[¹] Copyright, D. Appleton & Co.
IGH as the doctors stood in the good graces of their fellow-men, the ministers formed a yet more respected class of New England society. In no other section of the country had religion so firm a hold on the affections of the people. Nowhere else were men so truly devout, and the ministers held in such high esteem. It had, indeed, from the days of the founders of the colony been the fashion among New Englanders to look to the pastor with profound reverence, not unmingled with awe. He was not to them as other men were. He was the just man made perfect; the oracle of divine will; the sure guide to truth. The heedless one who absented himself from the preaching on a Sabbath was hunted up by the tithing-man, was admonished severely, and, if he still persisted in his evil ways, was fined, exposed in the stocks, or imprisoned in the cage. To sit patiently on the rough board seats while the preacher turned his hour-glass for the third time, and with his voice husky from shouting, and the sweat pouring in streams down his face, went on for an hour more, was a delectable privilege. In such a community the authority of the reverend man was almost supreme. To speak disrespectfully concerning him, to jeer at his sermons, or to laugh at his odd ways, was sure to bring down on the offender a heavy fine. His advice was often sought on matters of State, nor did he hesitate to give, unasked, his opinion on what he considered the arbitrary acts of the high functionaries of the province. In the years immediately preceding the war the power of the minister in matters of government and politics had been greatly impaired by the rise of that class of laymen in the foremost ranks of which stood Otis and Hancock and Samuel Adams. Yet his [♦]spiritual influence was as great as ever. He was still a member of the most learned and respected class in a community by no means ignorant. He was a divine, and came of a family of divines. Not a few of the preachers who witnessed the Revolution could trace descent through an unbroken line of ministers, stretching back from son to father for three generations, to some canting, psalm-singing Puritan who bore arms with distinction on the great day at Naseby, or had prayed at the head of Oliver’s troops, and had, at the restoration, when the old soldiers of the protector were turning their swords into reaping-hooks and their pikes into pruning-knives, come over to New England to seek that liberty of worship not to be found at home. Such a man had usually received an education at Harvard or at Yale, and would in these days be thought a scholar of high attainments.
[♦] ‘spiritunl’ replaced with ‘spiritual’
OUR NATIONAL HUMORISTS
OUR NATIONAL HUMORISTS
ROBT. J. BURDETT • “JOSH BILLINGS”
“MARK TWAIN”
CHAS. FOLEN ADAMS • “BILL NYE”
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
