The ministers among the Puritans in New England were very greatly considered. The laity who were bold enough to criticize or disparage the minister or his teachings were severely punished. A woman who spoke harshly of her minister had her tongue placed in a cleft stick and made to stand thus in a public place. A man for declaring that he received no profit from his minister's sermons was fined and severely whipped. Worse than bodily punishment was excommunication, for if a minister pronounced such upon a member of his congregation he was excluded from partaking of the sacrament and the people of the church refrained from all communion with him in civil affairs, even from eating and drinking with him. Yet with all this great power of the ministers in early Puritan times, they were not permitted to perform the marriage-service, which was wholly a civil affair, nor could they pray or exhort at a funeral. The ordination of so important an officer as the minister was a very important event. This was celebrated by a great gathering of people and ministers for many miles around. It was a deeply serious affair and yet a great festival occasion, for frequently there was an ordination ball and always an ordination supper, where there was a plenty and a variety of things to eat and to drink.
Although the minister's calling was one of trust and honor it was not also one of profit. The salary was small and paid in different ways, not a large part of it in cash. It was the universal custom to provide a house for the minister and often this was among the very first houses built in a new town and at its laying out some of the best lots were set aside for his use. He was also provided with free pasturage for his horse, the village burial-ground having been placed at his disposal for pasture land. In the early days a large part of the salary was paid in corn and labor and the amount for each church member to give was fixed by the authorities. Cord-wood was another common contribution, and each male church-member was expected to give a load of wood delivered at the door of the parsonage. Any money contributed by strangers who chanced to attend the services was usually given to the minister. A spinning bee, a forerunner of the donation party of later times, was often held at the home of the minister, wherein each woman would take her spinning-wheel and flax and all would spend the day in spinning and give the outcome to the minister's family. Also the women would meet and make patchwork bed-quilts and give them to the minister's family. Some ministers would go out among the members of their congregations and beg supplies for themselves and families. Many of the ministers found it necessary to do outside work to make a living, such as farming on week days, taking young men to teach and to fit for college, compounding and selling drugs and medicines; while some were coopers, carpenters, rope-makers, millers, and cobblers. It took great thrift and economy on the part of the minister and his family to get along. The wife not only had to be zealous in religious practices but also in domestic practices and often she was the thriftiest wife of the community. Every kind of denial had to be made and yet with this poverty the minister's children were quite often well kept and trained and many ministers were enabled to help their sons to obtain a college education.
Fear of the Indians did not keep the Puritans away from the meeting-house, but it did cause them to go there armed. At first each man carried arms to church and then later a certain number were detailed to arm themselves. In 1642 in Massachusetts the law provided for six men to be at the meeting-house with muskets and powder and shot. The armed men were placed near the door so as to be ready to protect the congregation or to rush out in case of need. When the services were ended, the armed guards went out of the meeting-house first and then the other men and the women and children were last, thus to be protected. Too, it was the custom for the men always to sit at the door of the pew, next to the aisle, so they could be ready to get their arms and rush out in case of a fight. Also being at the door of the pew the father could better protect the other members of the family, and a man who would not have occupied this place would have been considered a poor kind of husband and father.
