The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1881-11-13
oLp-FAsHIoNED SUNDAYS.
What They Used to be In Puritanical Con-
necticut.


necticut.
The prevailing usuages in respect oil al
observance of the Lords day by Christian
people exhibit wide variation from thost
which were in vogue in times which the
oldest people remember. In the oldsr
times there were two services in the sanctu'
arv on the Sabbath, one in tho forenoon
and one IN the afternoon, brief recess
dividing the two, and no other services
were held. as a rule. The oldest Sun
day school in this country is said to have
heen established since the year 1896, and
Bible.classes and prayer-meetings are of no
greater antiquity. During the week pre-
ceding the regular administration of the
Lords supper a preparatory lecture was
preached, but other weekly lectures or re-
iigious exercises were exceptionally infre-
o1ent. New England was then inhabited
by farmers, and each parish contained a
widely scattered population, with few tacil-
tiles for frequent assemblies. The Sabbath
gave them rest and society. The meeting
house precincts afforded kind
of"exchange' for the neighbors, who, be-
fore and between and after meeting dis
cussed their crops, stock, politics, and what
folks strove in vain to get through with the
weekly accumulation Of gossip and chit
chat. The boys and girls had high old
times on the sly during intermission, when
haunting the herse-sheds or skirmishing in
the field Just over the fence, they
escaped the espionage of parents
too busy with their tongues to
use their eyes to advantage. OH
those motley gatherings on the meeting
house steps, to which the different teams"
drive up and discharge their lovely and
often blushing freight Those larks behind
the Westinghouse and in the gallery"
and back by the slove, and on the way home
with the girls Those fiirtatons in the
choir, behind the red curtains There is no
such Joy in the Sabbath of these days. At
home the children.earned texts OF Scripture
and the catechism, and quietly waited
for the lightning Of Gods electrify-
ing grace to strike them If it was so de-
creed, taking the failure OF such lightning
stroke unconcernedly, as it must be all
right either way.
When the Sunday school and prayer
meeting began to be instituted here and
there, opposition was made by many of
the most devout and cody church men,
bers TO all such innovations. 1t is a curious
fact that tho early church of New
reading of the Holy Scripture-that is.
the reading it without comment. They, Gu
riously enough, called it dumb" reading
those sticklers for the word of God. 1t is
not twenty years since in one of the promi-
nent congregational churches of Hartford,
the reading of Scripture was confined to
the forenoon service. The "long prayer"
was terror to the young. 1t must
have been suffered by adults as a
convenient sort of penance. What weari-
ness, too, its interminable monoto-
tone Then came, at long intervals, the
communion season, after the second SER
vice. when most of the men and some of
the women and all the children would 60
sadly out, leaving the elect to their solemn
feast. Tender scenes we have witnessed at
such times in the rude old sane
tuaries; scenes never to be for
gotten while memory lasts. The
pastors fearful checks and falter-
ing accents, the solemn silence in which the
holy embers were received, the weird, quaint
music of the old minor tunes sung without
instrumental accompaniment and by their
thin and quaverlng voices. With mute
wonder and often uncomfortable emotion
the boy at his mothers side would watch
the ceremony, discerning it only as a great
and holy and tender sacrament of divine
luNG lHtt NuulNl lldht Ills WttD lOE
Joy and even melt the awful clergyman
down into lovable human being.
Far from the men and women Of those
days was the modern notion that laymsn
are especially competent to impart biblical
instruction. and the modern usage which
relieves the clergy from almost all respon-
sibility for the working of the machinery
for the religious education of children.
No ruder shock can well be conceived
than that which would be experienced
by sundry of the good fore-fathers,
could they suddenly revisit the regions they
once inhabited, and especially the sanctu-
aries wherein they formerly worshipped.
What with slips" for the old pews, preach
ing rails and desks for inaccessible pulpits
oyerhung with sounding boards, stained
glass, steam heat, carpets, organs, chants
and other popish ceremonies, heads bowed
in prayer, and no chance TO swap horses"
b tween services, they would be miserable
in Iced, and aghast with horror at our inn
provements.
How much are we advanced, after all?
Men talk of greater decorum, reverence
and so on, but we cannot forget that the
Sabbath of our boyhood had simplicity
and sacredness that atoned for its ooca-
sonal seventies, and certain possibilities Of
stealthy, honest fun for bright boys and
girls, such as tho gradual decentralization
Of the day and the decorum of modern
worship utterly forbid.