smith to work his iron without a fire." It was liberty to worship God according to their own conscience which had brought them over the sea, and now that this liberty was within their reach, they enjoyed it in no stinted measure. It was with keen and ardent joy

It thus

Their first meeting-house was a "timber fort," both strong and comely, with flat roof and battlements, and was erected on an eminence behind the town. served a threefold purpose. It was an observatory from which they could observe the approach of scout and Indian marauder; it was also a powder-magazine, protected on all sides by a cannon-mounted rampart; and it was also a meeting-house for worship,-a combination of war and gospel, which was necessary both for their safety and comfort. This was the house of worship for twenty-eight years. The settlers were eager and glad to build their meeting-houses, for they looked upon them as the visible sign of the theocracy which the Most High had established in their midst, and of the covenant they had made with Him. But lest some future settlements should be slow or indifferent about doing their duty, 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.

In Massachusetts we find, among other rules and regulations framed by the Company for the colonists, that the inhabitants were to "surcease" their labour every Sat

urday throughout the year at three of the clock in the afternoon, and to spend the rest of that day in catechising and preparation for the Sabbath, as the ministers should direct. From sunset on Saturday until Sunday night they would not shave, have rooms swept, nor beds made, have food prepared, nor cooking utensils and tableware washed." The ministers of New England laid great stress upon this prolonged preparation for the Sabbath. It was a prevalent belief among the early colonists that the practice of working on the eve of the Sabbath was one certain to call down the judgment of heaven upon them. One man who had worked an hour after sunset at the repairing of a mill-dam went home to find that his child had fallen into an uncovered well in the cellar of his house, and was drowned. This is related by Winthrop as an instance of divine retribution, and, adds the pious and good man, "the father freely, in the open congregation, did acknowledge it the righteous hand of God for his profaning His holy 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, but of the eternal rest to come.' The universal quiet and peace 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."1 In her charming book, The Sabbath in Puritan New England, Miss Earle gives a graphic and amusing description of the early meeting-houses, with their old-fashioned pews and their seats allocated with nice allocated with nice discrimination according to the position and character of their occupiers. The description given of the icy temperature of the meeting-house is enough to affect us with a fit of shivering, even as we read it at the fireside. "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 ancestors by the Spartan custom of sitting through the long winter services in the icy, deathlike meeting-houses." This is an entry from the diary of Judge Sewall: "The communion bread was frozen pretty hard, and rattled sadly into the plates. Extraordinary cold storm of wind and snow. Blows much more as coming home at noon, and so holds on. Bread was frozen at the Lord's table. Though 'twas 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 wife's chamber. Yet was very comfortable at meeting." In the bitter winter weather women carried to meeting little foot-stoves. This, however, was done furtively,

1 The Sabbath in Puritan New England, by Alice Morse Earle.

as not quite comporting with New England ideas of enduring hardness. It is told of one worshipper that when it was proposed to introduce a stove into the wintry meeting-house, he withheld his subscription, on the ground that "good preaching kept him hot enough without stoves."

Sadly down through the centuries 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, 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! . . . . 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 distinguishing characteristics, nothing is so fully typical of the motive, the spirit of their lives, as their reverent observance of the Lord's day." 1

Social Life in New England. The austerity and gloom of Puritanism is a theme on which it does not require much ability to grow eloquent. It lends itself

1 The Sabbath in Puritan New England. The book abounds with lively and attractive etchings, and there is an absence of the straining and exaggeration which so often occurs in books and essays professing to describe Puritan life and manners.

only too easily to satire and criticism, and much that is entertaining, if not quite true, has been written about it. In New England, as elsewhere, life was a stern, solemn, and colourless thing. How could it be otherwise with men trained in such a school as these settlers had been, inured from their very birth to toil, hardship, and privation, and with no leisure to cultivate the graces and amenities of human life. It would have been a miracle if the history of such a people had been other than "dry and unpicturesque." “There is no rustle of silks, no waving of piumes, no clink of golden spurs." Instead, we have the noise of axe and hammer and saw, an apotheosis of dogged work, work for mere subsistence, for the sheer necessaries of life, work, the dignity of which Carlyle chants in his pæan, and in comparison with which all else is chaff and dust-"Extrinsically, prosaic; intrinsically, it is poetic and noble.” "It has been the fashion lately," adds Mr. Lowell,1 "with a few feebleminded persons to undervalue the New England Puritans, as if they were nothing more than gloomy and narrowminded fanatics." It is more than thirty years since these words were written, but the word "lately” may as well stand to-day; nor need the fashion be restricted to a few feeble-minded persons. The error has a wider and more reputable currency; but inveterate as it is, it has no support, save that which imagination or unreasoning prejudice is able to supply.

There can, of course, be no question as to the austereness of these American Puritans. They had crossd the sea, not only to get rid of a persecuting Church, but also to 1 Among my Books, p. 232.