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 ENGLAND 
 
 
 
 
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FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON, D. D. 
 
 BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 

THE SABBATH 
 
 IN 
 
 PURITAN NEW ENGLAND 
 
V 
 
 ■A 
 
 ^ of PR'% 
 
 MAR 31 1932 
 
 <2m 
 
 THE SABBATffiillc!!^ 
 
 
 IN 
 
 PURITAN NEW ENGLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 ALICE MORSE EARLE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1891 
 
Copyright, 1891, 
 By Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 
 SEntijcrsitp Press: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 
Ea tf)e fUemorg of mo fHotfjer. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 I. The New England Meeting-house ... 1 
 
 II. The Church Militant 19 
 
 III. By Drum and Horn and Shell 26 
 
 IV. The Old-fashioned Pews 33 
 
 V. Seating the Meeting 45 
 
 VI. The Tithingman and the Sleepers . . , 66 
 
 VII. The Length of the Service 77 
 
 VIII. The Icy Temperature of the Meeting- 
 house 85 
 
 IX. The Xoon-iiouse 102 
 
 X. The Deacon's Office 113 
 
 XI. The Psalm-book of the Pilgrims .... 125 
 
 XII. The Bay Psalm-book 144 
 
 XIII. Steknhold and Hopkins' Version of the 
 
 Psalms 172 
 
 XIV. Other Old Psalm-books 188 
 
 XV. The Church Music 202 
 
vin CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 XVI. The Interruptions of the Services . . . 230 
 
 XVII. The Observance of the Day 245 
 
 XVIII. The Authority of the Church and the 
 
 Ministers 259 
 
 XIX. The Ordination of the Minister .... 269 
 
 XX. The Ministers 281 
 
 XXI. The Ministers' Pay 292 
 
 XXII. The Plain-speaking Puritan Pulpit . . . 311 
 
 XXIII. The Early Congregations 321 
 
 INDEX 329 
 
THE SABBATH 
 
 IN 
 
 PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 rever- 
 ently, 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 meet- 
 in u-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. 
 
 l 
 
2 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 estab- 
 lish 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." Eacli 
 church was quite independent in its work and gov- 
 ernment, 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 whit- 
 ened over workmanlike." The dimensions of many 
 of these first essays at church architecture are known 
 to us, and lowly little structures they were. One, 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND MEETING-HOUSE. 3 
 
 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 shel- 
 ter 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 archi- 
 tecture was a square wooden building, usually un- 
 painted, 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 
 
4 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 con- 
 venient 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 loca- 
 tions ; sometimes at the very top of a long, steep hill, 
 — so long and so steep in some cases, especially in 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND MEETING-HOUSE. 5 
 
 one Connecticut parish, that church attendants could 
 not ride down on horseback from the pinnacled meet- 
 ing-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 Xew 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 In- 
 dians ; 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 eleva- 
 tion, 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 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 Xew England 
 winters, for the sake of having a meeting-house 
 
6 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 which showed off well, and was a proper source of 
 envy to the neighboring villages and the country 
 around. The studiously remote and painfully inac- 
 cessible locations chosen for the site of many fine, 
 roomy churches must astonish any observing trav- 
 eller on the byroads of New England. Too often, 
 alas ! these churches are deserted, falling down, un- 
 opened 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 grave- 
 yards — the most lonely and forlorn of all sad places 
 — by their broken and fallen headstones, which sur- 
 round 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 black- 
 berry 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 meet- 
 ing-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. 
 8t is difficult often to understand the details in 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND MEETING-HOUSE. < 
 
 the descriptions of these early meeting-houses, the 
 colonial spelling is so widely varied, and so cleverly 
 ingenious. Uniformity of spelling is a strictly mod- 
 ern accomplishment, a hampering innovation. " A 
 square roofe without Dormans, with two Lucoms on 
 each side,' 1 means, I think, without dormer windows, 
 and with luthern windows. Another church paid a 
 hill for the meeting-house roof and the " Sttppolidge." 
 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 navies and bymes and 
 tymber and gaybels and a pulpy t, and three payr of 
 stayrs," in its meeting-house, — a liberal supply of 
 the now fashionable y's. We read of u pinakles" and 
 k *pyks" and u shuthers" and "scamUs" and "bimes" 
 and u lynters " and " bathyns " and " chymbers " and 
 u 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 Rox- 
 bury church : " Sayd John is to fence in the Buring 
 Plas with a Fesv 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 M 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." Li 
 
8 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 early days nails were scarce, — so scarce that un- 
 principled 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 lum- 
 ber, and the use of horses' and men's labor given, but 
 a contribution was also levied for the inevitable bar- 
 rel of rum and its uniutoxicating accompaniments. 
 " Rhum and Cacks " are frequent entries in the ac- 
 count books of early churches. No wonder that ac- 
 cidents were frequent, and that men fell from the 
 scaffolding and were killed, as at the raising of the 
 Dunstable meeting-house. When the Medford peo- 
 ple 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 £8 "to raise the meeting-house" — and 
 the village doctor got " £3 for setting his bone 
 Jonathan Strong, and £3 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 appor- 
 tioned to each worker for his rum and sugar. At 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND MEETING-HOUSE. 9 
 
 last no liquor was allowed to the work men until 
 after the day's work was over, and thus fatal acci- 
 dents 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, writ- 
 ing 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." 
 
10 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 thorn 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 accom- 
 plish 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 ab- 
 ruptly, " 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 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND MEETING-HOUSE. 11 
 
 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 T 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 Xcwburv, in 1665, killed seven wolves, and 
 was paid the reward for so doing. This was a great 
 
12 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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, Connect- 
 icut ; 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 wolfs 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 pow- 
 der to the Indians, notices of town meetings, inten- 
 tions 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 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND MEETING-HOUSE. 13 
 
 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 morti- 
 cation 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 compara- 
 tively 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 Con- 
 cord women proudly erected, and paid for by a con- 
 tribution 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 n was in the beams of the roof. Whenever 
 
14 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 al- 
 lowed 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 for- 
 bidden to store more than four hundred bushels at 
 a time, unless he " underpropped the floor." 
 
 In one church in the Connecticut valley, in a town- 
 ship 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 eigh- 
 teenth century paint became cheaper and more plen- 
 tiful, 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 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND MEETING-HOUSE. 15 
 
 meeting-house. For instance, the new meeting-house 
 in Pom fret, Connecticut, was painted bright yellow ; 
 it proved a veritable golden apple of discord through- 
 out the county. Windham town quickly voted that 
 its meeting-house be " coloured something like the 
 Pomfrct 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.' 1 Brooklyn church then, in 1762, 
 ordered that the outside of its meeting-house be " cul- 
 ered " in the approved fashion. The body of the 
 house was painted a bright orange ; the doors and 
 " bottom boards " a warm chocolate color ; the " win- 
 dow-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, how- 
 ever, spoke scornfully of the spirit of envious emula- 
 tion, 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 Cot- 
 ton called it. The bare rafters were often profusely 
 hung with dusty spiders' webs, and were the home also 
 ol countless swallows, that flew in and out of (he open 
 bell-turret. Sometimes, too, mischievous squirrels, 
 
16 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 attracted by the corn in the meeting-house loft, made 
 their homes in the sanctuary; and they were so pro- 
 lific 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 pre- 
 vent total annihilation by these Puritanical, Bible- 
 loving squirrels. 
 
 The pulpits were often pretentious, even in the 
 plain and undecorated meeting-houses, and were usu- 
 ally 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 hex- 
 agonal 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 ap- 
 peared 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 
 Avrong-doers of the great, all-seeing eye of God. 
 
 As the ceiling and rafters were so open and rever- 
 berating, it was generally thought imperative to hang 
 above the pulpit a great sounding-board, which threat- 
 ened the minister like a giant extinguisher, and was 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND MEETING-HOUSE. 17 
 
 really as devoid of utility as it was curious in orna- 
 mentation, " reflecting most part an empty ineffec- 
 tual sound." This great sound-killer was decorated 
 with carved and painted rosettes, as in the Shrews- 
 bury meeting-house ; with carved ivy leaves, as in 
 Farmington ; with a carved bunch of grapes or pome- 
 granates, as in the Leicester church ; with letters in- 
 dicating 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 orna- 
 ment 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 struc- 
 tures 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 moans of possible punishment for any false 
 doctrine that might issue from the mouth of the 
 preacher. 
 
18 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Another pastime and source of interest to the chil- 
 dren 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 irregu- 
 larities in the wood, just as it had brought out and 
 strengthened the dry-woody, close, unaired, penetrat- 
 ing 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 Sun- 
 day 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-hear- 
 ing, 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 at- 
 tempted 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 Eng- 
 land 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 In- 
 dian or a wolf, their two " greatest inconveniencies." 
 Trumbull, in his " Mac Fingal," writes 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 protec- 
 
20 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 tion 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 band " was 
 obliged to come armed each Sabbath, and the senti- 
 nels 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 de- 
 fensive 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 or- 
 dered 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 plen- 
 tiful 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 
 
THE CHURCH MILITANT. 21 
 
 powder and shot to meeting; the farmers were for- 
 bidden to u 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 pierc- 
 ing weapons furbished up and dressed ;" wood was to 
 be placed in the watch-house ; it was ordered that the 
 M 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 sud- 
 denly forth, they may have free passage." The 
 soldiers sat on either side of the main door, a senti- 
 nel 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 disturb- 
 ances 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 natu- 
 rally, kicked his tormentor with much agility and 
 force. There must have ensued quite a free fight 
 all around in the meeting-house, for " Mrs. Good- 
 year's boy had his head broke that day in meeting, 
 
22 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 in- 
 congruous 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 mat- 
 ters 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 cost- 
 ing 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 snap- 
 hance," 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 
 
THE CHURCH MILITANT. 23 
 
 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 some- 
 times appropriately called) chambers, barque-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 estab- 
 lishing 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 wo well know. 
 
 These armed " sentinells " are always regarded as 
 a most picturesque accompaniment of Puritan reli- 
 gious 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 
 
24 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 van- 
 tage to blaze away at any red man whom he saw 
 sneaking without, or to lead, if necessary, his con- 
 gregation to battle. The church in York, Maine, 
 until the year 174G, 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 mak- 
 ing sure the safe exit of the latter. This custom pre- 
 vailed from habit until a late date in many churches 
 
THE CHURCH MILITANT. 25 
 
 in New England, all the men, after the benedict ion 
 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 
 Xew 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 ser- 
 vice of the holy day ; they were gathered together by 
 various warning sounds. The Haverhill settlers lis- 
 tened 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 £1 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-attend- 
 ants straggled to Whately meeting each at his own 
 time and pleasure. 
 

 BY DRUM AND HORN AND SHELL. 27 
 
 In East Hartley the inhabitant who "blew the 
 kimk " (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-beat- 
 ing. 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 "Prumber" 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 
 
28 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Providence," tells of the Cambridge Church : " Hear- 
 ing 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 Lanthorne 
 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 differ- 
 ent, 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 re- 
 port of an astounding occurrence in which he played 
 an important part. Ten men, who were nearly all 
 sea-faring men, — gay, rollicking sailors, — went to 
 Bassett'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, how- 
 ever, wickedly unmindful of his honored calling, fur- 
 
BY DRUM AM) HORN AND SHELL. 29 
 
 nished 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 qui- 
 etly 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 u verey offensive, his noyes and oatlies 
 being hearde to the other side of the creeke." For 
 
30 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 aiding and abetting this noisy and disgraceful spree, 
 and also for partaking in it, Drummer Basset was 
 fined £5, 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. Lech- 
 ford, 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 dis- 
 tress of the Indians, who regarded them with super- 
 stitious dread, thinking — to paraphrase Herbert's 
 beautiful line — " when the bell did chime 't was 
 devils' music ; " but more frequently the bells were 
 
BY DRUM AND HORN AND SHELL. 31 
 
 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 fire 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 be- 
 fore him when preaching, was jokingly said to have 
 " lookcd-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 contriv- 
 ing 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 
 
32 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 in many New England churches, in the eighteenth 
 century, for the entire congregation to remain respect- 
 fully standing within the pews at the end of the ser- 
 vice 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 permis- 
 sion 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 
 
 3 
 
34 THE SABBATH IN PUEITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 and unpainted, and as each pewholder could exercise 
 his own " tast or discresing" 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 en- 
 vied hy 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 OLD-FASHIONED PEWS. 35 
 
 the entranec-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 luxu- 
 rious pew-furnishings could never have been found in 
 many churches. 
 
 An old Xew 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 prodi- 
 giously 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 wonder- 
 ful 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 
 
36 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 for- 
 ward 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 shapclessness 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-pierc- 
 ing shriek, which, with the noisy crash, electrified the 
 entire meeting. All the grown people stood up to in- 
 vestigate, 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 com- 
 
THE OLD-FASHIONED PEWS. 37 
 
 munity, 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 min- 
 ister. The pew-seats were as narrow and uncomfort- 
 able 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 1 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 stand- 
 ing congregation to lean for support against the sides 
 of the pews during the psalm-singing and the long, 
 long prayers. 
 
38 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 " 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 gentle- 
 man 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 morn- 
 ing 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 
 
THE OLD-FASHIONED PEWS. 39 
 
 which, alas ! would also squeak. This fascinating 
 occupation wbiled away many a tedious hour in the 
 dreary church, and in spite of weekly forbidding- 
 frowns and whispered reproofs for the shrill, ear-pierc- 
 ing squeaks elicited by turning the spindle-shaped 
 balusters, was entirely too alluring a time-killer to 
 be abandoned, and consequently descended, an heredi- 
 tary 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, visit- 
 ing 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 marks- 
 man was ignominiously pulled down by his mother 
 from his post of attack. And through these balus- 
 trades 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 
 
40 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND 
 
 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 south- 
 ernwood would be doubly grateful to the nostrils. 
 Little Missy sat down delightedly to nibble the cara- 
 way-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 ex- 
 perimentalist 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 tut 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 fright- 
 ened and horrified, at once bore the leaf-gorged child 
 
 
THE OLD-FASHIONED PEWS. 41 
 
 from the church, signalling in her retreat to the vil- 
 lage 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 affection- 
 ate 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 ilight, 
 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 Sab- 
 bath favorites for their old-time virtues and powers ? 
 
 "Vervain and dill 
 Hinder witches of their ill." 
 
42 THE SABABTII IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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-influenc- 
 ing, 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 Xew 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 handker- 
 chief, her spectacle-case and well-worn Bible, and 
 a great sprig of the sweet, old-fashioned " lad's-love." 
 
THE OLD-FASHIONED PEWS. 43 
 
 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, bay berry, sweetbrier. 
 Xo rose is half so fresh, so countrified, so memory- 
 sweet. 
 
 The benches and the pew-scats 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 Sand- 
 wich — 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 
 
44 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 some- 
 what 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 him 
 self. 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." 
 
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 meet- 
 ing-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 : — 
 
 u 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 sec- 
 
46 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 ond committee was also appointed to seat the mem- 
 bers of committee number one, in order that, as 
 Haverhill people phrased it, " there may be no Grum- 
 bling at them for picking and placing tllemselves.' , 
 
 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 
 £21 is. 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 
 
SEATING THE MEETING. 47 
 
 first decision of the committee and asked for re- 
 consideration of their special cases and for promo- 
 tion 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 t lie 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 " fo reseat," in which only the persons of great- 
 est importance in the community sat. 
 
