, millers, or cobblers. One cobbler clergyman in +Andover, Vermont, worked at his shoe-mending all the week with his Bible +open on his bench before him, and he marked the page containing any text +which bore on the subject of his coming sermon, with a marker of waxed +shoe-thread. Often the Bible, in his pulpit on Sunday, had thirty or forty +of these shoe-thread guides hanging down from it. + +One minister, having been reproved for his worldliness in amassing a large +enough fortune to buy a good farm, answered his complaining congregation +thus: "I have obtained the money to buy this farm by neglecting to follow +the maxim to 'mind my own business.' My business was to study the word of +God and attend to my parish duties and preach good sermons. All this I +acknowledge 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 done +mine, 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 was +paid three dollars a year for sweeping out the meeting-house in which he +preached; and after he resigned this position of profit, the duties were +performed by the town physician "as often as there shalbe ocation to keepe +it deesent." The thrifty Mr. Everitt had a pleasing variety of occupations; +he was also a successful farmer, a good fence-builder, and he ran a +fulling-mill. + +So, altogether, as they were wholly exempt from taxation, the New England +parsons did not fare ill, though Mr. Cotton said that "ministers and milk +were the only cheap things in New England," and he deemed various ills, +such as attacks by fierce Indians, loss of cattle, earthquakes, and failure +of crops, to be divine judgments for the small ministerial pay; while +Cotton Mather, in one of his pompous and depressing jokes, called the +minister's stipend "Synecdotical Pay." A search in a treatise on rhetoric +or in a dictionary will discover the point of this witticism--if it be +worth searching for. + + + + +XXII. + +The Plain-Speaking Puritan Pulpit. + + + +One thing which always interests and can but amuse every reader of the +old Puritan sermons is the astonishingly familiar way in which these New +England divines publicly shared their domestic joys and sorrows with +the members of their congregations; and we are equally surprised at the +ingenuity which they displayed in finding texts that were suitable for +the various occasions and events. The Reverend Mr. Turell was specially +ingenious. 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 preached +his first sermon after his wedding on this text, "I am black but comely, O +ye daughters of Jerusalem." When he married a second time he chose as his +text, "He is altogether lovely, this is my beloved, and this my friend, O +daughters of Jerusalem!" It is possible that each of Parson Turell's brides +may have chosen the text from which he preached her honeymoon sermon. It +was the universal custom for many years thoughout New England to allow a +bride the privilege of selecting for the parson who had solemnized her +marriage, or at whose church she first appeared after the wedding, the text +from which he should preach on the bridal Sabbath. Thus when John Physick +and Mary Prescott were married in Portland, on July 4, 1770, the bride gave +to Rev. Mr. Deane this text: "Mary hath chosen that good part;" and from it +Parson Deane preached the "wedding sermon." When Abby Smith, daughter of +Parson Smith, married 'Squire John Adams, whom her father disliked and +would not invite home to dinner, she chose this text for her wedding +sermon: "John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say he +hath a devil." The high-spirited bride had the honor of living to be the +wife of one President of the United States, and mother of another. + +Another ingenious clergyman gave out one morning as his text, "Unto us a +son is born;" and thus notified the surprised congregation of an event +which they had been awaiting for some weeks. Another preached on the text, +"My servant lieth at home sick," which was literally true. Another, a +bachelor, dared to announce this abbreviated text: "A wonder was seen in +heaven--a woman." Dr. Mather Byles, of Boston, being disappointed through +the non-appearance of a minister named Prince, who had been expected to +deliver the sermon, preached himself upon the text, "Put not your trust +in princes." But Dr. Byles was one who would always "court a grin when he +should win a soul." + +One minister felt it necessary to reprove a money-making parishioner who +had stored and was holding in reserve (with the hope of higher prices) a +large quantity of corn which was sadly needed for consumption in the town. +The parson preached from this appropriate text, Proverbs xi. 26. "He that +withholdeth his corn, the people shall curse him; but blessings shall be +upon the head of him that selleth it." As the minister grew warmer in his +explanation and application of the text, the money-seeking corn-storer +defiantly and unregenerately sat up stiff and unmoved, until at last the +preacher, provoked out of prudence and patience, roared out, "Colonel +Ingraham, Colonel Ingraham! you know I mean you; why don't you hang down +your head?" In a similar case another stern parson employed the text, +"Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone;" though the personalities +of the sermon made unnecessary the open reference in the text to the +offender's name. + +The ministers were such autocrats in the Puritan community that they never +hesitated to show their authority in any manner in the pulpit. Judge Sewall +records with much bitterness a libel which his pastor, Mr. Pemberton, +launched at him in the meeting through the medium of