New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1886-09-29
Sunday in a Country Village.

nils in New England-we cannot call
them remote hills, because the loco
motive darts up every valley and fills
the woods upon the highest hillside
with the shrill, eager cry OF hurrying
life and busting human society, but
even when the steam scream is heard
softened and far away-there are vet
villages nesting in the hills in which
also the old New England Sabbath
fingers and nestles. The village street,
broad and arched with thick-foliaged
sugar naples, IS always still.
In the warm silence of a sum-
mer noon, as you sit reading
upon the piazza or in the shade of a
tree, the only moving object in the
street is a load of hay slowly passing
under the NAPLES. drawn by oxen, or
a group of laborers in front OF the vii
lage store pitching quoits. The creak
OF the wagon, the ring of the ouoits.
or the laugh and exclamation of the
players are the only sounds, except,
indeed, the musical clangor OF the
blacksmlth's anvil, as his quick ham.
mer moulds the sparkling horseshoe
or DeaGSs OUT the bar.
These are drowsy summer sounds
that only emphasize the stiffness of
the weekday. But the stiffness of
Sunday Is startling A faint tinkle of
COWS in the early morning filing to the
pasture, and the warning shout of
the bare-footed boy who drives them,
are the only sounds that break the
Sabbath silence, except, again, the
chirp and song of birds in the trees,
which are no respecters of days.
and which sing as bllthely even in the
deacon's NAPLES, on the Sabbath
morning." as in the tavern ash on the
Fourth of July. The COWS pass and
all is still. The street is deserted,
save at intervale solitary figure upon
some small errand. The sun lies hot
upon the pastures and hillsides. There
is no mail on Sunday, no newspaper,
no barber to visit. Now and then
men in their daily dress are seen at
the barn door or in the shed or yard
doing their chores. They are bringing
wood, milking, feeding the cattle. But
all is spectral. There is no sound.
Even the wind in summer fears to be
aSabbath-breaker It lis an enchanted
realm. Have the blue laws such
vitality? Are we stilFheld by thai grim
spell?
1t is 8 o'clock, and the meeting house
bell, with a bold voice of authority,
as If it had the sole right to disturb
the silence and to speak out, warns
the village and the outlying farms that
it is the Sabbath, and every body must
prepare to come to meeting, and little
children hear the bell with awe as if it
were a living voice, and sacred
as part Of the Sabbath, and
to be needed under unknown pen
alties. Obey thy father and mother;
thou shalt not lie; thou shalt not
steal; thou shalt go to meeting
to them all commandments of the
first table. The sound of the bell lin
gers in their ears and heart as q thus
saith the Lord. And 10! at the second
bell, the men, who have changed the
daily dress and put on their Sabbath
clothes, issues from the houses on the
village street with their wives and
| children, and through the streets,
closely following each other and pound
ing along in cloud OF dust, comes the
long line OF wagons from the farms.
The sun beats down remorselessly,
and the man in heavy woolens, such as
he wears in the sleigh In January, sits
between two women in their Sabbath
garments, and the horses trot with a
Sabbath Jog, and all turn up to the
stone platform by the meeting house,
upon which the women alight, and the
| man drives the horse under the shed
and chats soberlY with the others at
the door.
But the minister passes in, not clad
IN gown and bands as in the older dav,
but in plain black clothes. The chat
ting lolterers follow him in. The bell
which has gathered the village into
the sacred fold rests secure from its
|, labors. There is no one in the street.
There is no sound. But after few
moments the music Of "Old Hundred"
pours out OF the open doors and win
dows OF the meeting house sung by a
well-balanced and well-trained choir.
1t is the opening hymn, and it has a
full, vigorous, Triumphant sound. Once
more, Thus saith the Lord. There is
another interval Of silence, but at a
little distance you can hear the voice
OF reading and prayer. Hank. anoth-
er hymn. It is Federal Street," or
Coronation" or Dundee" but
whatever it is, it is a strain from 9th
er years; and voices and faces and
scenes and days that are no more all
blend in the familiar music, and a
Sabbath benediction rests upon the
listeners soul.
A longer silence follows, broken by
fragmentary sounds OF energetic
speech. Is the preacher emphasizing
and calculating the five points? Is
he denouncing and alarming that tough
regiment in wooden, or winning the
wandering and doubling mind? Is his
sermon an official and perfunctory
discourse by which the little children
are soothed to sleep, ana IN which the
elders like unqualified damnation and
the hottest fire. as a topper likes "pow-
err in his dram? Or is his pure and
IL