 Sometimes a row of square pews was built on 
 three sides of the ground floor, and each pew occu- 
 pied by separate families, while the pulpit was on the 
 fourth side. If any man wished such a private pew 
 l*«>r 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 
 seal or a square inclosed pew lor 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 
 derm the besl >eals, those in the middle of the church, 
 were in olden times the Ire*.' seats. 
 
48 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Usually, on one side of the pulpit was a square pew 
 for the minister's family. When there were twenty- 
 six children in the fa mil) , as at least one New Eng- 
 land parson could hoast, 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 univer- 
 sally regarded in the early churches as the most ex- 
 alted, 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 disap- 
 pointed anticipation, heart-burning jealousy, offended 
 dignity, unseemly pride, and bitter quarrelling this 
 method of assigning seats, and ranking thereby, must 
 have been in those little communities. How the 
 goodwives 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 ac- 
 count 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 
 
SEATING THE MEETING. 49 
 
 alone the Scribes and Pharisees who desired the high- 
 est seats in the synagogue. 
 
 It was found necessary at a very early date to 
 u dignify the meeting," which was to make certain 
 seats, though in different localities, equal in dignity ; 
 thus could peace and contented pride be partially re- 
 stored. 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 judg- 
 ment that could be shown, the dissensions over the 
 seating lasted for years. The conciliatory fashion of 
 ''dignifying the seats "clung long in the Congrega- 
 tional 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 
 
 4 
 
50 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 spleen be 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 re- 
 cently 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 votcd-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 pay- 
 ing in forty shillings more in order to sit one scat 
 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 " bach- 
 elors 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- 
 
SEATING THE MEETING. 51 
 
 in-law, were seated side by side. Eacb 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. 
 
 En no way could honor and respect be shown more 
 satisfactorily in^thc 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 Sover- 
 eignty put my wife out of the Fore Seat. I appre- 
 hended 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 scats be- 
 came 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 u clear the Alleys of the meeting-house of chairs 
 
52 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 and other Incumbrances." Where the chairless peo- 
 ple 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 r 
 Sunday after Sunday, from one position of dignity to 
 another still higher, until at last he boldly invaded 
 the deacons' scat. 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 oi the 
 house. In 1677 the selectmen of Newbury gave per- 
 mission 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 £10 each, and 
 sentenced to be whipped or pilloried. In considera- 
 tion, 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 
 
SEATING THE MEETING. 53 
 
 young women made any objection. In the Woburn 
 church, the four daughters of one of the most re- 
 spected families in the place received permission to 
 build a pew in which to sit. Here also such indig- 
 nant 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 resent- 
 ful objection of New England young men to permit- 
 ting 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 Ilurlburt, Pashants and Mary 
 Lazelle, Younes Bingham, prudenc Ilurlburt 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 
 
54 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND 
 
 from this time the society comitte shall take said 
 pue away." Do you wonder that the bachelors re- 
 sented 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 undanmify- 
 ing "pue" unmolested. Medford young women, how- 
 ever, 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 
 
SEATING THE MEETING. 55 
 
 with their mothers or elder sisters on "crickets" 
 within the pews ; or if the family were over-numer- 
 ous, the children and crickets exundated into "the 
 alley without the pues." Often a row of little daugh- 
 ters 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. The) usually sat on the pulpit and gal- 
 lery stairs, and constables or tithingmen were ap- 
 pointed to watch over them and control them. In 
 Salem, in 167G, 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 Win. 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 bo 
 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 
 ther instead of with their respective families; and 
 
56 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 not until the fashion was universal of each family sit- 
 ting in a pew or group by itself did the boys in meet- 
 ing behave like human beings rather than like mis- 
 chievous 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 nois- 
 ily on the sanded floor ; and 1 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 "snick- 
 er" 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 
 
SKATING THE MEETING. 57 
 
 Wry Faces caused laughter and misbehavior in the 
 Beholders." The girls were not one whit better be- 
 haved. One of "ye tything men chosen of ye town of 
 Norwich " reported that " Tabatha Morgus of s'd Nor- 
 wich 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\l 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 live shillings for " Larfing in the Ware- 
 ham 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 Trum- 
 bull 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 dur- 
 ing 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 Be- 
 lial," whittled, too, and cut the woodwork and benches 
 
58 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 of the meeting-house in those early days, just as their 
 descendants have ever since hacked and cut the 
 benches and desks in country schoolhouscs, — 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 annoy- 
 ingly 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 him- 
 self in the time of publick worship whether in the 
 meeting-house or about the walls he shall be ex- 
 
SEATING THE MEETING. 59 
 
 amined and punished at the present publickly be- 
 fore 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 choru§, " 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 petti- 
 coats. Far rather would the disgraced boy have been 
 whacked soundly with the heavy knob of the tithing- 
 man'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 
 
60 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 his manly seat with the grown men, and force him to 
 sit again with the boys ; " if any over sixteen are dis- 
 orderly, 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 pul- 
 pit 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 par- 
 ents' 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, Connecti- 
 cut, 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 
 
SEATING THE MEETING. 61 
 
 naturally wished to cool down by opening or breaking 
 the windows. Grown persons could not inconsider- 
 ately open the church windows either. " The Con- 
 stables are desired to take notic of the persons that 
 open the windows in the tynae of publick worship." 
 No rheumatic-y draughts, no bronchitis-y damps, no 
 pure air was allowed to enter the Xew England meet- 
 ing-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 de- 
 cided " 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 them- 
 selves 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 con- 
 demning 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 of- 
 fender 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 
 
62 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 pro- 
 testations, were soon heard from the region of the 
 horse-sheds. Parents never resented such chastis- 
 ings ; 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 
 
SEATING THE MEETING. 63 
 
 in the black men's pew, to the delight of Bill Mills, 
 the amusement of the boys, the scandal of the ciders, 
 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 
 4 * swallows' nest," or the " roof pue," or the " second 
 gallery.' 1 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 scats 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 
 
64 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 
 
SEATING THE MEETING. 65 
 
 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 Agamcnticus 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. 
 
 Tims, 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 who- 
 ever will pay the most. Perhaps the old way was 
 the better, since, in the early churches, age, educa- 
 tion, dignity, and reputation were considered as well 
 ns 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 bur- 
 lesque 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 fox- 
 tails, — 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 Eng- 
 land 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 
 
THE TITHINGMAN AND THE SLEEPERS. 67 
 
 sleepy men, and the too wide-awake boys. From the 
 other end of this wand of office depended a long fox- 
 tail, or a hare's-foot, which he softly thrust in the 
 faces of the Bleeping Priscillas, Charitys, and Hope- 
 stills, 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 
 haist." 
 
 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 argu- 
 ments. 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 ex- 
 posed by one of these sudden church-awakenings, 
 and the story is best told in the journalist's own 
 vivid words : — 
 
68 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 " June 3, 1646. — 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 com- 
 fort, hys head kept steadie by being in ye corner, aud 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 com- 
 mitted, 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 buzz- 
 ing insects, and the muffled stamping of horses' feet; 
 
THE TITHINGMAN AND THE SLEEPERS 69 
 
 the restless boys on the pulpit-stairs ; the tired, sleep- 
 ing 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 terri- 
 ble 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 goodw T ife ! many years 
 elapsed ere they recovered from that keen disgrace. 
 
 The ministers encouraged and urged the tithing- 
 men to faithfully perform their allotted wx>rk. 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 
 
70 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 stand- 
 ing 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 Puri- 
 tan 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 meet- 
 ings. In many rigidly severe towns, as in Ports- 
 mouth 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 sum- 
 marily 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 Bib- 
 lical 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 
 
THE TITHIXGMAN AXD THE SLEEPERS. 71 
 
 fc - mark M 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 sin- 
 ners." 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 Xew 
 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 minis- 
 ter 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 
 
72 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 objections to women's overwhelming and obscuring 
 headgear in public assemblies are not entirely com- 
 plaining 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 pow- 
 erful 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 Puri- 
 tans, through constantly recurring waves of fashion, 
 have ever since been indecently wearing great obscur- 
 ing 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 TITIIIXUMAX AND THE SLEEPERS 73 
 
 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 neigh- 
 boring 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 Chataehize." These families 
 he also watched specially on the Sabbath, and re- 
 ported whether all the members thereof attended 
 public worship. Not content with mounting guard 
 over the boys on Sundays, he also watched on week- 
 days 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 dis- 
 orders which he there discovered, and gave in the 
 names of '-idle tiplers and gainers," and he could 
 warn the tavern-keeper to sell no more liquor to any 
 toper whom he knew or fancied was drinking too 
 heavily. Jo.sselyn complained bitterly that during 
 his visit to New England in 1663 at " houses of en- 
 tertainment called ordinaries into which a stranger 
 went, lie was presently followed by one appointed to 
 
74 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 that office who would thrust himself into his com- 
 pany 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 col- 
 lect the ministerial rate, though his principal duty was 
 by no means the collecting of tithes. He "worned 
 peple out of ye towne." This warning W as not at 
 all because the new-comers were objectionable or un- 
 desired, but was simply a legal form of precaution, 
 so that the parish would never be liable for the keep- 
 ing 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 
 
THE TITIIIXGMAN AND THE SLEEPERS. 75 
 
 walked or rode at too fast a paec to and from meet- 
 ing, 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 Ceutiuel " 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 pre- 
 viously 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 ti thing- 
 man 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 Sab- 
 bath 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 sale distance and impudently shouted back, 
 " And she \s been lying dead in the graveyard there 
 for thirty years." 
 
76 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 ne- 
 cessary 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 liv- 
 ing 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 in- 
 troduction both watches and clocks were costly and 
 rare. John Davenport of New Haven, who died in 
 167,0, left a clock to his heirs ; and E. Needham, who 
 died in 1677, left a " Striking clock, a watch, and a 
 Lamm that dus not Strike," worth <£5 ; 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 
 cuimregation 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 ; 
 
78 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 but if it were a hint to bring the discourse to an end, 
 it was never heeded ; for contemporary historical reg- 
 isters 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 
 live 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 pro- 
 gressive parishioners proposed to hold at the " noon- 
 ing." 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- 
 
THE LENGTH OF THE SERVICE. 79 
 
 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 repre- 
 sents 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 '11 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 Xew 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 East Day a prayer which was two hours long. 
 These long prayers were universal and most highly 
 med, — a "poor gift in prayer" being a most 
 deplored and even despised clerical short-coming. 
 
80 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 Puri- 
 tan 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 
 clown 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 cling- 
 ing 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 beau- 
 tiful emblem of patient readiness for the last solemn 
 summons. 
 
 Sometimes tedious expounding of the Scriptures 
 
THE LENGTH OF THE SERVICE, 81 
 
 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 prophesy ings ; they would 
 have regarded a short sermon as irreligious, and lack- 
 ing 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, un- 
 cushioned seats at all seasons ; but in every record 
 and journal which I have read, throughout which mth- 
 isters 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 1G96, 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 
 
82 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 Mil- 
 ford 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 med- 
 icine-man was screaming and yelling and dancing in 
 order to cast the devil out of 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 gath- 
 ered 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 dis- 
 gusted 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 services 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 
 
THE LENGTH OF THE SERVICE. 83 
 
 before ye whole exercises bee ended." Thus Salem 
 people had to listen to no end of praying and pro- 
 phesying from their ministers and elders for they 
 -couldn't get out." 
 
 As the years passed on, the church attendants lie- 
 came less reverential 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 per- 
 sons 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 lie would 
 [ (reach 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 
 
8-1 
 
 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 cur- 
 tailed, 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 cen- 
 turies 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 quota- 
 tion may be found the clue and explanation of the 
 
86 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 SewalPs tells of an exceeding- 
 cold day when there was " Great Coughing " in meet- 
 ing, 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 SewalPs 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 lie 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 
 
THE ICY MEETING-HOUSE. 87 
 
 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 univer- 
 sal 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 tin tamarre began, "My hearers, have a little 
 patience, and I will soon close." 
 
 Another clergyman was irritated beyond endurance 
 by the stamping, clattering feet, a supploslo 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 sud- 
 denly and noisily closed his sermon-book, leaned for- 
 ward out of his high pulpit, and thundered out these 
 Biblical words of rebuke at his freezing congrega- 
 tion, 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 do- 
 minion 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 
 
88 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 Scwall — and possi- 
 bly 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 w T ith 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 
 
THE ICY MEKTINCJ-IIOUSE. 89 
 
 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 ances- 
 tors 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 good men 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 Xews 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. 
 
90 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 cor- 
 respondingly 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 cli- 
 
THE ICY MEETING-HOUSE. 91 
 
 mate 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," " scar- 
 let 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 
 l - 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 loos- 
 ened and thrust back when the wearer was within 
 doors. It was only equalled in shapeless clumsiness 
 and unique ugliness by its Bummer-sister of the same 
 
92 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 date, the green silk calash, — that funniest and quaint- 
 est 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 head- 
 dress 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 velvet, 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 served as mouth- 
 pieces. 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 
 
THE ICY MEETING-HOUSE. 93 
 
 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 shin- 
 ing polished brass stove was carried into church in 
 the hands of a liveried black man, who held it osten- 
 tatiously 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 ignomin- 
 iously 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 neighbor- 
 ing 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 cher- 
 
94 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 islied 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 foot- 
 stoves 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 
 16, 1771 : " Whereas, danger is apprehended from 
 the [foot] stoves that are frequently left in the meet- 
 ing-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 itt is 
 expected that the owners of such stoves make reason- 
 able 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 
 rhyme 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." 
 
THE KT MEETING-HOUSE. 95 
 
 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 fam- 
 ily 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 be- 
 came 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 : " What- 
 soever 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 Puri- 
 tans would rather freeze their toes than pay sixpence 
 for their calorific dogs. 
 
 The church members made many rules and regu- 
 lations 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 pre- 
 vent 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. 
 
96 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 sybar- 
 ites 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 sac- 
 rifice 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 
 
THE ICY MEETING-HOUSE. 97 
 
 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 furni- 
 ture, 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 near- 
 est 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 congrega- 
 tion. Often tin pails to catch the drippings were 
 hung under the stove-pipes, forming a further chaste 
 and elegant church-decoration. Many serious objec- 
 tions 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- 
 she // hack-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 
 Cow per wrote, — 
 
 " The churches warmed, they would no longer hoM 
 Such frozen figures, stiff as they are cold." 
 7 
 
98 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW-ENGLAND. 
 
