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Project Gutenberg's Sabbath in Puritan New England, by Alice Morse EarleCopyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check thecopyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributingthis or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this ProjectGutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit theheader without written permission.Please read the "legal small print," and other information about theeBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included isimportant information about your specific rights and restrictions inhow the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make adonation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts****eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971*******These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****Title: Sabbath in Puritan New EnglandAuthor: Alice Morse EarleRelease Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8659][Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule][This file was first posted on July 30, 2003]Edition: 10Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: ISO-8859-1*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND ***Produced by Distributed ProofreadersPG Editor's Note: In addition to various other variations of grammar andspelling from that old time, the word "their" is spelled as "thier" 17 times.It has been left there as "thier".THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLANDby
 
Alice Morse EarleSeventh EditionTo the Memory of my Mother.Contents.I. The New England Meeting-HouseII. The Church MilitantIII. By Drum and Horn and ShellIV. The Old-Fashioned PewsV. Seating the MeetingVI. The Tithingman and the SleepersVII. The Length of the ServiceVIII. The Icy Temperature of the Meeting-HouseIX. The Noon-HouseX. The Deacon's OfficeXI. The Psalm-Book of the PilgrimsXII. The Bay Psalm-BookXIII. Sternhold and Hopkins' Version of the PsalmsXIV. Other Old Psalm-BooksXV. The Church MusicXVI. The Interruptions of the ServicesXVII. The Observance of the DayXVIII. The Authority of the Church and the MinistersXIX. The Ordination of the MinisterXX. The MinistersXXI. The Ministers' PayXXII. The Plain-Speaking Puritan PulpitXXIII. The Early CongregationsThe Sabbath in Puritan New England.I.The New England Meeting-House.When the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth they at once assigned a Lord'sDay meeting-place for the Separatist church,--"a timber fort both strong
 
and comely, with flat roof and battlements;" and to this fort, everySunday, the men and women walked reverently, three in a row, and in it theyworshipped until they built for themselves a meeting-house in 1648.As soon as each successive outlying settlement was located and established,the new community built a house for the purpose of assembling therein forthe public worship of God; this house was called a meeting-house. CottonMather said distinctly that he "found no just ground in Scripture to applysuch a trope as church to a house for public assembly." The church, in thePuritan's way of thinking, worshipped in the meeting-house, and he was asbitterly opposed to calling this edifice a church as he was to calling theSabbath Sunday. His favorite term for that day was the Lord's Day.The settlers were eager and glad to build their meeting-houses; for thesehouses of God were to them the visible sign of the establishment of thattheocracy which they had left their fair homes and had come to New Englandto create and perpetuate. But lest some future settlements should be slowor indifferent about doing their duty promptly, it was enacted in 1675 thata meeting-house should be erected in every town in the colony; and if thepeople failed to do so at once, the magistrates were empowered to build it,and to charge the cost of its erection to the town. The number of membersnecessary to establish a separate church was very distinctly given in thePlatform of Church Discipline: "A church ought not to be of greater numberthan can ordinarilie meet convenientlie in one place, nor ordinariliefewer than may convenientlie carry on church-work." Each church was quiteindependent in its work and government, and had absolute power to admit,expel, control, and censure its members.These first meeting-houses were simple buildings enough,--square log-houseswith clay-filled chinks, surmounted by steep roofs thatched with longstraw or grass, and often with only the beaten earth for a floor. It wasconsidered a great advance and a matter of proper pride when the settlershad the meeting-house "lathed on the inside, and so daubed and whitenedover workmanlike." The dimensions of many of these first essays at churcharchitecture are known to us, and lowly little structures they were. One,indeed, is preserved for us under cover at Salem. The first meeting-housein Dedham was thirty-six feet long, twenty feet wide, and twelve feet high"in the stud;" the one in Medford was smaller still; and the Haverhilledifice was only twenty-six feet long and twenty wide, yet "none other thanthe house of God."As the colonists grew in wealth and numbers, they desired and built bettersanctuaries, "good roomthy meeting-houses" they were called by JudgeSewall, the most valued and most interesting journal-keeper of the times.The rude early buildings were then converted into granaries or storehouses,or, as was the Pentucket meeting-house, into a "house of shelter or a houseto sett horses in." As these meeting-houses had not been consecrated, andas they were town-halls, forts, or court-houses as well as meeting-houses,the humbler uses to which they were finally put were not regarded asprofanations of holy places.The second form or type of American church architecture was a square woodenbuilding, usually unpainted, crowned with a truncated pyramidal roof, whichwas surmounted (if the church could afford such luxury) with a belfry orturret containing a bell. The old church at Hingham, the "Old Ship" whichwas built in 1681, is still standing, a well-preserved example of thissecond style of architecture. These square meeting-houses, so much alike,soon abounded in New England; for a new church, in its contract for
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