20 ([return])
[ There were two churches, of this character, built on this spot. The second, much larger than the first, but of the same form, was built round the other, in which service was held to the last, when it was literally thrown out of the windows of its successor. The last edifice disappeared about forty years since.—EDITOR.]
21 ([return])
[ I cannot recollect one of these canopied pews that is now standing, in this part of the Union. The last, of my knowledge, were in St. Mark's, New York, and, I believe, belonged to the Stuyvesants, the patron family of that church. They were taken down when that building was repaired, a few years since. This is one of the most innocent of all our innovations of this character. Distinctions in the House of God are opposed to the very spirit of the Christian religion; and it were far more fitting that pews should be altogether done away with, the true mode of assembling under the sacred roof, than that men should be classed even at the foot of the altar.
It may be questioned if a hatchment is now hung up, either on the dwelling, or in a church, in any part of America. They were to be seen, however, in the early part of the present century. Whenever any such traces of ancient usages are met with among us, by the traveller from the old world, he is apt to mistake them for the shadows “that coming events cast before,” instead of those of the past.—EDITOR.]
CHAPTER XII.
“Then the wine it gets into their heads,
And turns the wit out of its station;
Nonsense gets in, in its stead,
And their puns are now all botheration.”
The Punning Society.