 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, grow- 
 ing paler with the unaccustomed heat, until the min- 
 ister's words about "heaping coals of fire" brought 
 too keen a sense of the overwhelming and unhealth- 
 ful stove-heat to her mind, and she fainted. She was 
 carried out of church, and upon recovering said lan- 
 guidly 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 de- 
 livered 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 amus- 
 ing account of the results of the introgression. This 
 
THE ICY MEETING-HOUSE. 99 
 
 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 Litch- 
 field meeting, who began to fan herself and at length 
 swooned, saving when she recovered " that the heat 
 of the horrid stove had caused her to faint." A cor- 
 respondent of the " Cleveland Herald" confirmed the 
 fact that the fainting episode occurred in the Litch- 
 field meeting-house. The editor of the " Hartford 
 Daily Courant" thus added his testimony : — 
 
 "Violent opposition had been made to the introduc- 
 tion of a stove in the old meeting-house, and an attempt 
 made in vain to induce the society 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 com- 
 mittee consented. It was all arranged on Saturday after- 
 noon, 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 win- 
 dows. 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 coat as 
 he passed up the broad aisle to the deacon's seat. Old 
 Uncle Noah Stone, a wealthy farmer of the West Knd, 
 who sat near, scowled and muttered at the effects of tiie 
 
100 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 heat, but waited until noon to utter bis maledictions over 
 his nut-cakes and cheese at the intermission. There had 
 in fact been no Jive in the stove, the day being too warm. 
 We were too much upon the broad grin to be very de- 
 votional, 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 oppo- 
 sition 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 Litch- 
 field, and that the honor was stolen for other towns 
 by imveracious chroniclers ; otherwise we must be- 
 lieve 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 fore- 
 fathers 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 
 
THE ICY MEETING>-HOXJ»SE. 101 
 
 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 es- 
 tablish, 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 
 
THE NOON-HOUSE. 103 
 
 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 en- 
 tering the icy meeting-house. The embers were care- 
 fully covered over and left to start a second blaze at 
 the nooning, covered again during the afternoon ser- 
 vice, 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 
 
104 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 would at noon-time repair and absorb to the fullest 
 degree the welcome cider and warmth. 
 
 In Lexington for many years after the Revolu- 
 tionary 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." 
 
THE NOON-HOUSE. 105 
 
 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 Xew Canaan 
 Church built on the green beside their meeting-house 
 a fine " Society House," twenty-one feet long and six- 
 teen feet wide, with a big chimney and fireplace. The 
 horses were plainly " not in society " in Xew Canaan, 
 for they were excluded from the occupancy and privi- 
 leges of the Society House. 
 
 "James June & all that lives at Larences" were 
 allowed to build a "Sabbath-House" on the green 
 near the Xew Britain meeting-house " as a Commodate 
 for their convenience 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 ox his having a place to go to" on t lie Sab- 
 bath. Frequently the petitions "to build a Sabbath 
 Day House" or a •• J i ousel for Shelter for Iforss" 
 
106 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 were made in company by several farmers for their 
 joint use and comfort, as shown by entries in the town 
 and church records of Nor walk, New Milford, Durham, 
 and Hartford. 
 
 Noon-houses were much more frequent in Connec- 
 ticut 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 Narra- 
 gansett 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 
 
THE XOOX-IIOUSE. 107 
 
 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 dis- 
 figure 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 min- 
 ister 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 (luring the morning sermon. More unbear- 
 able still, the boys were sometimes ordered to explain 
 the notes which they had taken themselves. 1 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 
 
108 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 And- 
 over 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 ser- 
 mon, read perhaps by some unskilled reader, or ex- 
 plained 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 1 The " Salem Gazette " 
 openly characterized Sunday-schools, when first sug- 
 gested, as profanations of the Sabbath, and for 
 years they were not allowed in many Congregational 
 
THE NOON-HOUSE. 109 
 
 churches. When the Sabbath-schools were univer- 
 sally 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 hap- 
 pily 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 
 publishing* 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 predestina- 
 tion, pedobaptism and antipedobaptism, of original 
 sin, and that most fascinating mystery, the unpardon- 
 able 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 ex- 
 change of cows and pigs was suggested, bargained 
 over, and clinched in the " Sabba'-day house." Many 
 
110 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 a piece of village electioneering was also discussed and 
 " worked " between the services. The shivering wo- 
 men 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 valiants, 
 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 NOOX-HOUSE. Ill 
 
 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 
 £± 4-?. 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 intoxi- 
 cating beverage, oft-frozen " hard " cider, can fer- 
 vently 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 u most insinuating drink " — flip. Flip was made 
 of home-brewed beer, sugar, and a liberal dash of 
 Jamaica rum, and was mixed with a t; logger-head" — 
 a great iron "stirring-stick" which was heated in the 
 fire until red hot and then thrust into the liquid. 
 
112 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 " log- 
 gerhead " 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 inter- 
 nally 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 " pro- 
 fanation 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 descend- 
 ants 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 Novem- 
 ber, 1(385, the method at that time of appointing or 
 ordaining a deacon : — 
 
 ••In afternoon Mr. Willard ordained our Brother The- 
 ophilus Frary to the office of a Deacon. Declared his 
 acceptance January 11th first and now again. Pro- 
 pounded him to the congregation at Noon. Then in even 
 propounded him if any of the church or other had to ob- 
 ject 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, 
 
114 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 usually, several high-backed chairs and a table or a 
 broad swinging-shelf for use at the communion ser- 
 vice. These venerable men were a group of awe- 
 inspiring figures, who, next to the parson, received 
 the respect of the community. In Bristol, Connecti- 
 cut, 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 commu- 
 nities 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 Spring- 
 field 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 some- 
 what 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 sacra- 
 

 THE DEACON'S OFFICE. 115 
 
 mental wines, sold, under that religions cover, wine 
 and liquors at retail. 
 
 The deacons also had charge of the vessels used in 
 the communion service. These vessels were fre- 
 quently 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 incar- 
 ceration 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. B. 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 n 
 church-member named White gave to the church 
 
116 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 absolutely the pewter dishes which were used at the 
 sacrament, and which had been his personal prop- 
 erty. 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 com- 
 munion 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 ser- 
 vice 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 Congre- 
 gation 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 
 
THE DEACON'S OFFICE. 117 
 
 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 
 3 again ; which money and goods the Deacons dis- 
 pose 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. Libel- 
 lous verses too were thrown into the contribution 
 boxes, and warning and gloomy messages from the 
 Quakers ; and John Rogers, in derision of a pompous 
 Xew London minister, threw in the insulting contri- 
 bution 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 Xew Ha- 
 ven church was particularly tormented by canny Pu- 
 ritans who thus managed to dispose of their broken 
 and worthless currency with a] (parent Christian gen- 
 erosity. In 1650 the New Haven *' deacons informed 
 the Court that the wampum which is putt into the 
 
118 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 contribu- 
 tions at all, and many are the records of the actions 
 and decisions of the church in regard to the perplex- 
 ing 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 set- 
 tlers 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 easilv 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 nine- 
 teenth-century country churches. 
 
 In Revolutionary times, after the divine service, spe- 
 cial 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 
 
THE DEACON'S OFFICE. 119 
 
 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 Trum- 
 bull rose up in Lebanon meeting-house in Connecti- 
 cut, 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 Rocham- 
 beau, the commander-in-chief of the French allied 
 army, and advancing to the altar, gave it as her offer- 
 ing 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 patri- 
 otic act kindled warm enthusiasm in the congrega- 
 tion, 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 offi- 
 cially 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 com- 
 muned with God, if not with 'his fellow-men. For 
 nearly twenty years did this austere man rigidly go 
 
120 THE SABBATH IX PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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-impor- 
 tant, 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 in- 
 troduced to his parishioners the custom of giving 
 during the month a metal check to each worthy and 
 truly virtuous church-member, on presentation of 
 wlii eh the check-bearer was entitled to partake of 
 the communion, and without which he was tempo- 
 rarily 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 
 
THE DEACON'S OFFICE. 121 
 
 communion-checks. And yet uo records of the pro- 
 tests or complaints of indignant or grieving parish- 
 ioners 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 
 " Pelhara 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 
 
122 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 congrega- 
 tions gathered from all the towns around. Prepara- 
 tory 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 " to- 
 ken." These tokens were similar to the " Presby- 
 terian checks ; " they were little strips of lead or pew- 
 ter 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 
 
THE DEACON'S OFFICE. 123 
 
 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 Sab- 
 bath were, however, solemnly devoted to the worship 
 of God ; a Londonderry man was reproved and prose- 
 cuted 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 con- 
 tinued until the year 1830. 
 
 In the coin collection of the American Antiqua- 
 rian 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. 
 
124 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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. 
 
 
XL 
 
 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 
 
 Ains worth, 
 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 Ains- 
 worth" lies now before me, perhaps the very one 
 from which the lonely Priscilla sang as she sat a- 
 Bpinning. 
 
 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 
 ]>ible of loving daily use, and adds the charm of in- 
 31 in the quaint verse to reverence for the sacred 
 word. A world of tender fancies springs into life as 
 
126 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 edi- 
 tion 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 speak- 
 ing to yourselves in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual- 
 
THE PSALM-BOOK OF THE PILGRIMS. 127 
 
 Songs singing and making melodic in your hearts to 
 the Lord." The book contains besides the Psalms 
 and Annotations, on its first pages, a " Preface de- 
 claring 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 annota- 
 tions 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 appro- 
 priate 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 lit 
 
128 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the mesure of the verse : and for the other long 
 verses T 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," " re- 
 nowned-name," " repose-me-quietlie," " in-mind-up- 
 lay," " 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 " excel lent- 
 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 PSALM-BOOK OF THE PILGRIMS. 129 
 
 " The New England Psalm-book," which at a later 
 date displaced Ainsworth in the affections and relig- 
 ious services of the New England Puritans and Pil- 
 grims. 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 dis- 
 sension, 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 " Dia- 
 logue," written in 1648, says of Ainsworth, "He had 
 not his better for the Hebrew tongue in the Univer- 
 sity 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 cen- 
 tury. He also, being a skilful disputant, wrote 
 
 9 
 
130 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 A ins- 
 worth seemed to take in Amsterdam for many years 
 was that of peacemaker, as many of his contempora- 
 ries testify : for they quarrelled fiercely among them- 
 selves 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 Mat- 
 thew xviii. 17 ; whether the members of the congre- 
 gation 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 
 
THE PSALM-BOOK OF THE riLGRIMS 131 
 
 bodies tied to the petticote with points as men do 
 their doublets and hose ; contrary to 1 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 topish- 
 ness 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 
 
132 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 told by Neal. " It was sudden and not without sus- 
 picion 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 Ains- 
 worth though poor would accept of nothing but con- 
 ference 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 confer- 
 ence took place, the Jews were vanquished, and in 
 revenge poisoned the champion of Christianity after- 
 wards. Dexter most unromantically throws cold 
 water on this poisoning story, and adduces much cir- 
 cumstantial 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 1 
 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 Witten- 
 berg, the birth-places of psalm-singing, that made 
 them doubly fond of " worship in song." Hence the 
 Pilgrim Fathers, Brewster, Bradford, Carver, and 
 
THE PSALM-BOOK OF THE PILGRIMS. 133 
 
 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 them- 
 selves, 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 sheweth; the work of his hand. 
 
 3. Day unto day uttereth speech : and night unto night 
 
 manifesteth knowledge : 
 
 4. Xo 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-regiess is unto the utmost-ends of them: 
 and none is hidd, from his heat. 
 
134 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 : 
 
 ioyes 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 sepa- 
 ration and named it Heaven, which of David is said to 
 
THE PSALM-BOOK OF THE PILGRIMS. 135 
 
 be stretched out as courtayn and elsewhere is said 
 to be as firm as moulteu 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 Pil- 
 grims not only a dictionary but a perfect encyclo- 
 pedia of useful knowledge. Things spiritual and 
 things temporal were explained therein. Scientific, 
 historic, and religious information were dispensed im- 
 partially. 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 u 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 coura- 
 gious ; 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 
 Shacbal, 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 fur the stowtness of thier 
 hart, boldnes, and grimnes of thier countenance." 
 
136 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 resem- 
 blance 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 ap- 
 peareth in the snuffing or breathing of the nose." 
 
 Before the Holland exiles had this version of Ains- 
 worth' s to sing from, they used the book known as 
 " Stemhold 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 
 
THE PSALM-BOOK OF THE PILGRIMS. 137 
 
 and authorized by the Church of England. In doing 
 this they had to abandon, however, such spirited lines 
 as Sternhold's — 
 
 11 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 
 M 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 crudencss and gro- 
 tesqueness. I have tried in vain to find othersome 
 
138 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. ■ 
 
 that would show more elegant finish or more of the 
 spirit of poetry; the most poetical lines I can dis- 
 cover 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 Puri- 
 tan 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 in- 
 ventory of the books in his library. Not every 
 member of the congregation, not every family pos- 
 sessed 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 congre- 
 gation. There is no doubt, however, that this Ains- 
 worth' 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 
 
THE rSALM-BOOK OF THE PILGRIMS. 139 
 
 Ainswortha Version of the Psalms until the year 
 1692. For altho' our New England version of the 
 Psalms was compiled by sundry hands and com- 
 pleted 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 pro- 
 pounded 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 con- 
 sider of some expedient that they might sing all the 
 psalms. After some time of consideration on Au- 
 gust 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 lie could not read] 
 
 
140 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 A ins worth now 
 lying before me are written these words, " This was 
 used in Salem half-a-century from the first settle- 
 ment." 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 ivas a 
 singularity in our using Ainsworths tunes : but espe- 
 cially 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 breth- 
 ren had spoken, there was at last a unanimous con- 
 sent 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 sim- 
 ple tunes written in Ainsworth's Version were too 
 difficult for the colonists to sing. To such a condi- 
 tion 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 bet- 
 ter in old England ; for we find in the preface of 
 Rous' Psalms (which were published in 1643 and au- 
 
THE PSALM-BOOK OF THE PILGRIMS. 141 
 
 thorizcd 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 pub- 
 lished. 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 Lon- 
 don 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 
 
142 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 this version of 1618 ; and this version was sung in 
 Plymouth Colony and 1 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 Antiqnarian Soci- 
 ety was presented to it in 1815 by the Rev. William 
 Bentley of Salem, Massachusetts, to whom also be- 
 longed the copy of the Bay Psalm Book now in the 
 library at Worcester. He was a divine and a biblio- 
 phile 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 " Con- 
 stitution " 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 compara- 
 tively 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 
 
THE PSALM BOOK OF THE PILGRIMS. 143 
 
 far more remote, a more peaceful and quiet scene ; 
 though men of warlike blood and fighting stock were 
 t he re 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 de- 
 vout 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 Faith- 
 fully 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 
 
THE BAY PSALM-BOOK. 145 
 
 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 cor- 
 rect 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. 
 inr. 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 Eng- 
 land, 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 £50, 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 charac- 
 teristic production ; the second an almanac for New 
 England, and the third, "The Bay Psalm-Book." 
 Some, who doom an almanac a book, call this psalm- 
 book the second book printed in British America. 
 
 10 
 
146 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 repre- 
 hensible 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 with- 
 out 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, appar- 
 ently 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 con- 
 
THE BAY PSALM-BOOK. 147 
 
 fused 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 sa3'rt 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 ordi- 
 nances 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 trans- 
 lation^ the chief divines in the country took each of theni 
 a portion to be translated ; among whom were Mr. Welds 
 and INIr. Eliot of Roxbury, and Mr. Mather of Dorches- 
 ter. 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 : 
 
148 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 into 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 re- 
 ceive the excuse which our translators themselves do offer 
 us when they say : ' If the verses are not always so ele- 
 gant 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 in- 
 genuity, 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 produc- 
 tion of " The Bay-Psalm-Book." He was a scholarly 
 
THE BAY PSALM-BOOK. 149 
 
 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 jus- 
 tice, such self-repression, such fairness make me al- 
 most 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, pro- 
 lix preface to the work ; and the first draft of it in 
 his own handwriting is preserved in the Prince Li- 
 brary. The other co-worker was John Eliot, that 
 glory of New England Puritanism, the apostle to 
 
150 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 " Di- 
 vine Emblems," sent across the Atlantic some of his 
 metrical versions of the psalms as a pious contribu- 
 tion 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 con- 
 ferred also upon the New England church the inesti- 
 mable 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, de- 
 barred 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 : — 
 
TIE BAY PSALM-BOOK. 151 
 
 24. Jael the Ivenite 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 w 7 hy 
 
 so long his chariot staid V 
 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 1 
 Have they not parted, Sisera, 
 
 a party-col our'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 ? 
 
