NEW ENGLAND 231 



At least they served the purpose, however, of 

 supplying a church-going experience adequate 

 for a lifetime. 



Little did the good people who so sedulously 

 led their flocks to church and subjected them to 

 the bombardment of repeated sermons, suspect 

 that they were cultivating an attitude of mind 

 that would insure that the churches of succeeding 

 decades should be nearly vacant. Indeed, they 

 would have been horrified had they been told 

 such a thing; yet I think we need not doubt that 

 on the whole such was the influence of their well- 

 meant efforts. 



It adds to our understanding of the curiously 

 archaic relation of the church to the community, 

 even in that comparatively recent period, to 

 reflect that it was obligatory in Lancaster a 

 short time before for each family to contribute 

 to the support of the Unitarian Church. 



My father was not a Unitarian by profession, 

 though his father was. However, father sup- 

 plied sundry loads of bricks without charge for 

 the building of a new Unitarian church, said to 

 be the last one built under the old regime. 



In subsequent years the law that made the 

 Church practically a part of the civic organism 

 had been repealed, and thenceforward people 

 were allowed to follow their own inclinations in 



