From these cast-iron monsters,
there extended to the nearest windows and projected through them, hideous
stove-pipes that too often spread, from every leaky and ill-fastened
joint, smoke and sooty vapors, and sometimes pyroligneous drippings on the
congregation. Often tin pails to catch the drippings were hung under the
stove-pipes, forming a further chaste and elegant church-decoration. Many
serious objections were made to the stoves besides the aesthetic ones.
It was alleged that they would be the means of starting many destructive
conflagrations; that they caused severe headaches in the church attendants;
and worst of all, that the _heat warped the ladies' tortoise-shell
back-combs_.
The church reformers contended, on the other hand, that no one could
properly receive spiritual comfort while enduring such decided bodily
discomfort. They hoped that with increased physical warmth, fervor in
religion would be equally augmented,--that, as Cowper wrote,--
"The churches warmed, they would no longer hold
Such frozen figures, stiff as they are cold."
Many were the quarrels and discussions that arose in New England
communities over the purchase and use of stoves, and many were the meetings
held and votes taken upon the important subject.
"Peter Parley"--Mr. Samuel Goodrich--gave, in his "Recollections," a very
amusing account of the sufferings endured by the wife of an anti-stove
deacon.
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