MERCHANT OF VENICE.
The high square, pews of the little Congregational church, or (as in those days the descendants of the Puritans, in order to manifest their abhorrence for popery, and all that in their judgment sounded papistical, loved to call their places for public worship) the "meeting-house," were tolerably well filled by an attentive congregation on Thanksgiving morning. We say only tolerably, some seats being vacant, which seldom of a Sunday missed of occupants. The rights of hospitality were allowed on this occasion to trench upon the duties of public worship, and many a good wife with the servants, whom no common storm or slight indisposition would have kept away, remained at home to spread the board for expected guests. If there were some whose stern principles condemned the practice as a carnality, they were a small minority. Those whose fleshly appetites were to be gratified by it took a different view of the subject very generally; and as this was the condition of pretty much the whole community, whose members figured now as hosts and now as guests, the verdict was nearly unanimous in its favor. In truth, the due observance of the day seemed to consist of two parts, worship and feasting; each was necessary to the other to form a complement, and without both it would have been jejune and unsatisfactory. Besides, this was the annual period for the reunion of friends and relatives, parted for the rest of the year, and in some instances considerable journeys were undertaken in order once more to unite the severed circle and gather again around the beloved board. Fathers and mothers, with smiles of welcome, kissed their returned children; brothers and sisters joined cordial hands and rushed into each other's embraces, and the placid grandparents danced the little ones on their knees, and traced resemblances to others. It would have been a cold and inhospitable greeting, to be invited, after listening to a two hours' sermon, to sit around a dinner not beyond the common. Not to such a feast did stout-hearted and hard-headed Jonathan invite his friends. He rightly understood that there was a carnal and a spiritual man, nor was he disposed to neglect the claims of either. The earth was given to the saints "with the fullness thereof," and he meant to have his portion. Therefore it was that while one part of the family went to "meeting" to pray, the other remained at home to—cook. Thus, by a judicious division of duties the honored day was celebrated with befitting rites and ceremonies.
After waiting for a reasonable time, until all who were expected to attend were supposed to be in the house, the minister rose from his seat, in the high, wine-glass shaped pulpit, over which hung, like the sword of Damocles, by a cord, an immense sounding-board, considered indispensable, duly to scatter round that each might have his appropriate portion, the crumbs of salvation he dispensed, and "gave out" an appropriate hymn, in which the Supreme Being was acknowledged as the Ruler of the Seasons. This was sung, it must be confessed, by a sadly shrunken choir, stoutly supported, however, by the congregation in the body of the meeting-house, without the sound of tabret, or harp, or other musical instruments; for in those days not even the flute or grave bass-viol, those pioneers of the organ, were permitted in the Sanctuary. To the hymn succeeded a long and fervent prayer, in which Mr. Robinson, the minister (the term Reverend had then a slight papistical twang), after bewailing with ingenious particularity the sins and back-slidings of himself and people, and the ingratitude of the whole land, and recounting the innumerable blessings that had crowned their basket and their store, entreated that notwithstanding their manifold sins, iniquities and transgressions, the divine favor might not be withdrawn from a land where the Lord had planted his own vine, and where the precious seeds of heavenly grace deposited in the soil and nurtured and cultured by men "of whom the world was not worthy," had sprung up and borne the inestimable fruit of civil and religious freedom. Upon the conclusion of the prayer followed another hymn, and after these "exercises," the sermon.
The text was the ninth verse of the twenty-sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, "And He hath brought us into this place and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey." The Thanksgiving sermon was formerly one on which more than common labor was expended, and was intended to be a celebrity of the year. On this occasion the preacher laid out a wide field for his eloquence. He commenced by comparing the condition of the first colonists to that of the children of Israel when they fled from the house of bondage. He painted the Pilgrim fathers landing on Plymouth Rock, snow, and ice, and desolation around, but the fire of faith in their hearts. He contrasted the feebleness of the beginning with the grandeur of the result, whence he deduced the inference that the Lord had led his people with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; he alluded to the changed appearance of the country, converted from a heathen wilderness into a Christian garden, whence the perfume of Christian devotion perpetually arose; he portrayed the horrors of the war of the Revolution, and exhorted his hearers to cherish the memory of the men who had consecrated their lives and fortunes to Liberty, and sealed that consecration with their blood. Warming with his subject, his eyes shone with a brighter lustre and seemed gazing into a far future, as in prophetic tones he proclaimed the advent of the latter days, when the beacon fires of Freedom kindled on the mountain tops of the new Canaan should send their streaming rays across the seas, and the kingdoms of this world should become the heritage of God and of His Christ. "Seeing these things are so, brethren," he concluded, "seeing that God hath chosen you unto himself for a peculiar people, the weak things of the world to confound the strong, the rejected, the cast away and despised, to be held up as an example to the wondering and admiring nations, what manner of men ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?"
Such is an imperfect sketch of the remarks of Mr. Robinson. With such language sought the ministers in times past to keep alive the flame of patriotism, and to inspire with humility, yet animate with a just pride. Nor are such discourses thrown away. They do much towards the formation of a national character.
Long as was the sermon—and of not a moment of its orthodox length was it defrauded—it was listened to with the deepest attention, by the older members, especially, of the congregation. The grave decorum of a place of public worship forbade any open exhibition of approval, but more than one knit brow and lighted eye, betrayed the emotions excited by the allusions. Let it be remembered, it was nearer the times that tried men's souls; the later events were fresh in their memory; some of the hearers, perhaps, had borne a personal part in them, and all were animated by the generous fire of '76—sparks of which, we trust, still glimmer in the bosoms of their descendants. What to us, in these colder and as some say more worldly days, might have seemed extravagant, if not vain-glorious, was to them sober truth; and if there were any who, perverting into poison what was meant for wholesome nutriment, thanked God that they were not as other men, there were others who, without losing their humility, felt an impulse given to the nobler feelings.
At the conclusion of the services, there was the usual grasping of hands, and congratulations of the season, and inquiries after healths, and encomiums on the sermon, when the assembly dispersed to their homes, to attend, in another form, to the duties of the day. Mr. Armstrong and Faith waited for the minister, and the three walked home together. They were overtaken and joined by Doctor Elmer, who expressed regret at having been detained from the services by professional duties.
"But," added he, looking at Mr. Robinson, and bowing courteously, "if I have been so unfortunate as to miss of one feast, I do not mean to be deprived of another. I may say of myself, as Shakspeare says of somebody, 'Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan.'"
"I hope your Puritan principles do not consist merely in eating
Thanksgiving dinners," said Mr. Robinson, with a smile.
"And remember, doctor," observed Faith, "what your own Shakspeare says again—