152 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Our Pilgrim Fathers accepted these absurd, tauto- 
 logical 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. 
 
 1 1 . His secret place hee darkness made 
 
 his covert that him round confinde. 
 
 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 practi- 
 cable as to sing this latter selection. 
 
 President Dunster's improving hand and brain 
 evolved this rendition : — 
 
THE BAY PSALM-BOOK. 153 
 
 " 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 Xew England saints, hampered by 
 poverty, in dread of attack of Indians, burdened with 
 hard work, harassed by " eighty-two pestilent here- 
 sies," 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 « AX OPEX AXD OBSTINATE CON- 
 TEMNER OF GOD'S HOLY ORD1XAXCES," or 
 worse still, with that mysterious, that dread name, 
 -A WANTON GOSPELLER." 
 
 The second edition of the " Xew 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 
 
154 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 1 
 To Sisera have they not shar'd 
 
 A divers-colour'd prey 1 
 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 res- 
 tive steed Pegasus, Hebrew psalter in hand, and 
 trotted in warm haste over the rough roads of She- 
 mitic roots and metrical psalmody. Other divines 
 rode behind, and after cutting and slashing, mend- 
 ing and patching, twisting and turning, finally pro- 
 duced 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 Eng- 
 
THE BAY PSALM-BOOK. 155 
 
 land 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 ver- 
 sion was used in some of the English dissenting 
 congregations and Scotch kirks, instead of the 
 smoother verses composed in England for the Eng- 
 lish 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 con- 
 gregation 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 
 Mexicans" testifies. 
 
 If the printing of all these various editions was 
 poor, and the diction worse, the binding certainly 
 
156 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 was good and could be copied in modern times to 
 much advantage. No flimsy cloth or pasteboard cov- 
 ers, 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 en- 
 dured 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 " 8 shillings & 
 sixpence " and gave it to a widow whom he was woo- 
 ing. 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 Cassias smell 
 all of thy garments had 
 Out of the yvory pallaces 
 
 whereby they made thee glad : 
 
THE BAY PSALM-BOOK. 157 
 
 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 what- 
 ever 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 impera- 
 tive 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 con- 
 gregations wished to adopt the new and smoother 
 versions of Tate and Brady, and of Watts. Peti- 
 tions 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 
 • ■nted 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 iu many Places unintelligible ; whereby the mind 
 ad of being Raised and spirited in Singing The 
 Praises of Almighty God and thereby being prepared to 
 
158 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 ver- 
 sion consigned to desuetude, never again to be opened, 
 alas ! but by critical or inquisitive readers. 
 
 There is owned by the American Antiquarian So- 
 ciety, 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 con- 
 dition, 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 there- 
 fore 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 
 
THE BAY PSALM-BOOK. 159 
 
 rev. mr. Bentley " the copy which Thomas mentioned 
 in his book. 
 
 It is strange that Thomas should have been igno- 
 rant 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 pag- 
 ing, but are in modern bindings. The other three 
 copies were surrendered by Lieut-Go v. Samuel Arm- 
 strong (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 con- 
 sideration of certain modern books being given to 
 the Prince Library, and of the modern bindings be- 
 stowed 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 
 
160 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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. Shurtleff's death, his "Bay Psalm-Book" 
 was catalogued with the rest of his library, which 
 was to be sold on Dec. 2, 1875; but an injunc- 
 tion 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 in- 
 terest 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 ex- 
 tra 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: — 
 
 
THE BAY PSALM-BOOK. 161 
 
 " 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 dis- 
 appeared, together with many other important books 
 and manuscripts belonging to the same library. The 
 vicissitudes through which this most valuable collec- 
 tion 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, in- 
 jured 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 pas- 
 tors 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 
 ar<.- 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 
 
 11 
 
162 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Prince Library, the acquisitions of Messrs. Crownin- 
 shield and Livermore) 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 desire to possess a perfect copy of 'The Bay 
 Psalm Book.' He gave me to understand that if an op 
 portunity 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 Wil- 
 liam 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 oblig- 
 ing friend Dr. Bandinel, Bodley's Librarian. We thought 
 that when we had secured a copy for ourselves, 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 expe- 
 rienced 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 
 
THE BAY PSALM-BOOK. 163 
 
 resolving to prospect in one parcel more before he over- 
 took me, my eye rested for 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, 4 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, and 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, ' De- 
 livered ! ' On pocketing this volume, leaving the other 
 seven to take the usual course, Mr. Lilly and others in- 
 quired 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 Dot recognize the prize lie had won, 
 certainly the cataloguer might be excused for throwing it 
 
164 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 away into the hands of the right person to rescue, appre- 
 ciate, 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 with 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 Livermore, of Cambridge, N. E., 
 possessed an imperfect copy, which he and Mr. Crownin- 
 shield, 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 advanta- 
 geous exchange and obtained the four missing leaves. 
 Mr. Crowninshield strongly advised Mr. Livermore against 
 parting with his four leaves, because, as he said, ' They 
 would enable Stevens to complete his copy and to place 
 it in the library of Mr. Lenox, who would then crow over 
 us because he also had a perfect copy of " The Bay-Psalm 
 Book.'" 
 
 " Having thus completed my copy and had it bound by 
 Francis Bedford in his best style, I sent it to Mr. Lenox 
 for £80. Five years later I bought the Crowninshield 
 Library in Boston for $10,000, mainly to obtain his per- 
 fect 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 
 
THE BAY PSALM-BOOK. 165 
 
 Watts, offered to the British Museum for £150. The 
 Keeper of the Printed Books, however, never had the 
 courage to send it before the Trustees for approval and 
 payment ; so after waiting five or six years longer the vol- 
 ume 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 Yanderbilt 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. Yanderbilt paid at least seven 
 times its weight in gold for his precious book. 
 Lowndes's " Bibliographers' Manual " says, " This vol- 
 ume, which is extremely rare and would at an auc- 
 tion 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 iii " The Magazine of Amer- 
 ican History" states. 
 
 And of all the manifold later editions of the New 
 
166 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 England Psalm-Book comparatively few copies now 
 remain. Occasionally one is discovered in an old 
 church library or seen in the collection of an anti- 
 quary. 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 fre- 
 quently 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, 
 
THE BAY PSALM-BOOK 107 
 
 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 aspira- 
 tion; 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 Psalin-Books and their Bibles, in their wills, 
 their letters ; and they, with the greatest unanimity 
 
168 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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, 
 
THE BAY PSALM-BOOK. 169 
 
 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 pow- 
 der on my fingers as I take up the book ; and the 
 cover nearly breaks off as I open it, though with ten- 
 der, 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 way 
 
 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 
 
170 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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' " lin- 
 ing." 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 
 
THE BAY PSALM-BOOK. 171 
 
 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 was 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 care- 
 worn 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 no- 
 ble 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 Connec- 
 ticut 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 Cam- 
 bridge, 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 em- 
 ployed 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. 
 
 
STERNHOLD AND HOPKINS' VERSION. 173 
 
 An everlasting interest attaches to this metrical ar- 
 rangement 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. Stern- 
 hold and Hopkins' Version was also the first to give 
 all the psalms of David in English verse to the Eng- 
 lish 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 be- 
 came 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 pref- 
 ace printed in the book stated Sternhold's wish and 
 intention that the verses should be sung by English- 
 men, not only in church, but " moreover in private 
 
174 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND, 
 
 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 pub- 
 lished in 1548 or 1549, under this title, " Certayn 
 Psalmes chosen out of the Psalter of David 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 simi- 
 lar 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 con- 
 tained 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 maies- 
 ties 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 en- 
 larged 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 AND HOPKINS' VERSION. 175 
 
 Sternhold resolved to write in verse for him still 
 further of the psalms. The dedication reads : " See- 
 ing that your tender and godly zeale dooth more de- 
 light in the holye songs of veritie than in any fayned 
 rymes of vanytie, I am encouraged to travayle further 
 in the said booke of Psalmes." This young king re- 
 stored to the English people the free reading of the 
 Bible, which his wicked father, Henry VIII. , had for- 
 bidden them, and he was of a sincerely religious na- 
 ture. 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 him- 
 self 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 Been in some of our hymn-books. Of all these 
 men, sly old Thomas Fuller truthfully and quaintly 
 said, u They were men whose piety was better than 
 
176 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 their poetry, and they had drunk more of Jordan than 
 of Helicon." 
 
 For over one hundred } T ears from the first publica- 
 tion 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 cen- 
 tury ,• and doubtless there were still others uncata- 
 logued and forgotten. Among other editions this 
 version had in the time of Charles II. two in short- 
 hand, 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 Hop- 
 kins' 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 succeed- 
 
STERNHOLD AND HOPKINS' VERSION. 177 
 
 ing 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 strong- 
 est 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 arc 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, u which may be sung to all 
 
 12 
 
178 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 musical instrumentes set forth for the encrease of 
 vertue and abolyshing of other vayne and try fling 
 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 irrever- 
 ently called " Genevan Jiggs," and " Beza's Ballets." 
 
 There is much difference shown in the wording of 
 
STERNHOLD AND HOPKINS' VERSION. 179 
 
 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 sup- 
 port 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 woridersly 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 amferd. 
 
 4. In them the lord made royally 
 
 .i -t-t tic for the Bonne 
 Where lyke a Gyant joyfully 
 
 he myght his iourney runne. 
 
180 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 ren- 
 dering reads, — 
 
 " The wonderous works of God appeare 
 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 : — 
 
STERNHOLD AND HOPKINS' VERSION. 181 
 
 " 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 inter- 
 polations ; 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 he 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 noth- 
 ing in " The heavens declare the glory of God," <fcc. 
 to justify the nickname of " cursing." 
 
182 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 It is said when the tyrannical ruler Andros visited 
 New Haven and attended church there that (Stern- 
 hold 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 sing- 
 ing 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 
 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 
 

 STERNHOLD AND HOPKINS' VERSION. 183 
 
 the same psalm given out in his presence by the boor- 
 ish 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 occa- 
 sion 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 f'rowne : 
 For in his wrath he will not let 
 to throw whole kingdomes downe. 
 
184 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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. Stern- 
 hold 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 doo3t 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." 
 
STERNHOLD AND HOPKINS' VERSION. 185 
 
 The sixth verse of the fifty-eighth psalm is rendered 
 thus : — 
 
 " 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 nattering 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? 
 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." 
 
186 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 " For why their hearts were nothing lent 
 to Him nor to His trade." 
 
 " Our soul in God hath joy and game." 
 
 11 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 inele- 
 gant. 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 
 
STERXHOLD AND HOPKINS' VERSION. 187 
 
 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. 
 OTHEK OLD PSALM-BOOKS. 
 
 There are occasionally found in New England on 
 the shelves of old libraries, in the collections of anti- 
 quaries, 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 
 
OTHER OLD PSALM-BOOKS. 189 
 
 tongue. Sonic of the Huguenots became members of 
 the Puritan churches in America, others were Episco- 
 palians. In Boston the Faneuils, Baudoins, Bouti- 
 neaus, Sigourneys, and Johannots were all Huguenots, 
 ami 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 
 1 milder 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 produc- 
 tion 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 ver- 
 sion of the psalms is of special interest to all thought- 
 ful 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, lie gave his name 
 to a new school of poetry, — "Marotique." He had 
 
190 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 versatil- 
 ity, 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 ver- 
 sifier'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 : — 
 
 "lam 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 th» sound of it, what we entreat 
 The Eternal Father gives," 
 
OTHER OLD PSALM-BOOKS. 191 
 
 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 en- 
 couraged 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," 
 the hart panteth after the water-b] 
 
 and he gayly and noisily sang it when he went to 
 the chase. The Queen chose 
 
192 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 " Ne vueilles pas, 6 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 Sorbonnc 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 
 
OTHER OLD PSALM-BOOKS 193 
 
 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 Con 
 fession of Faith, — recommending however that they 
 be suns with the grave and suitable strains written 
 for them by Guillaume Franc. 
 
 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 lie 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 
 
194 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND 
 
 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 arc 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. 
 
 " lour 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 hun- 
 dred and thirty-third psalm : — 
 

 OTHER OLD PSALM-BOOKS. 195 
 
 "Assis aux bora de ce superbe fleuve 
 Que de Babel lea campagnes abreuve, 
 Nos tristea coeura ne pensoient qu' a Sion. 
 Chacun, helas, dans cette affliction 
 Les yeux en pleura la niorte peinte an 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 ail mont de Dieu ? 
 
 Qui est-ce qui la tiendra place ? 
 Le homme 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 his- 
 tory, — that from the airy and unsubstantial seed 
 sown by the French courtier in such a careless, 
 
196 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 Puri- 
 tans clung with affection to the more literal render- 
 ings of the " New England Psalm-Book," and thought 
 the new verses were " tasteless, hombastic, and irrev- 
 erent." 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 ex- 
 tremely 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 Achi- 
 tophel. Brady — equally modest — translated the 
 iEneid 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-col- 
 lections of Hymns and Psalms. To them we 
 owe, however, these noble lines, which were written 
 thus : — 
 
OTHER OLD l'SALM-BOOKS. 197 
 
 *' Be thou, 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 X. 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 Xew 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 Xew England is known as " Patrick's Ver- 
 sion." 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 Lon- 
 don." A curious feature of this octavo edition of 
 1701, which I have, is, " An Explication of Some 
 Worda of less Common Use For the Benefit of the 
 Common People." Here are a few of the " explica- 
 tions : " — 
 
 L 
 
198 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 " Celebrate — Make renown'd. 
 Climes — Countries differing in length of days. 
 Detracting — Lessening one's credit. 
 Fluid — Yielding. 
 Infest — Annoy. 
 Theani — Matter of Discourse. 
 Uncessant — Never ceasing. 
 Stupendious — 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 congre- 
 gation." 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. 
 
OTHER OLD PSALM-BOOKS. 199 
 
 " 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 
 Arc 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 re- 
 ceived was written by Cotton Mather. He was 
 doomed to disappointment in seeing his version 
 adopted by the Xew 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 com- 
 monly used in the Church." By a curious arrange- 
 ment 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 ex- 
 planations 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 
 i popular, however, even now-a-days, to jibe at 
 poor Cotton Mather, that his Psalter <hn:> not escape 
 the thrusts of laughing critics. Mf. Glass, the Eng- 
 
200 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 lish 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— 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 direc- 
 tions also militated against its use. 
 
 Other American clergymen prepared metrical ver- 
 sions 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 rev- 
 erend 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 
 
OTHKK OLD PSALM-BOOKS. 201 
 
 Psalm Book " was being shoved out of the New Eng- 
 land 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 uni- 
 versally 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. 
 
 Op all the dismal accompaniments of public wor- 
 ship in the early clays of New England, the music was 
 the most hopelessly forlorn, — not alone from the con- 
 fused 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 Eng- 
 land. 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-com- 
 pass 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." 
 
THE CHURCH MUSIC. 203 
 
 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 be- 
 yond belief ; how much of its atrocity was attributa- 
 ble 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 hun- 
 dred 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 172G, 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 : — 
 
204 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 "U "V . 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 lastiug 
 command eth hee. 
 
