In 1673, again, the magistrates “experienced to our great grief” that rolling ninepins was more in vogue on Sunday than on any other day. And we learn that there were social clubs that “Set on the Sabbath,” which must speedily be put an end to. Thirty men were found by the schout in one tap-huys; but as they were playing ninepins and backgammon two hours after the church-doors had closed, prosecution was most reluctantly abandoned.
Of course scores of “tappers” were prosecuted, both in taverns and private houses. Piety and regard for an orderly Sabbath were not the only guiding thoughts in the burgomasters’ minds in framing these Sunday liquor laws and enforcing them; for some tapsters had “tapped beer during divine service and used a small kind of measure which is in contempt of our religion and must ruin our state,”—and the state was sacred. In the country, as for instance on Long Island, the carting of grain, travelling for pleasure, and shooting of wild-fowl on Sunday were duly punished in the local courts.
I do not think that children were as rigid church attendants in New York as in New England. In 1696, in Albany, we find this injunction: “ye Constables in eache warde to take thought in attending at ye church to hender such children as Profane ye Sabbath;” and we know that Albany boys and girls were complained of for coasting down hill on Sunday,—which enormity would have been simply impossible in New England, except in an isolated outburst of Adamic depravity. In another New York town the “Athoatys” complained of the violation of the Sabbath by “the Younger Sort of people in Discourssing of Vane things and Running of Raesses.” As for the city of New York, even at Revolutionary times a cage was set up on City Hall Park in which to confine wicked New York boys who profaned the Sabbath. I do not find so full provisions made for seating children in Dutch Reformed churches as in Puritan meeting-houses. A wise saying of Martin Luther’s was “Public sermons do very little edify children”—perhaps the Dutch agreed with him. As the children were taught the Bible and the catechism every day in the week, their spiritual and religious schooling was sufficient without the Sunday sermon,—but, of course, if they were not in the church during services, they would “talk of vane Things and run Raesses.”
Before the arrival of any Dutch preacher in the new settlement in the new world, the spiritual care of the little company was provided for by men appointed to a benign and beautiful old Dutch office, and called krankebesoeckers or zeikentroosters,—“comforters of the Sick,”—who not only tenderly comforted the sick and weary of heart, but “read to the Commonalty on Sundays from texts of Scripture with the Comments.” These pious men were assigned to this godly work in Fort Orange and in New Amsterdam and Breuckelen. In Esopus they had meetings every Sunday, “and one among us read something for a postille.” Often special books of sermons were read to the congregations.
In Fort Orange they had a domine before they had a church. The patroon instructed Van Curler to build a church in 1642; but it was not until 1646 that the little wooden edifice was really put up. It was furnished at a cost of about thirty-two dollars by carpenter Fredricksen, with a predickstoel, or pulpit, a seat for the magistrates,—de Heerebanke,—one for the deacons, nine benches and several corner-seats.
The first church at Albany, built in 1657, was simply a block house with loop-holes for the convenient use of guns in defence against the Indians,—if defence were needed. On the roof were placed three small cannon commanding the three roads which led to it. This edifice was called “a handsome preaching-house,” and its congregation boasted that it was almost as large as the fine new one in New Amsterdam. Its corner-stone was laid with much ceremony. In its belfry hung a bell presented to the little congregation by the Directors of the Amsterdam Chamber of the West India Company. The predickstoel was the gift of the same board of West India Directors, since the twenty-five beavers’ skins sent for its purchase proved greatly damaged, and hence inadequate as payment.
This pulpit still exists,—a pedestal with a flight of narrow steps and curved balustrade. It is about four feet in height to its floor, and only three in diameter. It is octagonal; one of the sides is hinged, and forms the entrance door or gate. All the small trimmings and mouldings are of oak, and it has a small bracket or frame to hold the hour-glass. It stood in a space at the end of the centre aisle.
“I see the pulpit high—an octagon,
Its pedestal, doophuysje, winding stair,
And room within for one, and one alone,