Democratic messenger. [volume] (Snow Hill, Md.) 1869-1973, 1882-01-21

WHICH We All drank We were uol IdStlI
lous in those days. preparatory to the
dryness OF the services. And during
the services wearied little urchins were
often seized with panic Of thirst, that
could only be relieved by permission to
go down to the sping, where they re-
manned, ms if the curse Of Tantalus had
fallen on them. The old Meeting House
was hideous structure of huge tim6ers
and rattling shingles; a most rude and
unsigh:ly building, that might have
been modelled after a nightmare vision
of Puritan hating cavalier and, oh
how il rocked aud creaked and groaned,
complaining aud threatening to our
frightened senses through all our windy
months. Nothing but the awful voices
of ship in q storm were ever so terri
be. And how we used to look around
in vain for sympathy in the fossllized
faces of patient listeners, and wonder
that the preacher could enforce the occ-
trine of el lection through ninthly and
tenthly, when it seemed that we were
all, without any election, condemned TO
instant destruction.
But the old Meeting House stood,
and our good old pastor, Dr. West,
preached in it for more than sixty-fve
years, while generations Of the bloom
ing girls in the "singers' seat" ex-
changed glances with the 'tencr and
bass, mated with them, bore children,
and passed away. There was one archi-
tectural popularity in the old Meeting
House, az abnormal arrangement, q
crochet that originated in the brain OF
an old bachelor, and by some audacious
little testers called "The Partridge
Nest. This was the "high pew" a
long, open box appended to the western
wall. and elevated above the gallery.
From this pew there was q view OF
nearly every member of the congrega-
tion. There sat, sort OF demonstrated
independence of all social relations, the
little wiry old bachelor himself. Nature
was too strong for him, and could not
be thrust out of his heart He avoided
all legalized claims from wife, children
and friends, but he bestowed freely the
earnings of his diligent life on kindred,
to the third and fourth generation.
Besides our par erccuence old bachelor,
and besides the vagrants who sat i'll the
thigh pew" because they had 10 rights
or privileges elsewhere, there, in fright
fnl conspIcuity, were stationed the
'tithing men" (called by lisping chill
dren "1idy men ')--the police of the
church, whose business it was to detect
the commerce of smiles and glauces be-
tween the lads and lasses; and whose
duty (it seemed to me their delighD it
was to mark for condign punishment
the lost little wretches who were be-
trayed into playing, or surprised into
laughing, in meeting-time. The phrase
yet rings in our ears ike a knell.
These were gloomy observances in
the cold Meeting House" Puritan
customs that could have been main
tanned only among people to whom
a pillory was an everyday matter, and
martyrdom familiar thought. The
solemn axiom that ''it is better to go
to the house of mourning than to the
house of feasting," colored our lives.
Every instance Of mortality was fol-
lowed by funeral sermon. The preach
ct at its close was used to say, "NOw
the mOurners may stand up e. and the
mourners-there might he a multitude
of them, or only two or three weeping,
trembling little orphans-stoOd up in
the side square pew, scanned fr m head
to foot by curious, staring eyes, while
the preacher aualyzed their griefs, dwelt
on the character Of the departed, and
sometimes coolly and cruelty calculated
the chances against them at the tri-
bunal to which they had passed. We
distinctly recollect one occasion when
e Aha x,ilfor,aff ha1 honn
smitten down; when her young com
panions, her pail bearers, who looked
as innocent as their symbolic white
frocks, and the white roses in their
hands, were warned to flee from that
wrath to come to which their com
panion's sudden and unconscious death
had borne her. But this audacious SEN
tence did not come from our old pastor.
His spirit was of the gentlest and
tenderest. His heart full of all charities,
triumphed over his ecclesiastical creed,
which circ1mscribed the acceptance of
the Almighty Father to the few elect
who concurred III the belief of the
dogmas of his sect. Still through the
ever open portals of his cheerful heart
came the sunbeams of charity casting a
ray of hope upon the darkest individual
case. No bit of poetry was so dear to
him, or so often quoted by him, as the
old distich, with which he closed his
oracular remark at the death of some
wretched outcast who had sinned him
self out of all charity but this good
mans: eve don't know how it is
with him it is not for US to Judge he
was not worse than he of whom it was
said:
Between the saddle and the ground.
He mercy asked and mercy found :!
And yet this sturdy little preacher
would prove logically in his next Sun
days sermon that none but the Hopkin-
sion branch of the Calvinistic family
ever were" or "ever could be (his
favorite limitation phrases) saved.
Thank God these days of dogma and
bigotry were swept away by the potent
stream of love that overhowed the good
mans heart.
The stern discipline practiced in our
cold church and we believe it was
not less severe in other Puritan SO
cieties-now lives only in tradition.
Offenses of "church members" were
never pardoned till the culprit. in vul
/ gar phrase, "walked the broad alley :
that is, till he made his circumstantial
confession in the middle aisle of the
church. This was the Protestant sub
stitute for the confessional and the
| greedy ears of q whole congregation
were in the place of the one authoriz d
priest, who, by the grace of God, might
dismiss the penitent with that express