Morning journal and courier., 1888-11-16
LIFE HN OLD NEW ENGLAND.
An Interesting Lecture bT Rev. George E. Reeds D. D., at the St. John Street Chnreh R.Rat RVenfnR.

An Interesting Lecture by Rev. George
 E. Reed, ID. D., at the St. John Street
 Church Last RveAinR.
 Rev. George E. Reed, D. D., delivered a lecture on 'sLife in Old New England, 1" at the St. John street church last evening-the first in @ course of entertainments at this church. His relation of the affairs and daily happen- ings and descriptions of an old New England farmhouse was easy and graceful and kept his hearers in 8 continual bubble of merri- ment Dr. Reed was born in @ small town near Bangor Me, and was reared in the staid old fashioned style of most farmers sons at that time. In beginning his talk he said: Halfway up the side of a mountain in the good old State of Maine reclines the village of my boyhood and of this we are now to speak. Things hardly ever change there save the old familiar faces. The same old Bangor road runs down through the village now as it did when first saw the light of day. It was one of the grandest coasting courses that ever saw. The lecturer then turned to rapid de- scription of the town.
 On the southwest corner stood the old vil- lage store, and on the other corner was the rival store. On another corner was the har- ness shop and on the other was a boot and
 
 nucleus of the village.
 The lecturer here gave a vivid picture of the typical New England farmhouse, with its long, s1oping caves, large rooms, big. open dreplace-whose fire burns from fall to spring without going out-the kitchen where the family always assembled and the spare room, where the lecturers youthful feet never dared wander, the old antique clock and chairs and other old fashioned furniture; the old-fashioned feather bed, which no one could get into without a long running jump from the furthermost corner and landing squsrely in the center.
 The old attics, where the snow came in and the winds whistled and blew, the leetur- CT said, were the source of the Yankees rep utation for always speaking through his nose. The Yankees have always suffered from 6 continual cold, which has become so spread from generation to generation that all seem to speak through their noses; but, con- tinued he, there is nothing so musical as Yankee voice we'll spoken through the nose. He humorously told of how some old New Englander's thought stones grew like trees and that sheep had their noses sharpened to get the grass from between them. He told how all lights were always put out by half-pest eight, and if light was seen at o'clock everybody in the village knew that Mrs. Somebody was sick with fever or that Betsy Jane was entertaining her best beau. When Saturday came 1t was the small boys business to fire up the big oven, and the good housewife would come along and put in the bake beans and squash pie, which was always from twelve to fifteen inches in diametera and two or three inches in depth
 The delicious calm of Sunday morning, breeding over the whole face of nature, was something that couldn't be forgotten.
 People then wanted good hard sermons, with heads and points where one could hang his hat on if he wanted to. They would give a man his walking papers if he couldn't grind out more than thirty minutes talk in a week. The lecture continued to portray the old fashion village life in New England and greatly delighted his hearers with lifelike picture of home.