Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-12-24
SUNDAY IN A COUNTRY VILLAGE.
The Sober and Restrained and Decorous
New England Sabbath.
George William Curtis, in Harper's.l

The Sober and Restrained and DeCorous
I New England Sabbath.
George William Curtis, in Harper's1
It is 8 o'clock, and the Westinghouse
bell, with 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 everybody must pre-
pare to come to meeting, and little
children hear the bell with awe as if it
we're living voice, and sacred as q
part of the Sabbath, and to be- needed
under unknown penalties. Obey thy
father and mother; thou shalt not steal ;
thou shalt go to meeting-seemt to them
all commandments of the first table
The sound Of the bell fingers in their
ears and heart as thus saith the Lord.
And 10! at the second bell, the men,
who have changed the daily dress and
put on their Sabbath clothes, issue
from the houses on the village street
with their wives and children, and
through the streets, closely following
each other and pounding along in q
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 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
i'll gown and bands and cooked hat rs in
the older day, but in plain black clothes.
The chatting loiterers follow him in.
The BILL which has gathered the village
into the sacred fold rests 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 VIM
dows of the Westinghouse sung by a
well-balanced and well-trained choir.
1t is the opening hymn, and it has q
full, vigorous, triumphant sound. Once
more Thus saith the Lord. There is
another interval of silence, but at q
little distance you can hear the voice Of
reading and prayer. Hark another
hymn. Tt is Federal Street," or "Coro-
nation" or Dundee" but whatever it
is, it is strain from o5her years; and
voices and faces and scenes and days
| that are no more all blend in the IA
lniliar music, and Sabbath benedic-
ton rests upon the listeners soul
Before we can answer there is burst
of singing, then two STROKES of the bell
to announce that injecting is out, then
an issue of the congregation, process
sion homeward, driving away Of
wagons and soon once more, the SILENT
solitary street. In the afternoon there
is the Sabbath school, and the good
pastor breaches at one of the school
houses in the farther parts Of the town.
But ii is always the Sabbath, in every
and then from the neighboring house
upon the hill above the village street
comes clear, resonant soprano voice
singing hymns and prolonging the
solemn spell Of the holy day. The
tithing men are gone, and the deacons
do not sit severe and conspicuous in the
Westinghouse, and the minister has not
the air of lord spiritual Of the village,
and the genius of modern times and the
spirit Of the age are entertained with
full consciousness of what they are.
But it is still the sober and restrained
and decorous New England Sabbath
which recurs every seventh day, and the
honest, Industrious, intelligent self
respecting, plain-living village recalls
remotely the day Of the severe dispen-
sation, and illustrates the noble man
hood that the severe dispensaticn fos-
tered.
A long silence follows, broken by
fragmentary sounds of energetic speech.
is the preacher emphasizing and eluci-
dating the five points? Is he denounc-
ing and alarming that tough regiment
in wooden, OF winning the wandering
and doubling mind? Is his sermon an
official and perfunctory discourse by
which the little children are sotthed te
sleep, and in which the elders like I'm.
qualified damnation and the hottest fire
as topper likes power" in his dram
Or is his pure and manly life and con,
versation his true preaching, and his
Sabbath sermon only statement of the
principles of such holy living AMI re-
vival of the colors in the immortal por
trait of the holy life Of the Gospel?
Cheating in Gems.