358 HIS TOR Y OF COHA SSE T. 



neighbors walking along the middle of the road or across 

 pastures towards the meeting-house, they all came to- 

 gether at some time between ten and eleven o'clock to 

 their leisurely service. The pastor came to the church 

 from his house across the street after the people had 

 gathered, and mounted the stairs into his pulpit, while the 

 worshipers settled upon their accustomed seats. 



There were no responsive readings, no anthems by a 

 choir, and for several years little if any singing by the 

 congregation. The pastor read sufficiently long passages 

 of Scripture with comments or illustrations, and then 

 while all stood up, a prayer was offered for all the needs of 

 the parish as the pastor might conceive their importance. 

 The sermon then followed, timed by an hourglass that 

 the minister set up on the pulpit ; and while the sand was 

 trickling through from top to bottom the minister was 

 reading with more or less vehemence the product of his 

 pen and heart during the week just ended. The people 

 were able to find many suggestions in the sermon to 

 quicken their moral purpose, to enlarge their faith, and to 

 open their windows of hope. Their demands were not 

 severe, and the minister's training, however meager it 

 might seem to people nowadays, was quite sufficient for 

 the congregation, very few of whom had received as much 

 schooling as our present grammar school affords. 



After the morning service an hour or more of intermis- 

 sion gave time for the people living near, to get to their 

 homes for a luncheon, but the people from Lincoln's Mill, 

 from Beechwood, and from Jerusalem, as they called the 

 neighborhood of Hull Street, had to take their luncheons 

 in the meeting-house if they remained until the afternoon 

 service. 



The salary of the first pastor was nearly one hundred 

 and thirty pounds in the year 1722, and it grew to be 

 only one hundred and eighty pounds in the nineteen years 

 of his ministry. He was a faithful pastor and gathered 