 How this contorted song could have been sung even 
 to the simplest tune by unskilled singers who pos- 
 sessed 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 Congrega- 
 tion 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 
 
THE CHUKCH MUSIC. 205 
 
 me to resign the Praecentor's Place to a better Voice. 
 I have through the Divine Long suffering and Favour 
 clone 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 
 diseors : " 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 Intcrfearings with 
 one another." 
 
 Still, confused and poor as was the singing, it was 
 a source of pure and unceasing delight to the Puri- 
 tan colonists, — one of the rare pleasures they pos- 
 sessed, — a foretaste of heaven ; 
 
 " for all we know 
 Of what the blessed do above 
 Is that they sing and that they love." 
 
206 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 And to even that remnant of music — their few jum- 
 bled cacophonous melodies — they clung with a de- 
 votion 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 be- 
 yond 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, hoiujlit with thy 
 bloods 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. 
 
THE CHURCH MUSIC. 207 
 
 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 com- 
 mon 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, aud the bars marking the meas- 
 ures were omitted. To the Puritans, this great num- 
 ber 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 sing- 
 ing , 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 
 . 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 t<> face a revolution 
 had they attempted to keep the Pun; an women from 
 singing in meeting. The tract abounds in quaint ex- 
 
208 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 pressions, such as, " they have scoffed at Puritan Min- 
 isters 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 clmrch-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 sing- 
 ing. 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 objec- 
 tion 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 
 
 
THE CHURCH MUSIC. 209 
 
 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 prom- 
 inent 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 Con- 
 science," compiled by several ministers ; " The Ac 
 complished 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 " Pacifica- 
 tory 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 con- 
 ducting a meeting : — 
 
 u 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 
 
210 THE SABBATH UN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 proposed as to the consideration of the meeting in the 
 1st Place what should be done respecting that part of 
 publick Worship 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 dis- 
 coursed the matter the Moderator proposed 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 accord- 
 ingly. 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 
 iuto 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 
 
THE CHURCH MUSIC. 211 
 
 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. Reals way of Singing 
 called i by Kule ' 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 k 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 ; M with most undeniable and 
 open partiality, with most dubious ingenuousness and 
 rectitude, did your old neighbor, Captain Pelatiah 
 Allvn, conduct that hot July music-meeting, counting 
 up boldly sixty-three votes in favor of your way, when 
 
212 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 there were only forty-three voters on your side of the 
 alley, and crowding a final decision in your favcr. It 
 is sad to read that when icy winter chilled the blood, 
 warm partisanship of old friends also cooled, and in- 
 novative 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 " sing- 
 ing by rule," — the establishment of the New England 
 " singing-school," — that outlet for the pent-up, amuse- 
 ment-lacking lives of young people in colonial times. 
 What that innocent and happy gathering was in the 
 monotonous existence of our ancestors and ances- 
 tresses, we of the present pleasure-filled days can 
 hardly comprehend. 
 
 Extracts from the records of various colonial 
 churches will show how soon the respective com- 
 munities yielded to the inarch 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 Sing- 
 ing 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 113 was voted to pay for " laming to 
 sing by Rule." The Roxbury " First Church " voted 
 
THE CHURCH MUSIC. 213 
 
 iii 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 k< two back on each side of the front alley." 
 Similar entries may be found in nearly every record 
 of Xew 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 "dea- 
 coning" 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 
 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 Westminsfc mbly had suggested in 1GGI 
 
 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 
 
214 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 careless- 
 ness 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 in- 
 dignation from the older church-members, who pro- 
 tested, however, in vain. A vote in the church usu- 
 ally 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 strug- 
 
THE CHURCH iMUSIC. 215 
 
 gle against "deaconing," by instituting a gradual 
 abolishing of the custom. In 1785 the choir was 
 allowed -Mo 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 fore- 
 noon, 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 them- 
 selves the Singers in this town." 
 
 In Worcester, in 1770, a resolution adopted at the 
 town meeting was " that the mode of singing in the 
 _ relation here be without reading the psalms line 
 by line." "The Sabbath succeeding the adoption of 
 this resolution, after the hymn had I teen read by the 
 minister, the aged and venerable Deacon Chamberlain, 
 
216 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 at- 
 tempt to resist the progress of improvement. The 
 deacon, deeply mortified at the triumph of the musi- 
 cal reformation, then seized his hat and retired from 
 the meeting-house in tears." His conduct was cen- 
 sured by the church, and he was for a time deprived 
 of partaking in the communion, for " absenting him- 
 self 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. 7 ' 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 
 
THE CHURCH MUSIC. 217 
 
 they heard this line 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. 
 
 u A dotted tribe with ebon heads 
 
 That climb the slender fence along, 
 
 As black as ink, ae 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 
 •u,*' by William Tansur, — " Ingenious Tans' nr 
 Skilled in Musicka 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, inter- 
 spersed with occasional miserable rhymes. It was 
 
218 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 ill-expressed at best, and such musical terms as 
 " Rations of Concords," Trilloes," " Trifdiapasons," 
 " Leaps," " Binding cadences," "Disallowances," " Can- 
 ons," " Prime Flower of Florid," " Consecutions of 
 Perfects," and "Figurates," make the book exceed- 
 ingly 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 introduc- 
 tion 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 
 
THE CHURCH MUSIC. 219 
 
 Psalm Singer" was published in 1770. It is a dingy, 
 ill-printed book with a comically illustrated frontis- 
 piece, 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 Har- 
 mony," " 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 sugges- 
 tions, instructions, and actions of this unregenerate, 
 daring, and " amusing " leader of church-singing. 
 
 It seems astonishing that New England communi- 
 ties 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 battle- 
 field 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. 
 
220 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 Altus 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 " some- 
 thing sweet everywhere," nor did they agree with 
 Billings and Byles as to its angelic and ecstatic prop- 
 erties. 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 
 
THE CHURCH MUSIC. 221 
 
 Billings's door to indicate his opinion of Billings's 
 caterwauling. An old inhabitant of Roxbury remem- 
 bered 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 fol- 
 lowing the introduction of fuguing into his church, 
 preached upon the prophecy of Amos, " The songs of 
 the temple shall be turned into howling," while an- 
 other took for his text the sixth verse of the seven- 
 teenth chapter of Acts, " Those that have turned the 
 world upside down, are come hither also." One in- 
 dignant and disgusted church attendant thus pro- 
 fanely 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 — 
 
222 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 " 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 fnguing to pass 
 over an extraordinary element of the choir called 
 " singing counter." The counter-tenor parts in Euro- 
 pean 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." Rev- 
 erence 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 
 
THE CHURCH MUSIC. 223 
 
 singers. From these pitch-pipes the steps were grad- 
 ual, 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 Eng- 
 land Puritans would take kindly to any musical in- 
 struments. Cotton Mather declared that there was 
 not a word in the New Testament that authorized the 
 ose 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. M 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." 
 
224 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 iiand 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 congrega- 
 
HIE CHURCH MUSIC. 225 
 
 fcion 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 meet- 
 ing-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," 
 u 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 
 Dot 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 pegg 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 
 
 15 
 
226 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 follow- 
 ing 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 ex- 
 postulated with for this unseemly and unchristianlike 
 annoyance he explained that lie 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 con- 
 temptuously announced " We will now sing and fiddle 
 the forty-fifth Psalm." Another complained of the 
 indecorous dress of the fiddle-player. This had re- 
 ference 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." 
 
THE CHURCH MUSIC. 227 
 
 Iii 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 " expe- 
 dient," then they voted to expel the hated abomina- 
 tion ; 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 Sab- 
 bath 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 : — 
 
228 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 " 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, " Be- 
 gone dull care," which began, — 
 
 " My wife shall dance, and I will sing, 
 And merrily pass the da} 7 ." 
 
 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 
 
THE CHURCH MUSIC. 229 
 
 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 acknowl- 
 edge 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 
 fchej charm with their harmony and novelty, can 
 never equal it in impivs.siveness 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 en- 
 dured from the " wretched boys," and they were 
 harassed by other annoying interruptions. For the 
 preservation of peace and order they made character- 
 istic 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 <£5, 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 Bap- 
 tists 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. 
 
THE INTERRUPTIONS OF THE SERVICES. 231 
 
 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 be- 
 fore 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 obses- 
 sion. 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 meaning- 
 freaks of these half-crazed fanatics were pro- 
 voked by the cruel persecutions which they endured 
 from our much loved and revered, but alas, intol- 
 erant and far from perfect Puritan Fathers. These 
 poor Quakers were arrested, fined, robbed, stripped 
 
232 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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. Per- 
 haps 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 heartrend- 
 ing woes of the persecuted Quakers. 
 
 Others than the poor Quakers spoke out in colo- 
 nial 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 protago- 
 nist 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 
 
THE INTERRUPTIONS OF THE SERVICES. 233 
 
 and more universal, and must have been unbear- 
 able. 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 prof- 
 iting 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 re- 
 ceived 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 rib- 
 bon," rose, in the middle of the sermon, from their 
 front seat in the gallery and stood for several min- 
 
234 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 utes, 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-abne- 
 gation, which prevailed for many years in the ner- 
 vously 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 as- 
 sembled congregation and confessed their sins, and 
 humbly asked forgiveness of God, and charity from 
 their fellows. At other times they stood with down- 
 cast heads while the minister read their confession of 
 guilt and plea for forgiveness. A most graphic account 
 
THE INTERRUPTIONS OF THE SERVICES. 235 
 
 of one of those painful scenes is thus given by Gover- 
 nor Winthrop in his " History of New England : " — 
 
 "Captain Underhill being brought by the blessing of 
 God in this church's censure of excommunication, to re- 
 morse 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 re- 
 pair 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 indeed it was a specta- 
 cle which 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. He 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 blubber- 
 ing &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 hum- 
 bly besought the church to have compassion of him and 
 to deliver him out of the hands of Satan." 
 
236 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 What a picture ! what a story ! " Of all tales 't is 
 the saddest — and more sad because it makes us 
 smile." 
 
 Captain John Underhill was a brave though some- 
 what 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 ser- 
 vice for the colonists in the war with the Pequot In- 
 dians, 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 studi- 
 ously and theatrically disarranged garments, and blub- 
 bered out his whining yet vain-glorious repentance, 
 he doubtless acted his part well, for he had twice 
 before been through the same performance, supple- 
 menting 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 
 
THE INTERRUPTIONS OF THE SERVICES. 237 
 
 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 Underbill (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 sanc- 
 timonious blubbering and wishes for death. He ex- 
 plains 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, there- 
 upon accused him of sin in his heart, and severely 
 asked him why he did not look instead at Mistress 
 Xewell or Mistress Upham. He replied very spir- 
 itedly 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, re- 
 senting for their wives the spretce injuria format) at 
 once hunted up some plainly applicable verses from 
 
238 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 re- 
 sented 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 by his contempo- 
 raries 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 Win- 
 throp, his friend and fellow-emigrant : — 
 
 " Honnored in the Lord, — 
 
 "Your silenc one more admirse me. I Youse chris- 
 chan playnnes. I know you love it. . . . Silenc can not 
 
THE INTERRUPTIONS OF THE SERVICES. 239 
 
 reduce the hart of youer lovd brother : I would the right- 
 ehous would smite rue espechali youerslfe & the honnered 
 Depot! to whom I also dereckt this letter. ... I would 
 to God you would tender me soule so as to youse playnues 
 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 dronck & 
 like to be cild & both falc, upon okachon I delt with Wan- 
 nerton for intrushon & findding them resolutli bent to rout 
 all gud a mong us & advanc there superstischous ways 
 & by boystrous words indeferd to fritten men to accom- 
 plish 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 cairn up to 
 us with intent to make some of ourse drone as is sos- 
 peckted 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 Underbill's epistles, with their amazing 
 and highly-varied letter concoctions, and remember 
 that he also wrote a book. What that seventeenth- 
 centurv 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 if, like many another 
 man of his ilk, he tendered to his much-injured wife 
 loud and diffuse praise, ending with these sententious 
 
240 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 Underbill's orthography, or 
 rather in his cacography. He thinks a final tiou 
 should be spelt ebon — and why not ? " proposichon," 
 " satisfackchon," " oblegachon," " persekuchon," " cle- 
 reckchon," " himelyachon " — thus he spells such 
 words. And his plurals are plain when once you 
 grasp his laws : " poseschonse " and " considdera- 
 chonse," " facktse," and " respecktse." And his 
 ly is always 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 Under- 
 bill, 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 
 
THE INTERRUPTIONS OF THE SERVICES. 241 
 
 contrite heart, to ask through the voice of his min- 
 ister humble forgiveness of God and man for his sad 
 share as a judge in the unjust and awful condemna- 
 tion and cruel sentencing to death of the poor mur- 
 dered victims of that terrible delusion the Salem 
 Witchcraft. Years of calm and unshrinking reflec- 
 tion, 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 big- 
 otry, 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 Puri- 
 tan nature, and with a higher and fuller conception 
 of the absolute truth of the Puritan Christianity. 
 
 16 
 
242 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Some very prosaic and earthly interruptions to the 
 church services are recorded as being made, and possi- 
 bly 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, irrev- 
 erent, 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 offen- 
 sive, 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 
 
THE INTERRUPTIONS OF THE "SERVICES. 243 
 
 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 dis- 
 turbed 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 un- 
 watched ; and all the men rushed out of the meet- 
 ing 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-hidder. 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 pongrega- 
 tion felt it no interruption but a high religious privi- 
 lege and duty, to which they responded in word and 
 
244 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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, cush- 
 ioned, orderly churches, but few interrupting sounds 
 were heard. The cry of a waking infant, the scrap- 
 ing of restless feet on the sanded floor, the lumber- 
 ing 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 " four- 
 teenthly " of the minister's sermon. 
 
XVII. 
 
 THE OBSERVANCE OF THE DAY. 
 
 The so-called " False Blue Laws " of Connecticut, 
 which were foisted upon the public by the Reverend 
 Samuel Peters, have caused much indignation among 
 all thoughtful descendants and all lovers of New Eng- 
 land 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 
 
 Though these laws were worded by Dr. Peters, and 
 though we are disgusts I 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 Con- 
 
246 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 necticut and Massachusetts, but in other New Eng- 
 land 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 Sun- 
 day ; 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 re- 
 proved " 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 dis- 
 tance " 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 OBSERVANCE OF THE DAY. 247 
 
 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 Sab- 
 bath 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 1856 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 door- 
 step 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 trav- 
 ailler " whose diary of a journey from Boston to Xew 
 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 Xew England 
 town on Sunday, and of his retaliation in kind, by a 
 clever trick upon his chastisers ; but Burnaby's narra- 
 tive 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 or- 
 dered that " whosoever shall prophanc the Lords daye 
 
248 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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, jump- 
 ing, 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 
 A 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 travel- 
 ling 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 meet- 
 ing-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 rela- 
 tive, 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 
 
THE OBSERVANCE OF THE DAY. 249 
 
 be returned to him when he could prove by wit- 
 nesses 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 Sabbatli 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 destroyed." Poor stiff-necked, lonely, 
 " hankering " Sam ! to be so harshly reproved for 
 his harmlessly sociable intents. Perhaps he " han- 
 kered " 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 Bel- 
 fast, Maine, in 1770, 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 
 
250 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 makes unnecessary Yizits on the Sabeth, They shall 
 be Look't on with Contempt." This was the uni- 
 versal 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 colo- 
 nists 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 fyncd 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. Wil- 
 liam 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 " sloathefulness " 
 and sentenced to be " publiquely whipped." Of course 
 
THE OBSERVANCE OF THE DAY. 251 
 
 the Quakers contributed liberally to the support of 
 the Court, and were fined in great numbers for refus- 
 ing 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 prevent 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 inen." In Connecticut a man could by per- 
 mission of the law smoke once if he went on a jour- 
 ney 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 unfilled and unpunished. The 
 shrewd and thrifty Xew Haven people permitted the 
 raising of it for purposes of trade, though not for 
 ippljing the "devil's weed" to others, 
 
252 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW-ENGLAND. 
 
 chiefly the godless Dutch, but piously spurning it 
 themselves — in public. Its use was absolutely for- 
 bidden under any circumstances on the Sabbath with- 
 in 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 law 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 to- 
 bacco 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 hid- 
 ing 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 " ex- 
 ceeding 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 
 

 THE OBSERVANCE OF THE DAY. 253 
 
 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-smok- 
 ing on the street was not permitted either on week- 
 days or Sundays. 
 
