This custom of standing during prayer-time prevailed in the
Congregational churches in New England until quite a recent date, and is
not yet obsolete in isolated communities and in solitary cases. I have seen
within a few years, in a country church, a feeble, white-haired old deacon
rise tremblingly at the preacher's solemn words "Let us unite in prayer,"
and stand with bowed head throughout the long prayer; thus pathetically
clinging to the reverent custom of the olden time, he rendered tender
tribute to vanished youth, gave equal tribute to eternal hope and faith,
and formed a beautiful emblem of patient readiness for the last solemn
summons.
Sometimes tedious expounding of the Scriptures and long "prophesying"
lengthened out the already too long service. Judge Sewall recorded that
once when he addressed or expounded at the Plymouth Church, "being afraid
to look at the glass, ignorantly and unwittingly I stood two hours and a
half," which was doing pretty well for a layman.
The members of the early churches did not dislike these long preachings and
prophesyings; they would have regarded a short sermon as irreligious,
and lacking in reverence, and besides, would have felt that they had not
received in it their full due, their full money's worth. They often fell
asleep and were fiercely awakened by the tithingman, and often they could
not have understood the verbose and grandiose language of the preacher.
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