the psalm which +he gave out to be sung. They had differed over the adjustment of some +church-matter and on the following Sunday the clergyman assigned to be sung +the libellous and significant psalm. Such lines as these must have been +hard 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 lines +as they were doubly thrust upon him by the deacon's "lining" and the +singing of the congregation; and the words, "The drowsy Adder will as soon +unlock his Sullen Ear" seemed to particularly irritate him; doubtless he +felt sure that no one could doubt his integrity, but feared that some might +think him stupid and obstinate. + +Another arbitrary clergyman, having had an altercation with some unruly +singers in the choir, gave out with much vehemence on the following Sunday +the hymn beginning,-- + + "And are you wretches yet alive + And do you yet rebel?" + +with a very significant glower towards the singers' gallery. In a similar +situation another minister gave out to the rebellious choir the hymn +commencing,-- + + "Let those refuse to sing + Who never knew our God." + +A visiting clergyman, preaching in a small and shabby church built in a +parish of barren and stony farm-land, very spitefully and sneeringly read +out 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 turned +by the quick-witted choir-master, who bawled out in a loud voice as if +in answer, "Northfield,"--the name of the minister's own home and +parish,--while he was really giving out to the choir, as was his wont, the +name 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 an +extraordinary manner a young man who had called attention to some fine new +clothing which he wore by coming in during prayer time and thus attracting +the 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 that +ungodly strut," etc. Another time he prayed for a young lady in the +congregation and ended his invocation thus, "She asked me not to pray for +her 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 this +extraordinary phraseology: "O Lord, Thou knowest we do not want Thee to +send us a rain which shall pour down in fury and swell our streams and +carry away our hay-cocks, fences, and bridges; but, Lord, we want it to +come drizzle-drozzle, drizzle-drozzle, for about a week, Amen." + +They did not think it necessary always to give their congregations novel +thoughts and ideas nor fresh sermons. One minister, after being newly +ordained in his parish, preached the same sermon three Sundays in +succession; 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 any +effect." + +Rev. Mr. Daggett, of Yale College, had an entire system of sermons which +took him four years to preach throughout. And for three successive years he +delivered once a year a sermon on the text, "Is Thy servant a dog that he +should do this thing?" And the fourth year he varied it with, "And the dog +did it." + +Dr. Coggswell, of Canterbury, Connecticut, had a sermon which he thrust +upon his people every spring for many years as being suitable to the time +when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love. In it he soberly +reproved the young church attendants for gazing so much at each other in +the meeting. This annual anti-amatory advice never failed to raise a smile +on the face of each father and son in the congregation as he listened to +the familiar and oft-repeated words. + +The Puritan ministers gave advice in their sermons upon most personal and +worldly matters. Roger Williams instructed the women of his parish to wear +veils when they appeared in public; but John Cotton preached to them +one Sunday morning and proved to them that veils were a sign of undue +subjection to their husbands; and in the afternoon the fair Puritans +appeared with bare faces and showed that women had even at that early day +"rights." + +How the varieties of headgear did torment the parsons! They denounced +from many a pulpit the wearing of wigs. Mr. Noyes preached long and often +against the fashion. Eliot, the noble preacher and missionary to the +Indians, found time even in the midst of his arduous and incessant duties +to deliver many a blast against "prolix locks,"--"with boiling zeal," as +Cotton 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 from +God for wig-wearing. Increase Mather preached warmly against wigs, saying +that "such Apparel is contrary to the light of Nature and to express +Scripture," and that "Monstrous Perriwigs such as some of our church +members indulge in make them resemble ye locusts that came out of ye +Bottomless Pit." To learn how these "Horrid Bushes of Vanity" were +despised by a real live Puritan wig-hater one needs only to read the +many disparaging, regretful, and bitter references to wig-wearing and +wig-wearers in Judge Sewall's diary, which reached a culmination when a +widow 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 in +severe terms; but his opposition in this case was as ineffectual as it was +against wigs. Allen said, "In contempt of all his admonitions the head +would be adorned with curls of foreign growth, and the pipe would send up +volumes of smoke." + +Rev. Mr. Rogers preached against long natural hair,--the "disguisement of +long 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 of +existing evils which was made by the General Court: that "the men wore long +hair like women's hair," while the women were complained of for "cutting +and curling and laying out of hair, especially among the younger sort." +Still, the Puritan magistrates, omnipotent as they were, did not dare to +force the be-curled citizens to cut their long love-locks, though they +instructed and bribed them to