 Not content with strict observance of the Sabbath- 
 day 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 preparaceon for the Sabeth 
 as the ministers shall direct." Cotton Mather wrote 
 thus of his grandfather, old John Cotton : " The Sab- 
 bath 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 tin;- 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 
 
254 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 after supper, being longer than ordinary in Exposi- 
 tion. 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 car- 
 ried 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 be- 
 taking 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 cate- 
 chism 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 
 
THE OBSERVANCE OF THE DAY. 255 
 
 lie found it difficult in the new colony to get a servant 
 who " enjoyed eateehizing 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. u The father freely, in open congrega- 
 tion, 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, com- 
 plained 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 £800 damages for the detention 
 
256 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 of his vessel during his prosecution. T 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 visit- 
 ing. As late as 1S55 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 : — 
 
THE OBSERVANCE OF THE DAY. 257 
 
 "And let it be enacted further still 
 That all our people strict observe our will ; 
 Five days and a hall" 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 Jona- 
 than 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 deco- 
 rous 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, hut of the 
 eternal rest to come. The universal quiet and peace 
 
 17 
 
258 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 cither 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 Sandwicli 
 minister. Mistress Oliver was forced to stand in 
 public with a cleft stick on her tongue for " reproach- 
 ing the elders." A New Haven man was severely 
 whipped and lined 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 un- 
 regeneratc 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 prom- 
 ised 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, 
 
260 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 car- 
 rying 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." 
 
AUTHORITY OF CHURCH AND 01 MINISTERS. 261 
 
 Hence his ordination over the church in the new set- 
 tlement was bitterly opposed by the Boston divines, 
 though apparently desired by the Weymouth congre- 
 gation. One Eritton, who was friendly towards Len- 
 thai 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 can- 
 vassing 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 £2. 
 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 X10, 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." Par- 
 son Lenthal himself, being sent for by the conven- 
 tion, weakened at once in a way his church followers 
 must have bitterly despised ; he was " quickly con- 
 vinced of his error and evil." His conviction was 
 followed with his confession, and in open court he 
 under his hand a laudable retraction, which re- 
 traction ho was ordered also to " utter in the assembly 
 at Weymouth, and so no Further censure was passed 
 
262 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 Hart- 
 ford 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 drink- 
 ing at the tavern he raised his glass and said, — 
 
 u I '11 pledge my friends, and for my foes 
 A plague for their heels, and a poxe for their toes." 
 
AUTHORITY OF CHURCH AND OF MINISTERS. 263 
 
 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 an- 
 swer 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 abasing 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 
 aking deridingly of the minister's powers," as 
 was done in Plymouth, " casting uncharitable reflex- 
 ions on the minister," as did an Andover man ; and 
 also for absenting one's self from church services ; for 
 •• >loathefulness," for " walking prophanely," for spoil- 
 ing hides when tanning and refusing explanation 
 thereof; for selling short weight in grain, for being 
 "given too much to Jearings," for M Slanndering," 
 lor being a u Makebayte," for "rouging naibors," 
 
264 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 perni- 
 cious 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 doubt- 
 less 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 
 
AUTHORITY OF CHURCH AND OF MINISTERS. 2G5 
 
 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 sec 
 what an absolute power the church and even the min- 
 ister had over church-members in a New England 
 community. 
 
 Nor could the poor excommunicate go to neigh- 
 boring towns and settlements to start afresh. No 
 one wished him or would tolerate him. Lancaster, 
 in 1653, voted not to receive into its plantation u 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 Provi- 
 dence 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 flour- 
 ishing Narragansett, Providence, and Newport planta- 
 tions seem to prove the absurdity of that statement. 
 Liberty of conscience was t here allowed, as Dr. Mac- 
 Spar ran, the first clergyman of the Narragansett 
 Church, complained in his " America Dissected," "to 
 
266 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the extent of no religion at all." The Gortonians, 
 the Foxians, and Hutchinsonians, the Anabaptists, the 
 Six Principle Baptists, the Church of England, ap- 
 parently all the followers of the eighty-two " pesti- 
 lent 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 power- 
 ful 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, Gov- 
 ernor Bradford states, they followed "ye laudable 
 custome of ye Low Countries." Not rulers and magis- 
 trates 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 perforin that office ex- 
 cept the otherwise all-powerful parson. 
 
 As years rolled on, though the New Englanders still 
 felt great reverence and pride for their church and its 
 

 AUTHORITY OF CHURCH AND OF MINISTERS. 267 
 
 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 dispar- 
 aged 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 elic- 
 ited by the most trivial offences. One parson was bit- 
 terly 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 de- 
 nied, saying that he - had never buried a babe even in 
 
268 THE SABBATH TN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 demonstra- 
 tions of dislike were sometimes shown, as in South 
 Hadley, in 1741, when a committee of disaffected par- 
 ishioners 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 impor- 
 tant social as well as spiritual event in such a relig- 
 ious community as was a New England colonial town. 
 It was always celebrated by a great gathering of peo- 
 ple 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 writ- 
 ten 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 ordina- 
 
270 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 tion-ball was always a great success. It is recorded 
 that at one in Danvers a young man danced so vigo- 
 rously 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 " pom- 
 pions," all sorts of roast meats, "turces" cooked 
 in various ways, gingerbread and " cacks," and — 
 an inevitable feature at the time of every gather- 
 ing 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 Ordina- 
 tion Beare was brewed." Portable bars were some- 
 times 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 
 
THE ORDINATION OF THE MINISTER. 271 
 
 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 : — 
 
 £ s. .1. 
 
 To keeping Ministers 2 4 
 
 2 Mu-- tody 5 io 
 
 5 Segars 030 
 
 1 Pint wine 009 
 
272 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 3 lodgings 090 
 
 3 bitters 009 
 
 3 breakfasts 036 
 
 15 boles Punch 1 10 
 
 24 dinners 1 16 
 
 11 bottles wine 3 6 
 
 5 mugs flip 5 10 
 
 3 boles punch 060 
 
 3 boles tody 036 
 
 One might say with Falstaff , " monstrous ! but 
 one half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal 
 of sack ! " I sadly fear me that at that Hartford ordi- 
 nation our parson ancestors got grievously " 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, great- 
 grandfather 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 punch- 
 bowls, and in one case a large amount of Malaga and 
 Canary wine, spices and " ross water," from which 
 
THE ORDINATION OF THE MINISTER. 273 
 
 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 re- 
 formation 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. 
 Sm wall's house which occasioned much comment. 
 A foiir-e<»]amn 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 pur- 
 of abolishing ordination revelries, it is not strange 
 that the circumstance of the feast being given m his 
 house should cause public comment and criticism. 
 
 18 
 
274 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 " Countryman " complained that " the price of pro- 
 visions was raised a quarter part in Boston for several 
 days before the instalment by reason of the great 
 preparations therefor, and the readiness of the eccle- 
 siastical 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 ORDINATION OF THE MINISTER. 275 
 
 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 " Coun- 
 tryman'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 fur- 
 nished 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 Killinglv " the overplush of provisions " was sold 
 to help pay the arrearages of the salary of the out- 
 going minister, thus showing a laudable desire to 
 " settle up and start square." 
 
 If the church were dedicated at the time of the or- 
 dination, that would naturally be cause for additional 
 gayety. A very interesting and graphic account of 
 the feast at the dedication of the Old Tunnel Mecting- 
 Ilouse of Lynn in the year 1682 has been preserved. 
 It thus describes the scene: — 
 
276 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 "Ye Deddicatiou 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 merrj 7 time in doing ye work. Ye rough 
 stalls and uuhewed posts being gaily begirt and all ye 
 comers 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 ad- 
 mitted there save them that were to wait upon ye same. 
 Ye trine 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, scat- 
 tering 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 
 
THE ORDINATION OF THE MINISTER. 277 
 
 were on ye table in great plenty, bear-stake, deer-meat, 
 rabbit, and fowle, both wild and from ye barnyard. Lus- 
 cious 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 in- 
 spiring 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. Ger- 
 rish, 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 look- 
 ing 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. Gerriflh was in such merry mood that he kept ye end 
 of ye table whereby lie sat in right jovial humour. Some 
 did loudly laugh and clap their hands. Bnt in ye middest 
 of ye merryment a strange disaster did happen unto him 
 Not having his thots about him he endeavored ye danger- 
 
278 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 ous 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 groaning. 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. Gerrish 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 ap- 
 pear 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 
 
THE ORDINATION OF THE MINISTER. 279 
 
 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, sim- 
 plicity, and rum." The only wonder is, when the 
 ministers had the best places at every table, at every 
 least, 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 ques- 
 tion. As years passed on the church members grew 
 hold mough 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 gal- 
 lery, 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 mm and 
 
280 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the bowls of strong punch. And this was in Puri- 
 tanical Boston, in the year of the hundredth anni- 
 versary of the landing of the Mayflower. Thus had 
 one century changed the absolute reverence and affec- 
 tionate 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 
 Whiteneld, 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 ordina- 
 tion, 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 Xew 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 Jon- 
 athan Edwards ; but there were parsons also of 
 another type, — eccentric, unconventional, and un- 
 dignified 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 in- 
 consistency this Master Jack objected to the Til- 
 lage 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 victori- 
 ous smith [where was the Duxbury tithingman ?;, 
 and indignantly left the pulpit, ejaculating, "I'll 
 not preach while that man Bits before me." A re- 
 
282 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 monstrating 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 out- 
 door breezes until the long psalm was ended, escap- 
 ing 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 dulliance treads, 
 And recks not his own rede." 
 
THE MINISTERS. 283 
 
 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 " chyr- 
 urgycal " advice ; called upon for legal counsel and ad- 
 judication ; 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 preach- 
 ers," as Colonel Higginson saw recorded on a grave- 
 stone in Watertown. Though I suspect " painful " 
 in the Puritan vocabulary meant " painstaking," did 
 it not ? Cotton Mather called John Fiske, of Chelms- 
 ford, a " plaine but able painful and useful preach- 
 er," while President Dunster, of Harvard College, was 
 described by a contemporary divine as " pious pain- 
 ful and fit to teach." Other curious epithets and 
 descriptions were applied to the parsons; they were 
 called " holy-heavenly," " sweet-affecting," " soul-rav- 
 ishing," "heaven-piercing," "angel-rivalling," "sub- 
 til," " irrefragable," " angelical," " septemfluous," 
 " holy-savoured," " princely," " soul-appetizing," " full 
 of antic tastes" (meaning having the tastes of an 
 antiquary), u God-bearing." Of two of the New Eng- 
 land saints it was written : — 
 
 "Thier Temper far from Injucundity, 
 Thier tongues and pen- from Iufecuiidity." 
 
284 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Many other fulsome, turgid, and even whimsical ex- 
 pressions 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 went up to him and whis- 
 pered in his ear, " Cotton, thou art an old fool." u 1 
 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 Ver- 
 mont, 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 Connec- 
 ticut 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 Cove- 
 nant, through doubt of God, of salvation, of heaven, 
 
THE MINISTERS. 285 
 
 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. Bradstrcet, of the First Church of Charles- 
 town, 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 gen- 
 erally 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, how- 
 ever, and was thus introduced to a fellow clergyman, 
 •• Here is a man who can whistle Greek." 
 
 - larcelj 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 <rloom and the depression of spirit which 
 fall on out- 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. 
 
286 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 " de- 
 sponding jealousies," " disconsolate uneasinesses," 
 gloom)' fears, and thinks the words from his diary 
 " may be profitable to some discouraged minds." 
 Profitable ! Ah, no ; far from it ! The overwhelm- 
 ing 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, impene- 
 trable 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 gal- 
 lons 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 gloomy, 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 store- 
 keeper, and on one page of this account-book, con- 
 
THE MINISTERS. 287 
 
 taining 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 rep- 
 utation 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 Eng- 
 land 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 ten- 
 dencies. 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 I nd van once coming to hys house and Mistress 
 
288 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 yc 
 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 minis- 
 ters 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 dis- 
 tilling business and did not make a success of it 
 either. Having become bankrupt, lie did not dare 
 show his head anywhere in public for some time, 
 except on Sunday, for fear of arrest. This disrepu- 
 table 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 manufactur- 
 ing, 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." 
 
THE MINISTERS. 289 
 
 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 ser- 
 vant he had formerly been. She promptly exposed his 
 false pretensions and past villanics, and he left Boston 
 ami 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, " Fascina- 
 tion is a thing whereof mankind has more Experience 
 
 19 
 
290 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 than Comprehension ; " and he also wrote very dc- 
 spitefully 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 or- 
 dained 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 Puri- 
 tanical 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, " be- 
 came 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 
 
THE MINISTERS. 291 
 
 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 matri- 
 monial " venture " that he afterwards made. 
 
 Many another Puritan parson has left record of his 
 wooings that are warm to read. And well did the par- 
 sons' 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 pro- 
 portion 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 Xew 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 £60 or £70 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 Massa- 
 chusetts, in 1630, set the amount of the minister's 
 annual stipend to be £20 or £30 according to the 
 wealth of the community, and made it a public charge. 
 In 1659 the highest salary paid in Suffolk County was 
 £100 to Mr. Thatcher, and the lowest was £40 to the 
 clergyman at Hull. The minister of the Andover 
 church was voted a salary of £60, and "when he shall 
 have occacion to marry, £10 more." He was very 
 glad, however, to take £42 in hard cash instead of 
 £60 in corn and labor, which were at that time the 
 most popular forms of ministerial remuneration ; even 
 though the " hard cash " were in the form of wam- 
 pum, 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 
 
THE MINISTERS' PAY. 293 
 
 " in case he remove before the year is out, he return- 
 eth the £80 paid him." Often clergymen would 
 " supply" (or " Sipploye," or " syploy " or"sipply," 
 or M seiploy," as various records have it) from month 
 to month 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 es- 
 tablished 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 u 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 lib- 
 erty 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 
 wav. 
 
