CHAPTER IX.

THE SABBATH AND THE MEETING HOUSE.

In the First General Letter of Instructions from the Massachusetts Bay Company to Endicott and his Council, it is specified "To the end the Sabbath may be celebrated in a religious manner, we appoint that all that inhabit the Plantation, both for the general and particular employments, may surcease their labor every Saturday throughout the year at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and that they spend the rest of that day in catechising and preparation for the Sabbath as the ministers shall direct.”1

On Saturday, at three, therefore, we may imagine farmers returning from the fields, weavers stopping their looms, shopkeepers closing their doors, and all sound of toil ceasing. Within doors the busy Saturday toil was hurried to completion, the play of children hushed, and the solemnity of the Sabbath was well begun, with the assembling of the family for worship and the instruction of children and servants in the catechism which the reverend teacher, Mr. Norton, had prepared. There seems to have been some general assembling for catechism apart from the family instruction, as Thos. Scott, one of the substantial citizens, was fined ten shillings in 1650, "unless he learns Mr. Norton's catechism by next Court." But he valued ten shillings less than the trouble of burdening his memory and forfeited his fine.

The morning of the Sabbath found the household early astir, for a goodly service of home worship was always in order before the public meeting, and all must be ready at the appointed hour. Here, in old Ipswich, the summons to worship was given by a bell as early as 1640, and as Ralph Varnham woke the echoes with his ringing, the good people issued forth from every door. No option was left them as to attendance. The Assistants were clothed with power in 1635 to impose a fine

1 Young's Chronicles Mass. Bay, p. 163.

or imprisonment at their discretion on deliberate neglectors. Only the sick and disabled were excused. They came afoot for the most part, in the earliest times. Under the law of 1635, no dwelling house might be built above half a mile from the meeting house, "except mill-houses and farm houses, of such as have their dwelling houses in the same town." As late as 1661, Henry Bachiler and wife were commended to the General Court by the local Court, for absenting themselves from Sabbath worship, and inquiry was made "whether the town of Ipswich might not dispose of him and his farme, so as he may live in the towne, and enjoy his estate, and ye public worship of God." The General Court authorized the lesser tribunal to settle the matter as its wisdom directed, but record fails us of the final event.1

The meeting house was a very humble structure, I imagine. Built of round logs with chinks stopped with clay or moss, or, of logs, hewn square, and piled block-house fashion, it served the double purpose of sanctuary and citadel. Its roof was thatched, no doubt, like the meeting house in Winnisimmet.

At best it was some roughly boarded and shingled affair. More conspicuous than the meeting house was the fort built about it as a protection from Indian assaults. Fortunately, in our neighboring town of Boxford, specific record has been preserved of "the old Meeting House fort." It was a stone wall, five or six feet high, and three feet thick at the bottom, surrounding the house. On the south side it was twelve feet, on the other three sides, ten feet distant, and at the southeast corner, within this wall, a watch house ten feet square was built.2

Some such wall surrounded the Ipswich meeting house, as frequent allusion is made to it in the Town Records. It stood until 1702, when the rocks of which it was built were sold to buy a clock for the new edifice, erected at that time. A watch house, too, for the convenience of the night watch, was in the immediate vicinity.

As the groups of worshippers drew near, I suspect that many a shuddering glance was cast by the women and children,upon

1 Mass. Records, vol. v, p. 2.

History of Boxford, Sidney Perley, p. 63.

the grim wolf heads, nailed upon the front of the sanctuary by every one who killed one of these dread foes, to secure the bounty promised by the Town.

If the weather permitted, all tarried at the door to read the notices posted thereon. Documents of many sorts found place there: town ordinances enacted at the last town meeting; the latest laws of the General Court relating to public debts, fixing the penalty for selling fire-arms to Indians, or ordering the inspection of pipe-staves; or some scandalous libel against the good name of some citizen; or Joseph Rolandson's humble retraction in his own handwriting before the Ipswich Court, which is still preserved in the Court papers in Salem. More than a passing look was given the law against Sabbathbreaking by parents and youth. A quaint interest attaches to one of these laws, which was published from the meeting house doors. It was enacted in June, 1653.