do so. A Salem man was, in 1687, fined ten +shillings for a misdemeanor, but "in case he shall cutt off his long har of +his head into a sevill (civil?) frame in the mean time shall have abated +five shillings of his fine." John Eliot hated long natural hair as well +as false hair. Cotton Mather said of him, in a very unpleasant figure of +speech, "The hair of them that professed religion grew too long for him to +swallow." Other fashions and habits brought forth denunciations from the +pulpit,--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 popular +in the early New England pulpit. Mr. Peters preached many a long sermon +to urge the formation of a stock company for fishing, and canvassed all +through the commonwealth for the same purpose. Cotton Mather said plainly +that ministers ought to instruct themselves and their congregations in +politics; and in Connecticut it was ordered by law that each minister +should give sound and orthodox advice to his congregation at the time of +civil elections. + +Every natural phenomenon, every unusual event called forth a sermon, and +the minister could find even in the common events of every-day life plain +manifestations of Divine wrath and judgment. He preached with solemn +delight upon comets, and earthquakes, and northern lights, and great storms +and droughts, on deaths and diseases, and wonders and scandals (for there +were scandals even in puritanical New England), on wars both at home and +abroad, on shipwrecks, on safe voyages, on distinguished visitors, on noted +criminals and crimes,--in fact, upon every subject that was of spiritual or +temporal interest to his congregation or himself. And his people looked +for his religious comment upon passing events just as now-a-days we read +articles upon like subjects in the newspaper. Thus was the Puritan minister +not only a preacher, but a teacher, adviser, and friend, and a pretty +plain-spoken one too. + + + + +XXIII. + +The Early Congregations. + + + +On Sunday morning in New England in the olden time, the country +church-members whose homes were near the meeting-house walked reverently +and slowly across the green meadows or the snowy fields to meeting. +Townspeople, at the sound of the bell or drum or horn, walked decorously +and soberly along the irregular streets to the house of God. Farmers who +lived at a greater distance were up betimes to leave their homes and ride +across the fields and through the narrow bridle-paths, which were then the +universal and almost the only country roads. These staid Puritan planters +were mounted on sturdy farmhorses, and a pillion was strapped on behind +each saddle, and on it was seated wife, daughter, or perhaps a young +child--I should like to have seen the church-going dames perched up proudly +in all their Sunday finery, masked in black velvet, a sober Puritan +travesty of a gay carnival fashion. Riding-habits were hardly known until +a century ago, and even after their introduction were never worn +a-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 fine +silken petticoats. + +The wealthier Puritans were mounted on fine pacing horses, "once so highly +prized, now so odious deemed;" for trotting horses were not in much demand +or repute in America until after the Revolutionary War. There were, until +that date, professional horse-trainers, whose duties were to teach horses +to 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 Indies +for the use of the wives and daughters of the wealthy sugar-planters, and +in Philadelphia and New York for rich Dutch and Quaker colonists, that +comparatively few of them were allowed to remain in New England, and they +were, indeed too high-priced for poor New England colonists. The natural +and singular pace of these Narragansett horses, which did not incline the +rider from side to side, nor jolt him up and down, and their remarkable +sureness of foot and their great endurance, rendered them of much value +in those days of travel in the saddle. They were also phenomenally +broad-backed,--shaped by nature for saddle and pillion. + +When trotting-horses became fashionable, the trainers placed logs of wood +at regular intervals across the road, and by exercising the animals +over this obstructed path forced them to raise their feet at the proper +intervals, and thus learn to trot. + +Long distances did many of the pre-revolutionary farmers of New England +have to ride to reach their churches, and long indeed must have been the +time occupied in these Sunday trips, for a horse was too well-burdened with +saddle and pillion and two riders to travel fast. The worshippers must +often have started at daybreak. When we see now an ancient pillion--a relic +of olden times--brought out in jest or curiosity, and strapped behind a +saddle on a horse's back, and when we see the poor steed mounted by two +riders, it seems impossible for the over-burdened animal to endure a long +journey, and certainly impossible for him to make a rapid one. + +Horse-flesh, and human endurance also, was economized in early days by what +was called the "ride and tie" system. A man and his wife would mount saddle +and pillion, ride a couple of miles, dismount, tie the steed, and walk +on. A second couple, who had walked the first two miles, soon mounted the +rested horse, rode on past the riders for two or three miles, dismounted, +and tied the animal again. In that way four persons could ride very +comfortably and sociably half-way to meeting, though they must have had +to make an early start to allow for the slow gait and long halts. At the +church the disburdened horses were tied during the long services to palings +and to