294 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 min- 
 ister 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 de- 
 creed that all such if they give not freely, of them- 
 selves 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 sug- 
 gest 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 com- 
 pany 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 Barns- 
 table, was fined fifty shillings for " prophanely " saying 
 "that the law enacted about the ministers mainte- 
 
THE MINISTERS' PAY. 295 
 
 nance 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 attend- 
 ants of the Puritan churches taxed, but Quakers, Bap- 
 tists, and Church-of-England men were also " rated," 
 and if they refused to pay to help support the 
 church that they abhorred, they w r ere fined and im- 
 prisoned. One man, of Watertown, named Briscoe, 
 dared to write a book against the violent enforcement 
 of " voluntary " subscriptions. He was fined £10 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 con- 
 tributions, — 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 condi- 
 tion 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 
 
296 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 town- 
 ships 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 mal- 
 contents 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 Sclor," 
 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 re- 
 tained 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 re- 
 quested " not to have more horses than shall be neces- 
 
 
THE MINISTERS' PAY. 297 
 
 sarv, 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 con- 
 tributed by visitors who chanced to attend the ser- 
 vices, 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 pro- 
 curing 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 settle- 
 ment, and make report to this meeting." On Jan. 
 1 -"> 1 1 1 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 settle- 
 ment. 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 
 salary and settlement together I have thought of 
 releasing part of the payment of the salary for a lime 
 to be paid to me again. The first year 1 shall allow 
 
298 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 eigh- 
 teenth 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 estab- 
 lished church of the colonies, and knowing that were 
 that deed accomplished they themselves would prob- 
 ably 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, — practi- 
 cally 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. 
 
THE MINISTERS' PAY. 299 
 
 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 X 5,400 in paper money to make good 
 his salary of £60 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," pump- 
 kins, — 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 fer- 
 tilize his sandy corn-land. In Plymouth, in 1662, the 
 following method of incrcasimr the minister's income 
 
300 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 New- 
 bury 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 " do- 
 nation 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 eigh- 
 teenth 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 minis- 
 ter'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 New- 
 bury, April 20, 1768, " Young ladies met at the house 
 
THE MINISTERS' PAY. 301 
 
 of the Rev. Mr. Parsons, who preached to them a 
 sermon from Proverbs 31-19. They spun and pre- 
 sented 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 congre- 
 gation. 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 
 
302 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 work. When the rye or wheat or grain on the min- 
 ister'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 some- 
 times 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 extrava- 
 gant shepherd and pay him instead £13 6s 8d annu- 
 ally 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 haul- 
 ing to the house. A " load " of wood contained about 
 
THE MINISTERS' PAY. 303 
 
 three quarters of a cord, and until after the Revolu- 
 tionary 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, " Is n'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 Thanks- 
 giving Day, provided I can manage to write them 
 without a fire." We can be sure that Monday morn- 
 
304 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 ing 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 com- 
 pany." 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 preach- 
 ers was the sale of the gloves and rings which were 
 given to them (and indeed to all persons of any im- 
 portance) at weddings, funerals, and christenings. In 
 reading Judge SewalPs 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, hav- 
 ing 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 
 

 THE MINISTERS' PAY. 305 
 
 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 dis- 
 trict, had to practise a thousand petty and great 
 economies to eke out his income. He and his fam- 
 ily 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 sea- 
 board and riverside parishes set nets, like the Apos- 
 tles 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 bayberrics, and from 
 them the thrifty and capable wile made scores of 
 candles for winter use,* patiently filling and refilling 
 
 20 
 
306 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 her few moulds, or " dipping " the candles again and 
 again until large enough to use. These pale-green 
 bay berry 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 can- 
 dles. In the home of one well-known minister the 
 wife always knitted, the children ciphered and stud- 
 ied, and the husband wrote his sermon by the flicker- 
 ing 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 be- 
 hold 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 let- 
 ters are cramped and crabbed*, like the lives of many 
 
THE MINISTERS' PAY. 307 
 
 of the writers, but the penmanship is methodical, 
 clear, and distinct, without wavering lines or un- 
 certain touch. 
 
 Am even parsonage had some glebe land, the par- 
 son 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 par- 
 ishioners, 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 
 ! ition, who were not very luxuriously fed 
 themselves; and in the profession of preaching 
 in all other walks of life much depended on tli- 
 the parson's money was spent, — economy and good 
 
308 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 re- 
 sults 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 cleri- 
 cal 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 fami- 
 lies young men who wished to be taught, or fitted for 
 college. Rev. Mr. Halleck in the course of his use- 
 ful and laborious life educated over three hundred 
 young Puritans in his own household. It is not re- 
 corded how Mrs. Halleck enjoyed the never ending 
 cooking for this regiment of hungry young men. 
 
THE MINISTERS' PAY 309 
 
 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 
 drags of the times, which they retailed with accom- 
 panying advice to their parishioners. Some were 
 coopers, some carpenters, rope-makers, millers, or cob- 
 blers. 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 worldli- 
 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 4 mind my own 
 business.' My business was to study the word of God 
 and attend to my parish duties and preach good ser- 
 mons. 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 tin.' early ministers, in addition to preach- 
 ing in the meeting-house, did not disdain to take 
 
310 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 ; lie 
 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 PUKITAN 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 lie used to dwell, — 
 Married one of the Mathers' folks." 
 
 His wife, Jane Coleman, was a handsome bru- 
 nette. The bridegroom preached his first sermon 
 after his wedding on this text, " I am black but 
 comely, 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, daughters of Jerusalem!" It is possible 
 that each of Parson Turell's brides may have chosen 
 
312 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the text from which he preached her honeymoon ser- 
 mon. 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. Peane this text : 
 " Mary hath chosen that good part ; " and from it Par- 
 son 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 morn- 
 ing 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-appear- 
 ance of a minister named Prince, who had been ex- 
 pected to deliver the sermon, preached himself upon 
 
THE PLAIN-SPEAKING PURITAN PULPIT. 313 
 
 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 hold- 
 ing 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 explana- 
 tion 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 In- 
 graham, Colonel Ingraham ! you know I mean you ; 
 why don't you hang down your head?" In a simi- 
 lar case another stern parson employed the text, 
 " Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone ; " 
 though the personalities of the sermon made unne- 
 cessary 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 pas- 
 tor, 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 
 
314 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 sing- 
 ing 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 alter- 
 
THE PLAIN-SPEAKiNG PURITAN PULPIT. 315 
 
 cation 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, " Xorthfield," — 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 ex- 
 traordinary manner a young man who had called 
 attention to some fine new clothing which he wore 
 
316 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 
 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 invo- 
 cation 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 : " 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 ser~ 
 mons. 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." 
 
THE PLAIN-SPEAKING PURITAN PULPIT. 317 
 
 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 con- 
 gregation 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 sub- 
 jection 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 par- 
 sons ! They denounced from many a pulpit the wear- 
 ing of wigs. Mr. Xoyes 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 wins is become insuperable." 
 Be thought the horrors in King Philip's War were a 
 
318 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 direct punishment from God for wig-wearing. In- 
 crease Mather preached warmly against wigs, saying 
 that " such Apparel is contrary to the light of Nature 
 and to express Scripture," and that •* Monstrous Per- 
 riwigs 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 Puri- 
 tan wig-hater one needs only to read the many dispar- 
 aging, regretful, and bitter references to wig-wearing 
 and wig-wearers in Judge SewalPs 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 de- 
 nounced 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 lay- 
 ing out of hair, especially among the younger sort." 
 
THE PLAIN-SPEAKING PURITAN PULPIT. 319 
 
 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 bar of his head into a sevill 
 (civil ?) frame in the mean time shall have abated live 
 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 sani- 
 tary 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 min- 
 isters ought to instruct themselves and their congre- 
 gations 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 manifes- 
 
320 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 tations 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 Xew England), 
 on wars both at home and abroad, on shipwrecks, on 
 safe voyages, on distinguished visitors, on noted crim- 
 inals and crimes, — in fact, upon every subject that 
 was of spiritual or temporal interest to his congrega- 
 tion 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 EAELY 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 farm- 
 horses, and a pillion was strapped on behind each sad- 
 dle, 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 intro- 
 duction were never worn a-pil lion-riding, so the Puri- 
 tan women rode in their best attire. Sometimes, in 
 unusually muddy or dusty weather, a very daintily 
 
 21 
 
322 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 dressed "nugiperous" dame would don a linen "weath- 
 er 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 com- 
 paratively 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 singu- 
 lar 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 train- 
 ers placed logs of wood at regular intervals across the 
 road, and by exercising the animals over this ob- 
 structed path forced them to raise their feet at the 
 proper intervals, and thus learn to trot. 
 
THE EARLY CONGREGATIONS. 323 
 
 LoDg 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 im- 
 possible for him to make a rapid one. 
 
 Horse-flesh, and human endurance also, was econo- 
 mized 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 
 
324 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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 annoy ingly 
 in the way. 
 
 It is usual to describe and to think of the Puri- 
 tan congregations as like assemblies of Quakers, sol- 
 emn, 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 fi nose jewels," the complaining and ex- 
 haustive 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 bon- 
 nets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the head 
 
THE EARLY CONGREGATIONS. 325 
 
 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 " Slash- 
 es," with a laced neckcloth or cross cloth around her 
 fair neck, and a scarlet " whittle " over all this motley 
 finery ; with a " cut work quoyf or ciffer" (New Eng- 
 land 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 
 
326 THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 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, includ- 
 ing " 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 diver- 
 sity, 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, spark- 
 ling buckles, and cocked hats with full bottomed wigs 
 were worn, the gray, sombre old meeting-house blos- 
 somed 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, 
 
THE EARLY CONGREGATIONS. 327 
 
 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 can- 
 not 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 dis- 
 tinguishing characteristics, nothing is so fully typical 
 of the motive, the spirit of their lives, as their rever- 
 ent observance of the Lord's day. 
 

INDEX. 
 
 Ainsworth, Henry, author of the 
 "Version,'' 129: a peacemaker, 130; 
 poisoned, 132; his version of the 
 nineteenth psalm, 133. 
 
 11 Ainsworth's Version," 125 et seq.; 
 described, 126 ; strange compounds 
 in, 128; annotations in, 134: diffi- 
 culty in singing the tunes in, 139; 
 date of the successive editions, 141 ; 
 where to be found, 141 et seq. 
 
 Allen, "Father," his protest against 
 modern church music, 229. 
 
 " American Museum," the satirical 
 poem in, on the Connecticut Sab- 
 bath, 256. 
 
 Andros, Governor, fifty-second psalm 
 sung in the hearing of, 182. 
 
 Architecture, type of early American 
 church, 3. 
 
 " Arminian" cider, 287. 
 
 Bachelors destroy the pew of the 
 New bury young women, 52. 
 
 Bacon, Dr. Leonard, free drinks fur- 
 nished at the ordination of, 271. 
 
 Baptists proclaim their tenets in Pur- 
 itan meeting, 230. 
 
 Barnard, Rev. John, his Version of 
 the Psalm-, i 
 
 Basset, Robert, fined for reprehensi- 
 ble conduct, 28. 
 
 tall first used in churches, 
 225. 
 
 " Bay Psalm-Book," the, first book 
 printed in New England, 144; de- 
 scribed, 144 et seq. ; the authors, 
 145, 149; typography and construc- 
 tion of, 146 ; its production de- 
 scribed by Cotton Mather, 147; a 
 unique specimen of poetical tinker- 
 ing, 154; used also in Scotland, 
 155; its abandonment, 158; copy 
 owned by the American Antiqua- 
 rian Society, 158 : other copies, 159; 
 Reprint of, by Dr. Shurtleff, 159; 
 sale of his copy, 160; in the Lenox 
 Library, 161; later editions, 165: 
 inscriptions in, 166; directions in, 
 regarding singing, 202 ; irregularity 
 of metres in, 203. 
 
 Bay berry candles, 306. 
 
 Beecher, H. W., describes the oppo- 
 sition to stoves in church, 98. 
 
 Bell rope, hung in front of pulpit, 31. 
 
 Bernon Gabriel, his pocket psalm- 
 book, 189. 
 
 Billings, Mr., " Fuguing Psalm 
 Singer" of, 219; his " Psalm Sing- 
 er's Amusement," 219. 
 
 "Blue Laws" of Vermont, 248; 
 M False," of Connecticut, 245: of 
 New Haven, 248. 
 
 Boardman, Parson, outprays the In- 
 dian medicine man, 82. 
 
 Bonnets, women's, in meeting, 71. 
 
 Boy, incident of a, walking the foot 
 bench in church, 35. 
 
330 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Boys, Puritan, put in the gallery and 
 
 stairs of the meeting-house, 55; 
 
 pews of, in Windsor, 61. 
 Bridal finery, custom of displaying in 
 
 meeting, 233. 
 Bride's privilege of choosing the text, 
 
 312. 
 Byles, Dr. Mathei, on fuguing, 220. 
 
 Cage or frame for Puritan babies in 
 early meeting-houses, 54. 
 
 Calvin adopts Marot's Psalms, 193. 
 
 " Capitall Letters" inscribed on crim- 
 inals, 04. 
 
 Charles 1., incident of his flight 
 from Oxford, 182. 
 
 Chauncej', Parson, of Durham, his 
 patience with the young, 59. 
 
 Children, diversions of, in meeting, 17. 
 
 Church, the word distasteful to the 
 Puritans, 1; number of members 
 necessary to establish a, 2. 
 
 Church-raising, 7. 
 
 Cider in the noon-house, 111 ; money 
 value of, 111. 
 
 Cold in meeting, suffering from, 87 
 et seq. 
 
 Communion-checks, 120. 
 
 Conch-shell used to summon to public 
 worship, 20. 
 
 Concord, armed men at meeting in, 24. 
 
 Contribution, church, 117; of leaden 
 bullets, 117; for the Continental 
 army, 118. 
 
 Cotton, Rev. John, his account of the 
 use of Ains worth's Version in the 
 Salem Church, 139; his tract on 
 church-singing, 207; Saturday 
 evening services of, 253 ; his Sab- 
 bath observances, 254. 
 
 " Counter" singing, 222. 
 
 Da ye, Steeven, printer of the Bay 
 
 Psalm Book, 146. 
 Deacon, the office of, 113 et seq.; seat 
 
 of in meetiug,113 ; distributes checks 
 
 to church-members, 120 ; minor du- 
 ties of, 123. 
 
 " Deaconing" the psalm, 213; oppo- 
 nents of the custom, 216. 
 
 "Deaf pew," the, 63. 
 
 Dedham, first meeting-house in, 3. 
 
 Dedication dinner at Lynn, account 
 of, 276. 
 
 " Dignify the meeting," to, 49. 
 
 Dogs used as foot-stoves in meet- 
 ing, 95; a fine for bringing, into 
 meeting, 242. 
 
 Dress and appearance of the Puritans, 
 374 etseq. 
 
 Drum used to summon to public wor- 
 ship, 27. 
 
 Dunster, President, his improvement 
 of the Psalms, 152. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, and the bell- 
 rope, 31 ; deplores Sabbath evening 
 dissipations, 257. 
 
 Eliot, John, anecdote of, 5; co-author 
 of the Bay Psalm-Book, 145; his 
 denunciation of wigs and tobacco, 
 317, 318. 
 
 Endicott, Governor, instructions of, 
 as to the observance of Saturday 
 evening, 253. 
 
 Excommunicated Puritan, an, brings 
 his own communion to the church, 
 119. 
 
 Excommunicated offenders, 264. 
 
 "Expounding" tedious, 81. 
 
 " False Blue Laws " of Connecticut, 
 24*. 
 
 Fennel, traditions of its use in meet- 
 ing, 42. 
 
 Firearms taken to meeting, 19. 
 
 Fire, alarm of, during divine service, 
 243. 
 
 Flag used to summon to public wor- 
 ship, 30. 
 