In the early colonial days in New England there were two services in the meeting-house on Sunday, in the forenoon and in the afternoon. The sermons were long, two or three hours not being uncommon and some even ran up to five hours in length. Added to these long sermons were long prayers, frequently an hour in length and sometimes even continuing for three hours. At a desk near the pulpit there was an hour-glass and sitting near it was an officer of the church whose duty it was to turn it at the end of the hour. During the prayer the congregation stood, about its middle the minister would make a long pause to let the infirm and those ill sit down, but all the others remained standing till its close. It was the duty of the tithing-man to see that no one left the house before the close of the services without there was a real good reason and also he was to keep the congregation awake. These long prayers and sermons were not disliked by the congregation, but on the contrary they considered it a great gift for the minister to be able to continue long in prayer and a short sermon would have been looked upon as irreligious and lacking in reverence, and beside that was for what the minister was paid. "In every record and journal which I have read, throughout which ministers and laymen recorded all the annoyances and opposition which the preachers encountered, I have never seen one entry of any complaint or ill-criticism of too long praying or preaching."[380]
The music of the Puritan meeting-house is well summarized in the following: "The singing of the psalms was tedious and unmusical, just as it was in churches of all denominations both in America and England at that date. Singing was by ear and very uncertain, and the congregation had no notes, and many had no psalm-books, and hence no words. So the psalms were 'lined' or 'deaconed'; that is, a line was read by the deacon, and then sung by the congregation. Some psalms when lined and sung occupied half an hour, during which the congregation stood. There were but eight or nine tunes in general use, and even these were often sung incorrectly. There were no church organs to help keep the singers together, but sometimes pitch-pipes were used to set the key. Bass-viols, clarionets, and flutes were played upon at a later date in meeting to help the singing. Violins were too much associated with dance music to be thought decorous for church music. Still the New England churches clung to and loved their poor confused psalm-singing as one of their few delights, and whenever a Puritan, even in road or field, heard the distant sound of a psalm-tune he removed his hat and bowed his head in prayer."[381]
The Child and Religion.
In the meeting-house in New England in colonial times the young men sat together on one side and the young women sat in a corresponding place on the other side. The little girls sat on stools or low seats in the pews with their mothers or, if too many of them for place in the pew, they would sit out in the aisle, and sometimes there would be a row of little girls on a row of little stools extending the full length of the aisle. In some of the meeting-houses the boys were seated together on the pulpit and gallery stairs, while in other houses a place was made for them in the gallery, but wherever the place they were all herded together.
The boys among the Puritans were as other boys in all times and among all peoples, and the huddling them together in meeting-houses only helped to bring out their growing physical activities, as the taking them away from the watchfulness of the parents gave them better opportunities for expression of their repressed powers. One way of doing this was by slamming the pew-seats at the close of prayer and sermon and the vigor with which they did this called for an order from one church at least that "The boys are not to wickedly noise down there pew-seats." Another pastime was the twisting of the balustrades of the gallery railing in order to make them squeak. Whittling and cutting the woodwork and benches where they sat gave opportunity to put in time and also to try out their jack-knives. They passed the time in other ways, for there are court records showing that youths were taken before magistrates and fined for playing and laughing in church and doing things to make others laugh and play.
The best evidence left us to show that boys kept themselves busy in the meeting-houses is that they kept other people busy attending to them. There are plenty of records left to show that the tithing-man was continually being ordered to look after the behavior of the boys and also of the appointing of extra men to look after these unruly beings, in one church as many as six men had to be appointed at one time to keep them in order. These men had power to inflict punishment on the boys, and they did not hesitate to rap them soundly with their sticks and, too, sometimes a boy was taken out of the meeting-house and given a severe whipping. The tithing-man also used other means, for sometimes he took a boy from his place with the other boys and paraded him across the house and put him by side his mother on the women's side. If a young man would not behave himself, sometimes he was taken away from his place among the men and led to where the boys sat and forced to sit with them. Even during the noon hour the boys were watched over. While in the noon-house they had to listen to Bible teachings and interpretations. This was done to keep them quiet during this time so they might not "sporte and playe."
It is not wondered at that under such training much early religion developed. The Bible was read through many times by the young and much precocity in religious things was developed. A father gives in his diary the following in reference to a little girl of eight: "A little while after dinner she burst out into an amazing cry, which caused all the family to cry, too. Her mother asked the reason; she gave none. At last said she was afraid she would goe to Hell; her sins were not pardoned. She was first wounded by my reading a sermon of Mr. Norton's, Text, ye shall seek me and shall not find me. And those words in the sermon, ye shall seek me and die in your sins ran in her mind and terrified her greatly ... told me she was afraid she should go to Hell, was like Spira not elected."[382]