"Upon information of soundry abuses and misdemeanors, committed by soundry persons on the Lord's day, not only by children playing in the streets, and other places, but by youths, majds, and other persons, both straingers and others, uncivily walking the streetes and fields, travailing from towne to towne, going on shipboard, frequenting comon houses and other places, to drinck, sport and otherwise to mispend that pretjous tyme, which things tend much to the dishonor of God, the reproach of religion, greiving the souls of God's servants, and the prophanation of the holy Sabbath: Therefore, ordered that no children, youths, majds, or other persons shall transgresse in the like kind on penaltje of being reputed greate provokers. of the highest displeasure of Almighty God, and further incurring the poenaltje hereafter expressed, namely, that the parents and governors of all children about seven years old (not that we aproove younger children in evill) for the first offence in that kind, shall be admonished, for a second offence shall pay as a fine 5s, and for a third, 10s. Youths and mayds above 14 years old shall first be admonished, for the second, 5s etc.

"This to be understood of such offences as shall be comitted during the daylight of the Lord's day. This law is to be transcribed by the constable of each towne, and posted uppon

the meeting howse doore, there to remajn the space of one month at least."

With minds duly impressed with the solemnity of the day and hour, with guilty remembrance of light and wanton conduct on other Sabbaths perhaps, no longer to be permitted by watchful constables, they entered. A middle aisle divided the interior into two equal parts. There were no pews, only benches, and the usage of the day required that the women should sit on one side and the men on the other.

The interior was bare and cheerless. No plaster nor paint relieved the roughness and rawness of walls and roof of that first meeting house, and even the pulpit, destitute of fine finish or coloring, we may presume, was furnished only with Bible and Psalm-book, and the hour-glass, which revealed the length of the sermon to the eye of every worshipper. Neither carpet nor cushion was there, but a floor of hewn timber not over smooth. No sweet-toned organ invited to worship. There were instead the rattle of scabbards, the clank of muskets. Every man above eighteen years of age, except the magistrates and ministers, by command of the General Court, came with his musket or other firearms, and duly equipped with match, powder and bullets. The fear of Indian invasion was always upon them, and sentinels fully armed paced their beat without.

There was semblance of an armed garrison rather than of peaceful worshippers. Nevertheless, great formality attended the gathering. Rude as the benches were, there might be no random choice of seats. In no stately edifice of modern days. is there such rigidly aristocratic principle openly avowed. Official station, education, family connection, wealth, were carefully considered, and social rank was delicately adjusted. So we are sure that on those first benches sat Mrs. Winthrop, Mrs. Rogers, and Mrs. Norton, the wives of dominies, Dame Dudley and her daughters, Ann, the wife of Simon Bradstreet, and Patience, the wife of Daniel Denison, Madame Symonds, Saltonstall's young bride, Muriel, just from the motherland, and behind them, the wives and daughters of the lesser gentry and substantial yeomen. Last, of all were the poorer ones and maid-servants.

Across the aisle sat the men, John Winthrop and the good Governor, his father, now and then, Richard Saltonstall, Giles Firmin, the physician, and son-in-law of Nath. Ward, Symonds and Denison, the magistrates, gruff Dudley and gentle Bradstreet, the Appletons, and all the rest. It was a notable assembly, remarkable for fine learning, for high character, for wise statesmanship, for grand devotion. Not a few of them grew hoary-headed in high and honorable public station, as governors and magistrates, commissioners and soldiers, and guided the affairs of the infant Commonwealth so well that their names are written in gold.

In the pulpit, clad in black Geneva gown and skullcap and pure white bands sat the pastor, Thomas Parker, or Nathaniel Ward, or Nathaniel Rogers and John Norton, pastor and teacher, and below them, on a raised seat the deacons and ruling elders had their place of honor. Thomas Lechford, in his Plaine Dealing, describes the order of worship in Boston. It was substantially the same in old Ipswich, no doubt.

"Every Sabbath, or Lord's day, they came together at Boston, by wringing of a bell, about nine of the clock or before. The Pastor begins with a solemn prayer continuing about a quarter of an houre. The Teacher then readeth and expoundeth a chapter, then a Psalm is sung, which every one of the ruling Elders dictates, after that the Pastor preacheth a sermon, and sometimes extempore exhorts. Then the Teacher concludes with prayer and a blessing." Once a month the sacrament was administered, non-communicants withdrawing. About two in the afternoon a second service began, in which the Teacher had the sermon, and the Pastor conducted the other exercises. This was followed by the baptism of children, "by washing or sprinkling," and then the contribution, after the preacher had earnestly exhorted to liberality.

"The magistrates and chief gentlemen first and then the Elders," says Lechford, "and all the congregation of men and most of them that are not of the church, all single persons, widows and women in the absence of their husbands, come up one after another, one way, and bring their offerings to the Deacon at his seate, and put it into a box of wood for the purpose, if it be money or papers,-if it be any other chattle, then