 " Flip," how made, 111. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 331 
 
 Foot-stoves in meeting, 93: prohibited 
 in Roxbury and Hardwicke, 94; 
 dogs used as, 95. 
 
 11 Foreseat, the,'' 47. 
 
 Fuguing, Billings', 219. 
 
 Girl, little, incident of a, eating cara- 
 way and southernwood, 40. 
 
 Girls tined for misconduct in meeting, 
 57. 
 
 Gloves and rings given to the minis- 
 ters, 304. 
 
 "Gospeller, A Wanton," inscription 
 over the head< of offenders, 230. 
 
 Guns, firing of, as a summons to pub- 
 lic worship, 28. 
 
 " Handkerchief Moody," 285. 
 
 Hardwicke, a citizen of, commits sui- 
 cide when debarred from the dea- 
 con's seat, 52. 
 
 Haverhill meeting-house, 3. 
 
 Hawthorne's storv, <; The Black Veil." 
 285. 
 
 Headgear of Puritan Women, 91. 
 
 Higginson, Colonel, his picture of the 
 Puritan minister, 281, 283. 
 
 Hingham, early church at, 3. 
 
 Horn used to summon to public wor- 
 ship, 20. 
 
 Horse-shed, first, 107. 
 
 Huguenots in America, 189. 
 
 Indian medicine man beaten at his 
 own game by Parson Boardman, 
 82. 
 
 Indian's application of the story of 
 the temptation in Eden, 288. 
 
 a, Madam, unseemlv dress of, 
 
 tao. 
 
 Judson, Parson, of Taunton, a lazy 
 minister, 282. 
 
 Kemble, Captain, set in the stocks 
 for kissing his wife publiclv on the 
 Sabbath, 247. 
 
 Lenox, Mr. James, his copy of the 
 " Bav Psalm Book," how obtained, 
 162." 
 
 11 Liberty tea," 301. 
 
 "Lining" the psalm, 213; contest 
 over the abolition of, 214. 
 
 Liquor at church-raisings, 8. 
 
 Liquor bills at ordination of ministers, 
 271 et seq. 
 
 Litchfield, incident at the first appear- 
 ance of a stove in meeting in, 99. 
 
 Londonderry settlers, communion 
 customs of, 121 et seq. 
 
 Longfellow quoted, 42. 
 
 Longfellow's "Courtship of Miles 
 Standish" quoted, 125. 
 
 Lying, how punished, 264. 
 
 Lynn, dedication dinner at, graphic 
 account of, 276 et seq. 
 
 Maids' pews, 53. 
 
 Marot, Clement, 189; presents his 
 psalm-songs to Charles V., 191 ; fiees 
 to Geneva, 192. 
 
 Marot and Beza's French Psalm-Book, 
 188 ; adopted by Calvin, 193; exam- 
 ples from, 194. 
 
 "Marotique" poetry, 189. 
 
 Marriage service not performed by 
 the ministers in Puritan Xew Eng- 
 land, 266. 
 
 Mather, Cotton, objects to the word 
 "church."* 1 : long prayers and ser- 
 mons of, 79; describes the produc- 
 tion of the '-BayPsalm-Book," 147; 
 Version of the Psalms by, 199 ; on 
 musical instruments in meeting, 
 22'-',: his adventure with an " Ingen- 
 ious Child," 290. 
 
 Mather, Richard, eo-anthor of the 
 "Bay Psalm-Book," 146, 149. 
 
332 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Meeting-house, the name, 1; of the 
 Pilgrim Fathers, 1 ; character of the 
 first, 2; secularization of the first, 
 3 ; architecture of, 3 ; location of, on 
 hill- top, 5; details of, 7; windows 
 of, 9; bills posted on, 12; used as a 
 storehouse, 13; painted in bright 
 colors, 15; diversions of the children 
 in, 17; disturbances in, 21 ; "seat- 
 ing the," 45 ; to "dignify " the, 49 ; 
 icy cold in winter, 85 et seq. ; 
 first stove used in, 96 ; service 
 in interrupted by Quakers and 
 others, 230 ; bridal finery pub- 
 licly displayed in, 233; public 
 confession and repentance in, 
 2-34. 
 
 Ministers, severe punishments for 
 speaking against, 259 ; early Puri- 
 tan, could not perform the marriage 
 service, 266; condemned for trivial 
 offences, 267 ; ordination of, 269 et 
 seq.; characteristics of, 281 et 
 seq.; curious epithets applied to, 
 283 ; their gloomy and despairing 
 views of life, 285 ; their drinking 
 habits, 28G ; impostors among them, 
 289 ; their pay, 292 et seq. ; their 
 perquisites, 296, 300; "settlements" 
 to, 297 ; all, good Whigs, 298; their 
 hard times after the war began, 298 ; 
 " spinning bees " for their benefit, 
 300; work, provisions, wood, &c, 
 furnished, 302; other sources of in- 
 come, 304, 307; obliged to practise 
 other professions to eke out their 
 salaries, 308; strange prayers of, 
 316 ; personalities of, in the pulpit, 
 311 et seq. ; required to preach on 
 civil affairs, 319. 
 
 Minister's house, building of, 296. 
 
 Moody, Mr., of York, Maine,device of> 
 to waken sleepers, 71; reproves a 
 voung man in his prayer, 315. 
 
 " Morse, Cicely, Her Book," 169. 
 
 Morse, Rev. Jedediah, a Sabbath- 
 school established by, 108. I 
 
 Muffs worn by men, 89. 
 
 Musical instruments in meeting, first 
 
 use of, 225 etseq.; opposition to, 
 
 226. 
 
 " Narragansett pacers," the, 322. 
 
 Negroes, seats for, in meeting, 62. 
 
 New Haven "Blue Laws," 248. 
 
 Noon-house, the, 102 et seq. ; restric- 
 tions on the location of, 105 ; fre- 
 quent in Connecticut, 106; boys 
 forced to hear the Bible read in, 107 ; 
 social meeting in the, 109. 
 
 Nooning the, on Sundays, how spent, 
 104. 
 
 Old South Church, Boston, 4; copies 
 of " Bay Psalm-Book " owned bv, 
 139. 
 
 Ordination of ministers a great event, 
 269 et seq.; liquor drunk, at, 271; 
 condemnation of ordination revel- 
 ries, 273 ; account of food eaten at, 
 274; disturbance at, 279. 
 
 Ordination-ball, the, 269. 
 
 "Organs, a pair of," sent to Boston, 
 225. 
 
 "Parley, Peter," anecdote of, about 
 church stove, 98. 
 
 Patrick's Version, 197; verses from, 
 198. 
 
 Pepperell, Lady, cushions her pew, 
 43. 
 
 Peters, Rev. Samuel, and the "False 
 Blue Laws " of Connecticut, 245. 
 
 Pews in the early meeting-houses, 33; 
 family and individual, 34; fittings 
 of, 35; seats, 37; balustrades, 39; 
 cushioned, 43 ; swing-shelves of, 43 ; 
 square, for the minister, 48; called 
 by Dr. Porter the Devil's play- 
 houses, 60. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 333 
 
 Pew built iu the gallery by young 
 women of Newbury, 52. 
 
 Pewter communion service, 115. 
 
 Pilgrim Fathers, their first meeting- 
 place a fort, 1. 
 
 Pillories, 12. 
 
 Pitch-pipes for the singers, 222, 224. 
 
 Pittafield, pews sold by " vandoo" in, 
 50. 
 
 Powder stored in the meeting-houses, 
 13. 
 
 Prayers of the earl}- clergy, length 
 of, 79 et seq.; attitude during, 80. 
 
 Presbyterian checks, 121; in Phila- 
 delphia, 123. 
 
 Prince, Rev. Thomas, publishes a re- 
 vised edition of the " Bay Psalm- 
 Book, " 155: his library bequeathed 
 to the Old South Church, 160. 
 
 "Psalterium Americanum" of Cotton 
 Mather, 199. 
 
 Puffer, Deacon, his fall into the aisle, 
 44. 
 
 Public religious worship, means to 
 announce, 26 et seq. 
 
 Pulpits, architecture of, 16. 
 
 Puritans in Holland, their quarrels, 
 130. 
 
 Quakers, meetings interrupted by 
 their scandalous outbreaks, 230 et 
 seq. 
 
 Quakers punished for non-attendance 
 at meeting, 251. 
 
 Quarles, Francis, a reputed contribu- 
 tor to the "Bav Psalm-Book," 
 150. 
 
 Quincy, scuffle between a boy and a 
 deacon in church in, 02. 
 
 Reading service at the nooning hour, 
 107. 
 
 " Ride and tie " system, the, 323. 
 
 Robinson, Parson, of Duxbuiy, "Mas- 
 ter Jack," 281. 
 
 " Sabba-DAT house," 103. 
 
 Sabbath breaking, 74; Puritan ideas 
 of and penalties for, 246 et seq. ; by 
 various degrees of, 247 et seq. 
 
 Sabbath observance, laws and cus- 
 toms concerning, 245 et seq. 
 
 Sabbath-schools, the first, 108. 
 
 Sabbath services, summons to, 26; 
 fines for non-attendance on, 250 et 
 seq. 
 
 Sacramental expenses, how defrayed, 
 114 ; service, 115. 
 
 Salem church, lines written on a panel 
 in, 221. 
 
 Salem sentinels, armor of, 22. 
 
 Saturday evening included in the 
 Sabbath, 253; Biblical authority 
 for, 256. 
 
 Scripture Songs from the " Bay 
 Psalm-Book," 150. 
 
 Seats in meeting, 45 ; men and women 
 assigned to different, 47; for the 
 young men and women, 52; for the 
 boys, 55, 61; the stool of repentance, 
 64. 
 
 "Seating" the meeting, 45; dissatis- 
 faction caused by, 48 ; how man- 
 aged in Rowley, 50. 
 
 Sermons, lengthy, instances of, 78 et 
 seq. 
 
 Sewall, Rev. Dr., ordination revelries 
 at the hou?e of, 273 et seq. 
 
 Sewall, Judge, quoted, 48, 85, 86, 
 113; unwilling to meddle with 
 "seating" the meeting, 49; his 
 wife invited to sit in the "fore- 
 seat," 51; his long expounding, 81; 
 books presented by him to his lady- 
 love, 156; describes the interrup- 
 tions of a Quakeress in meeting, 
 230; makes public acknowledgment 
 of his error in the Salem witchcraft 
 delusion, 241 ; attacked by his pas- 
 tor in the psalm given to be sung, 
 819 : his rritici«m of his own musi- 
 cal abilities, 203, 204; unable as 
 precentor to keep the people to one 
 
334 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 tune, 205; his passion for music, 
 
 206. 
 Shurtleff, Dr., his copy of the " Bay 
 
 Psalm-Book," 160. 
 Singers' seats in meeting, 63, 212. 
 Singing, church, in Puritan times 
 
 atrocious, 203, 205 ; tunes in use in, 
 
 206; contest over, 208; by rule, 
 
 209. 
 Singing-schools first established in 
 
 New England, 212. 
 Sleepers in meeting awakened by 
 
 tithingmau, 66 ; anecdotes of, 67 
 
 et seq. 
 Sounding-board, 16. 
 Speaking disrespectfully of ministers 
 
 and churches severely punished, 
 
 259 et seq. 
 "Spinning bees" for the minister's 
 
 benefit, 300. 
 Sternhold and Hopkins' Psalms, 136, 
 
 141 ; used somewhat extensively, 
 
 172; the first complete version, 173; 
 
 account of their composition, 173 
 
 et seq.; numerous editions, 176; 
 
 diverse opinions as to, 176 ; Wes- 
 ley's estimation of, 177 ; music 
 
 for, 178; alterations in the Genevan 
 
 version of, 179 ; specimens from, 
 
 179 et seq.; antique character of, 
 
 187. 
 Stevens, Henry, his account of the 
 
 "Bay Psalm-Book" obtained for 
 
 Mr. Lenox, 162. 
 Stipends, the, of the early Puritan 
 
 ministers, 292 et seq. ; backwardness 
 
 in paying, 294 ; protests against 
 
 paying, 295. 
 Stocks, pillory,&c, on meeting-house 
 
 green, 12. 
 Stoves, first, in meeting, 96 ; character 
 
 of, 97; objections to, 97; violent 
 
 opposition to, 99. 
 Strong, Rev. Nathan, a distiller, 288. 
 Swearing punished, 262. 
 S)'mmes, Rev. Thomas's "Joco-Seri- 
 
 ous Dialogue," 138,209. 
 
 Tansur, William, "The Compleat 
 Melody or Harmony of Sion " of, 
 217 ; outlandish musical terms of, 
 218. 
 
 Tate and Brady's Version, 196 ; sur- 
 vival of, 197. 
 
 Texts, ingenious, of the early Puritan 
 divines, 311 et seq. ; bride's privi- 
 lege of choosing, 312. 
 
 Thomas, Isaiah, his copy of the " Bay 
 Psalm Book," 158. 
 
 Tithingman has charge of the boys in 
 meeting, 56, 59 ; a grotesque figure, 
 66; his badge of office, 66; the 
 awakenerof sleepers, 67; anecdotes 
 of, 67 et seq. ; other duties of, 73. 
 
 Tobacco, use of, prohibited on the 
 Sabbath, 251. 
 
 Trumbull's "Mac Fingal " quoted, 
 19. 
 
 Trumbull, Madame Faith, her contri- 
 bution of a scarlet cloak, 119. 
 
 Tufts, Rev. John, his collection of 
 tunes, 207. 
 
 Tunes, dance, first adapted for church 
 use, 228. 
 
 Underhill, Captain John, public 
 confession of, 235 ; his career, 236 ; 
 his own story, 237 ; letter of, 238 ; 
 his system of spelling, 240. 
 
 Veils, Rev. John Cotton's advice to 
 
 the women concerning, 317. 
 Vermont " Blue Laws," 248. 
 Violins permitted in meeting if played 
 
 wrong end up, 225 ; offence of, 
 
 225. 
 Violoncellos used in churches, the 
 
 first, 225. 
 
 Wampum, contributions of, for church 
 
 purposes, 117. 
 Washington, Martha, riding-masks 
 
 bought for, by George, 92. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 335 
 
 Watches and clocks in the'early days, 
 
 77. 
 Watts' Hymns not used until after the 
 
 Revolution, 201, 214. 
 West, Dr., of Dartmouth, anecdote of, 
 
 203. 
 Whipping-post, 12. 
 Whitney, of Lynn, his treatment of 
 
 church sleepers, 69. 
 Whittier quoted, 45. 
 Wilbraham, singing-master appointed 
 
 in, 215. 
 Wild, Rev. Abijah, his remarkable 
 
 domestic economy, 308. 
 Wilde, Thomas, co-author of the 
 
 "Bay Psalm-Book," 145. 149. 
 
 Windows not to be opened in meeting, 
 
 61. 
 Windsor, Conn., question of singing 
 
 by rule, how settled in, 209. 
 Winthrop, Governor, his account of 
 
 Captain Underbill's public confes- 
 sion and repentance, 235. 
 Witch-accusers, meetings interrupted 
 
 by, 232. 
 Women's clothing in the early days, 
 
 scantiness of, 90 ; the hoods and the 
 
 calash, 91; masks, 92. 
 Women punished for profane speech, 
 
 263. 
 Wolves and bears, plentifulness of, 
 
 11; reward for killing, 11. 
 

 
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