And the group of
clergymen who were painted over the mantelpiece of Parson Lowell, of
Newbury, must have been far from gloom, as the punch-bowl and drinking-cups
and tobacco and pipes would testify, and their cheerful motto likewise: "In
essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity." And
the Rev. Mr. ---- no, I will not tell his name--kept an account with
one Jerome Ripley, a storekeeper, and on one page of this account-book,
containing thirty-nine entries, twenty-one were for New England rum.
It somewhat lessens in our notions the personal responsibility, or the
personal potatory capability of the parson, to discover that there was
an ordination in town during that rum-paged week, and that the visiting
ministers probably drank the greater portion of Jerome Ripley's liquor.
But I wish the store-keeper had--to save this parson's reputation among
succeeding generations--called and entered the rum as hay, or tea, or
nails, or anything innocent and virtuous and clerical. When we read of all
these doings and drinkings of the old New England ministers,--"if ancient
tales say true, nor wrong these ancient men"--we feel that we cannot so
fiercely resent nor wonder at the degrading coupling in Byron's sneering
lines:--
"There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms,
As rum and true religion."
All the cider made by the New England elders did not tend to gloom,
and they were celebrated for their fine cider.
Pages:
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285