He preached with solemn
delight upon comets, and earthquakes, and northern lights, and great storms
and droughts, on deaths and diseases, and wonders and scandals (for there
were scandals even in puritanical New England), on wars both at home and
abroad, on shipwrecks, on safe voyages, on distinguished visitors, on noted
criminals and crimes,--in fact, upon every subject that was of spiritual or
temporal interest to his congregation or himself. And his people looked
for his religious comment upon passing events just as now-a-days we read
articles upon like subjects in the newspaper. Thus was the Puritan minister
not only a preacher, but a teacher, adviser, and friend, and a pretty
plain-spoken one too.
XXIII.
The Early Congregations.
On Sunday morning in New England in the olden time, the country
church-members whose homes were near the meeting-house walked reverently
and slowly across the green meadows or the snowy fields to meeting.
Townspeople, at the sound of the bell or drum or horn, walked decorously
and soberly along the irregular streets to the house of God. Farmers who
lived at a greater distance were up betimes to leave their homes and ride
across the fields and through the narrow bridle-paths, which were then the
universal and almost the only country roads. These staid Puritan planters
were mounted on sturdy farmhorses, and a pillion was strapped on behind
each saddle, and on it was seated wife, daughter, or perhaps a young
child--I should like to have seen the church-going dames perched up proudly
in all their Sunday finery, masked in black velvet, a sober Puritan
travesty of a gay carnival fashion.
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