mystery,—­“immoderate great vayles, long wings,” etc.,—­mystery on mystery, but all recorded in the statutes, which forbid these splendors to persons of mean estate.  There are the wives of the magistrates in prominent seats, and the grammar-school master’s wife next them; and in each pew, close to the mother’s elbow, is the little wooden cage for the youngest child, still too young to sit alone.  All boys are held too young to sit alone also; for, though the emigrants left in Holland the aged deaconess who there presided, birch in hand, to control the rising generation in Sunday meetings, yet the urchins are now herded on the pulpit- and gallery-stairs, with four constables to guard them from the allurements of sin.  And there sits Sin itself embodied in the shrinking form of some humiliated man or woman, placed on a high stool in the principal aisle, bearing the name of some dark crime written on paper and pinned to the garments, or perhaps a Scarlet Letter on the breast.

Oh, the silence of this place of worship, after the solemn service sets in!  “People do not sneeze or cough here in public assemblies,” says one writer, triumphantly, “so much as in England.”  The warning caution, “Be short,” which the minister has inscribed above his study-door, claims no authority over his pulpit.  He may pray his hour, unpausing, and no one thinks it long; for, indeed, at prayer-meetings four persons will sometimes pray an hour each,—­one with confession, one with private petitions, a third with petitions for church and kingdom, and a fourth with thanksgiving,—­neither part of the quartette being for an instant confused with the other.  Then he may preach his hour, and, turning his hour-glass, may say,—­but that he will not anticipate the levity to be born in a later century with Mather Byles,—­“Now, my hearers, we will take another glass.”

In short, this is the pomp and circumstance of glorious preaching.  Woe to any one who shall disturb its proprieties!  It is written in the statute, “If any one interrupt or oppose a preacher in season of worship, they shall be reproved by the magistrate, and on repetition shall pay L5, or stand two hours on a block four feet high, with this inscription in capitals, ‘A Wanton Gospeller.’” Nor this alone, but the law stands by the minister’s doctrine even out of the meeting-house.  It is but a few days since Nathaniel Hadlock was sentenced to be severely whipped for declaring that he could receive no profit from Mr. H——­’s preaching,—­since Thomas Maule was mauled to the extent of ten stripes for declaring that Mr. H——­ preached lies, and that his instruction was the doctrine of devils,—­since even the wife of Nicholas Phelps was sentenced to pay five pounds or be whipped, for asserting that this same Mr. H——­ sent abroad his wolves and bloodhounds among the sheep and lambs.  Truly, it is a perilous thing to attend public worship in such reverential days.  However, it is equally dangerous to stay at home; there are tithing-men to look after the absentees, and any one unnecessarily absent must pay five shillings.  He may be put in the stocks or in the wooden cage, if delinquent for a month together.