trees near the meeting-house (except the favored animals that found +shelter in the noon-houses) and the scene must have resembled the outskirts +of a gypsy camp or an English horse-fair. Such obedience did the Puritans +pay 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 enough +to the footpath to be in the way of church pedestrians, it did not prevent +the stupid or obstinate Newburyites from painstakingly bringing their +steeds within the gates and tying them to the gate-posts where they were +much more seriously and annoyingly in the way. + +It is usual to describe and to think of the Puritan congregations as like +assemblies of Quakers, solemn, staid, and uniform and dull of dress; but +I 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 regulations +relating to the varied and elaborate forms of women's dress--and of men's +attire as well--would never have been issued unless such prohibited apparel +had been common and universally longed-for, and unless much diversity and +elegance of dress had abounded. + +Indeed the daughters of the Pilgrims were true "daughters of Zion, walking +with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, and mincing as they go." Save +for the "nose jewels," the complaining and exhaustive list of the prophet +Isaiah might serve as well for New England as for Judah and Jerusalem: +"their cauls and their round tires like moons; the chains and the bracelets +and the mufflers; the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the head +bands, and the tablets, and the ear-rings; the rings and nose jewels; the +changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the +crisping pins; the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods and the +veils." Nor has the day yet come to pass in the nineteenth century when the +bravery of the daughters has been taken away. + +Pleasant it is to think of the church appearance of the Puritan goodmen and +goodwives. Priscilla Alden in a Quakeress' drab gown would doubtless have +been 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, and +a scarlet "whittle" over all this motley finery; with a "outwork quoyf or +ciffer" (New England French for coiffure) with "long wings" at the side, +and a silk or tiffany hood on her drooping head,--Priscilla in this attire +were pretty indeed. + +Nor did sober John Alden and doughty Miles Standish lack for variety in +their dress; besides their soldier's garb, their sentinel's armor, they +had a vast variety of other attire to choose from; they could select their +head-wear from "redd knitt capps" or "monmouth capps" or "black hats lyned +at the browes with leather." They could have a "sute" of "dublett and hose +of leather lyned with oyled-skin-leather," fastened with hooks and eyes +instead 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 of +oiled leather and leathern drawers (I do not know whether these leathern +drawers were under-garments or leathern draw-strings at the knees of the +breeches). 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 of +goods to the earliest settlers show that they had a choice of various +materials for garments, including "gilford and gedleyman, holland and +lockerum and buckerum, fustian, canvass, linsey-woolsey, red ppetuna, +cursey, cambrick, calico-stuff, loom-work, Dutch serges, and English +jeans"--enough for diversity, surely. Sad-colored mantles the goodmen wore, +but their doublets were scarlet, and with their green waistcoats and red +caps, surely the Puritan men were sufficiently gayly dressed to suit any +fancy save that of a cavalier. Later in the history of the colony, when +hooped petticoats and laced hoods and mantles, and long, embroidered gloves +fastened with horsehair "glove tightens," and when velvet coats and satin +breeches and embroidered waistcoats, gold lace, sparkling buckles, and +cocked hats with full bottomed wigs were worn, the gray, sombre old +meeting-house blossomed like a tropical forest, and vied with the worldly +Church of England in gay-garbed church attendants. + +Stern and severe of face were many of the members of these early New +England congregations, else they had not been true Puritans in heart, and +above all, they had not been Pilgrims. Long and thin of feature were they, +rarely smiling, yet not devoid of humor. Some handsome countenances +were seen,--austere, bigoted Cotton Mather being, strangely enough, the +handsomest and most worldly looking of them all. What those brave, stern +men and women were, as well as what they looked, is known to us all, and +cannot be dwelt upon here, any more than can here be shown and explained +the details of their religious faith and creed. Patient, frugal, +God-fearing, and industrious, cruel and intolerant sometimes, but never +cowardly, sternly obeying the word of God in the spirit and the letter, but +erring sometimes in the interpretation thereof,--surely they had no traits +to shame us, to keep us from thrilling with pride at the drop of their +blood which runs in our backsliding veins. Nothing can more plainly show +their distinguishing characteristics, nothing is so fully typical of the +motive, the spirit of their lives, as their reverent observance of the +Lord's day. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sabbath in Puritan New England +by Alice Morse Earle + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND *** + +This file should be named 7sabb10.txt or 7sabb10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7sabb11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7sabb10a.txt + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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