The Brattleboro reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1907-1912, 1909-07-16
A VILLAGE CHURCH
OF FIFTY YEARS AGO
And What the Small Boy of That Time
Thought of It-Infant Damnation
Preached Continually
The Hymns.

Those who were small boys or girls fifty
or more years ago recall wildly and witt
mingled feelings the village church Of
those days. Especially if they were re
quired to be regular attendants. The ser
vice was not then what it has since be
come In methods as well as theory the
country church has followed steadily along
he was an infant prodigy and too good to
live the ten-year-old boy Of fifty years
ago looked upon the weekly church service
with both holy and unholy horror. There
| were exceptions of course, but that was
the mental attitude of the average normal
and healthy boy Some do now, | regret
to say, with much less reason. His little
sister-or big-might feel a sense of en-
ioyment in being robed and swathed IN
white dress starched as stiff as a crow
bar, but from the moment the preliminary
work was begun on the boy he was IN
abiect misery.
From start to finish the itinerary was
distasteful to him His preferences and
feelings were ignored with true parental
brutality. He was compelled to fix up
by threats, frequently carried into exc
cution, of personal chastisement In the
good old way he was compelled to be good
by main strength He sought salvation
at the behest of birch switch, and
lodged eternal punishment through well
grounded fear of a sound threshlng IN the
woodshed. He was bound to suffer either
here or hereafter and he caught it both
coming and going It was hard luck.
His days work at church going was the
hardest one of all the seven. He APP
preached the sacred edifce with anything
but a chastened and contnte heart. lie
felt that Sunday was a put-up job on
HIM He was as full of misery and trea-
son and strategem as a tramp in bath
ROOM In gloomy contempt of the whole
business he laid plans to sometime set
fire to church and scuffed along like
doomed pup being dragged to the river.
In those halcyon days the village church
was about as bare and desolate place as
the earth afforded. No attempt was made
to render the surroundings or the exer-
cses pleasant. The grim, repellant, purl-
tanical cloud was over all. There was
singing domineered over by |
a precentor or chorister who had no more |
idea of real melody than a cow has OF
the wedding march There was no, at
tempt at the adornment OF the pulpit
The most cheerful effect was the motto
on the wall warning the faithful and
others to flee from the wrath to come
Flowers were a vanity and were never
lsed. The music was emitted under
orced draft from a wheeZy organ or
'melodeon" in the corner.
There were two services, morning and
Ifternoon. each fully two hours long. The
amers drove in for miles around with
heir families. and made an all-day job OF
t. They either brought their midday
mch or went without it, As a rule. the
Minister was blue Calvinist with a gift
or describing hades in lurid eolors and
ortraying the everlasting fortunes OF the
amned. That was all he preached, and ;
II he was expected to preach. The
rethren would not have considerd that {
hey were receiving what they. paid for
he had ever touched on anything else. {
hey wanted to hear the unregenerate .
and to be made TO believe that
lost Of their neighbors and friends were I
n the highroad to everlasting perdition. G
'nlv a few were elected to be saved {
mong whom they were which. Then be t
an the day of wrath with singing IN the a
aneral direction Of there Is fountain
He'd with blood, and wound it mp with, t
deep in a gulf of dark despair We n
FETCHED sinners lay" 1
This sort of thing was the mental re
lst which was weekly set before the {