Morning journal and courier., 1883-06-20
Going to Church.
The Hardship of 1t Early in the Present Century

The Hardship of 1t Early In the Present
 Century.
 In the Memoirs of John A. Dix,', just published, the following autobiographical ex- perience is related, giving picture of the discomforts incident to worship in the t.meet- ing house" during the first decade of this century. The villrge of Boscawen, N. H., furnishes the material for the sketch:
 The period was approaching when was to be sent away from home for my classical ed- ucation but, before enter upon 1t, let me cast back some glances at my native village. have spoken of the meeting house at one of its extremitieS. The society was Congrege- tional in it's form. It acknowledged no earthly head. had distinct idea of this peculiarity in it's doctrine from the conver- sations which had at my fathers house. My mother was sincere, devout and trustful Christian. My father was believer, but not a member of the Church. I sometimes thought his views did not accord with those of the preacher: but he seid nothing to war rant such an inference. No man was more regular than himself in his attendance on divine worship on Sundays, and they were the only days in the year on which any re- igious exercises were observed, except the first Monday of every month, on which evening prayer meeting was held. derived no agreeable impression whatever from these religious obseryances. The meeting-house was, like most others at that day, painted white, covered with shingles, full of windows, with plain pIastered walls inside; it was cold and dreary in it's aspect within and without. It had no window blinds; and as the sun moved round the building in summer the moved about in their pews, to escape from his burning rays The winters were awful; the thermometer often fell twenty or thirty degrees below zero. There was no fireplace or furnace, not even stove. To this arctic temperature we were exposed two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. The sermon was almost al ways an hour long; and the prayers and psalms, and reading of the Scriptures, occu- have never suffered so much from cold My mother always took 8 feet t-stove with her, and it was more frequently under my feet than hers. In the sleigh on our way to meeting we were always comfortable, for we were enveloped in buffalo skins But we could not take them with us into the meeting house. When the wind was high the cold was nearly insupportable. The window sashes vibrated and rattled in their loose frames, and the cold air poured upon us through numberless inlets. My feelings were any thing but devotional; and pray God to for give me the many secret lrreverences of which was guilty. The preacher was 8 learned and conscientious man but I hated his long discourses (drawn out, as it seemed
 
 was perishing with cold. The strangest spec ulations took possession of my mind I had read in some book in my father's library that certain holy men had voluntarily submitted to the severest inhictions. One, whose name does not occur to me, lived on the top of 8 column for a number of years, exposed to all the yicissitudes of the seasons. Supposing him to have lived in 8 good climate, l won dered whether he suffered as much as our preacher, holding forth by the hour in an atmosphere fifty degrees below freezing point. I wondered whether the latter, like the holy father, was acting on principle of self-infiction or whether he was punishing his congregation for their stubbornness in sin. If his motive was merely personal, then I wondered why he could not dismiss the con- gregation and perform the penance by him. self instead of making us the companions and the victims of his martyrdom. could not help secretly wishing, on these wretched oc casions, that he ght freeze his feet, that his arm might become so benumbed with cold that he could not gesticulase, or that his tongue might cleave to the roof of his mouth. It was not because had any malice against him in my heart, but because he was, by pro- tracting his sermons so unreasonably, infiict- ing on me suferings too great to be borne. knew him better in after years, and became attached to him sand if he had nQt been ignorant of all that passed through my. mind during those winter services, would have confessed my uncharitableness and i'm plored his forgiveness. But there never could have been any reconciliation between me and the meeting house. always detest- ed it; never looked upon it as the house of God. Town meetings and elections were held in it. I had seen it defiled with tobacco juice; had seen it desecrated by fsticufing in the heat of political conflicts had heard it's bare walls ring with tumultuous laughter, when some man, who had been prosperous in money making and assumed airs, was elected hog-constable by exclamation. These scenes were too often uppermost in my thoughts when the sermon was in progress, and de- frame of mind was impossible.