2 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



of these was Congregational severely doric, with 

 square-headed windows, painted columns, and a cupola 

 for ornamentation. The other was Episcopal, with 

 sharp-headed windows, and three or four crazy-look- 

 ing turrets ; but the paint upon this latter was nearly 

 worn away by the storm-gusts that beat unbroken 

 over the Common. I am compelled to say too that 

 the services were only occasional in this gothic taber- 

 nacle ; and regret exceedingly to add that, after a 

 fitful and spasmodic life, the Episcopal society which 

 maintained nominal ownership of this turreted temple 

 made over its interest and debts to certain worldly 

 parties, and the sharp-headed windows now shed their 

 light upon " town meetings," and the late church is 

 abased to the uses of a town hall. It must be said, 

 that the rural residents of New England have no 

 large or growing appreciation of the beautiful Litany. 

 They like long sermons and a " talking out " in 

 prayer. You or I may feel differently ; but the men 

 and women of those retired districts, where books 

 and newspapers rarely come, want to hear on a Sun- 

 day what the parson will say not only in his sermon, 

 but in his invocations. 



The doric meeting-house, however, gloried in a 

 thick, white sheen of paint. The blinds were green 

 to a fault. No exterior mark of prosperity seemed 

 wanting but a flanking line of horse-sheds, the lack 



