Morning journal and courier., 1883-12-03
RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS OF OLD DAYS.

The earliest records of the New Haven colony prove the custom of stdignifcation" in the meeting house. The term meant, be- fore the innovation of pews, the seating of the congregation according to rank. The front seat was reserved for the governor of the colony and his deputy. in the next was seated the magistrate, while succeeding, in their order, were the deacons and other pill lars of the church. Some broader distinc- tions. however, were observed, for single men of ordinary social quality had to oecu- py the cross seats, while the women were put in the center of the church and the boys in the gallery. The dignifying was done by Q committee. In later and moro democratic times, the congregations, in rural churches at least, were dignided by age, and the com- mittee had a peculiarly delicate task. Fune- ral customs also were original. Up to the year 1880 all the New Haven bells were tolled for the dead. No hearse was used until 1794, and no carriages appeared in line up to pe- riod much later. The mourners and friends walked to the grave, an act deemed far more solemn and decorous than to ride The pail bearers, before they began their serious journey, were always entertained with liberal lunch, garnished by an abundant SUD- ply of strong liquors and loaf sugar An old undertaken, 8 resident of an ancient town in Connecticut, guided not only by his own ex- perience but by knowledge of funeral habi- tudes before him, has given me some particu- lars of the old fashioned ceremony. The procession was msrshalled with the malss:two by two in front of the bier, the females fol- lowing behind. The coffin shrouded in pail and mounted on bier with legs eighteen inches high, was borne by six friends of the dead. At intervals, when the manager of the ceremonies gave the signal the double lines of men would pause, the first six men behind would approach and take up the bier, the first set of bearers would fall to the rear and the whole procession then proceed. Friends dug the grave and filled 1t after the services; and it was fine point of mortcary etiquette to shape it as nicely as might be te the six sided coffin, which vas inferred with out any external cover. After the mound had been rounded of the tall bier was placed over 1t and there it remained in the open air ghastly token of deaths latest mark in the village, until another funeral shifted tito a new grave. The coffin of the period, save in the case of some wealthy member of the community, was built of whitewood or bntternut put to- gether with ordinary screws and a rounded tin plate with painted lettering recorded the name and the age of the inmate. Occasion ally, also, the plate could be inscribed at the grave and kept by the bereaved family as a memento. Rites like these described, in which the sympathetic offices of friends were ftly prominent. appear with some variations to have prevailed in many of the old New England parishes; and there is one primitive village in Connecticut where to this day the town digs the grave and supplies the hearse for rich and poor alike.
 Vividly with the recital of these old GUS toms memory reverts to the other quaint and fantastic forms New England piety took on to the pastor who could hairsplit by the hour 'twixt free will and election, the ponti- fex of the village, infallible in all things sacred and most things secular, sometimes vicarious doctor who in the same visit could minister eIi1irs for the body and the soul,