NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
napowett. It is usually dotted with 
canoes and sailboats, and in winter 1s 
a beautiful skating resort. 
We skirt the lake to Reading, 
an important street railway centre. 
Through cars run from here to Bos- 
ton via Melrose and Malden, and also 
to Arlington via Winchester and 
Stoneham. 
Our car runs via the Wilmington 
line, which leaves on the left side of 
the Common. Pleasant views open 
up over rural Wilmington, and soon 
we can see the spire of the village 
church ahead. At Nichols’ Corner 
we turn sharply through Wilmington 
Centre to the Wilmington depot. 
If time is an object, change here for 
the through Lowell cars, which pass 
half-hourly from Woburn and Med- 
ford. A stop over at Silver Lake 
makes an agreeable break in the 
journey, and without extra expense, 
as the Jake is the fare limit. 
Tewksbury may be identified by 
the red buildings of the state alms- 
house. The road turns from here to 
Wamesit, and enters Lowell over the 
beautiful Belvidere region. 
The trolley tourist by the Billerica 
route will pass the ruined aqueduct of 
the old Middlesex canal, over the 
Shawsheen river. This, too, is a fare 
limit, and may be used as a stop-over 
place, but the tourist is warned that 
the car service is very limited, and a 
stop over means a 90-minute wait. 
There is, however, much to interest 
one here. The old canal bed is in 
perfect preservation, and the founda- 
tions of the aqueduct are still solid. 
In the meadow below are many varie- 
ties of wild flowers. Among these 
are the curious pitcher plants, with 
their urn-like leaves filled with water. 
Resuming our journey, we, climb 
up on the high land. The mountains 
of southern New Hampshire now 
show on the sky line. Wachusett, in 
Princeton, Mass., is the rounded 
dome to the westward. 
Billerica is passed, then North Bil- 
lerica and the Concord river. The 
outskirts of Lowell are next, and we 
draw up at the Lowell transfer station. 
A pleasant run may be taken to 
Lakeview Park and return, with its 
amusements and summer theatre. 
Nashua is further, and may also be 
reached by the New Hampshire Trac- 
tion Company’s lines. The tourist is 
strongly recommended to ride from 
Lowell to the celebrated Canobie 
Lake Park, and when returning take 
the Lawrence car, connecting there 
with the through car for Salem. This 
presumes an early start from Salem, - 
allowing for lunch in Lowell and an 
afternoon at Canobie to see the show, 
oy 
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The Old-Time Minister. 
(Continued from Page 1] 
parson whenever he appeared ; and if 
school was ‘‘out’’ as he passed, the 
scholars stood uncovered and bowed 
and curtsied as he went by. Both by 
character and position the minister 
was often the most influential man in 
the town. He ranked with the mag- 
istrates, and his advice was often 
sought after in civil concernments. 
The early ministry of New England 
constituted almost a caste. ‘hose 
who lived near enough to Boston 
generally attended the ‘Thursday 
Lecture,” and afterward dined with 
the Governor. 
The first generation of ministers 
were graduates of the English univer- 
sities, more generally of Cambridge, 
which was more hospitable to Puritan- 
ism than Oxford; their successors 
graduated from Harvard or Yale. 
They had often good libraries, and 
were men of respectable learning. 
Many were well read in the classics, 
and familiar with the fathers and 
schoolmen. Not afew among them, 
in the quaint phrase of the time, were 
‘‘ painful” preachers, elaborating their 
discourses with great care and often 
to prodigious length. They were 
sometimes keen dialecticians and stout 
combatants; they were accustomed 
to hard blows in the lists of argument 
and controversy. If not always very 
clear, they were at least very vigorous 
writers, as many a “ Plain Statement ”’ 
bears witness. With little literary 
cultivation, and confining themselves 
largely within professional limits, their 
style was often cumbrous and pedan- 
tic, as well set forth in the prefaces 
to the ‘“ Bigelow Papers,” written in 
the parsonage of Jaalam. 
The minister was the minister of 
the town, supported bya tax levied 
on all the inhabitants, collected by 
law, and in the case of refractory 
parishioners by distraint upon prop- 
erty. The relations between ministers 
and towns were generally harmonions, 
though instances are on record in 
which both parties stood sturdily for 
their rights, even to the verge of 
unseemly strife. The position of the 
minister gave him great authority, 
and it must be said that in some 
instances he magnified his office in 
other than the Pauline sense. Per- 
haps, on the whole, it is a wonder that 
the ministry was not more arrogant 
and overbearing, considering the ten- 
dencies of human nature, and the 
temptation to be masterful and magis- 
terial. 
Ministers were settled for life; it 
was not expected that they would 
change or wish to change their place. 
Theologians who left their mark on 
Tt 
New England thought spent their 
days contentedly in small country 
towns, like Dr. Backus of Somers, 
and Dr. Bellamy of Bethlem, Conn., 
and Dr. Emmons of Franklin, Mass. 
They usually owned a farm or occu- 
pied a parsonage with glebe or “ min- 
ister’s Jand,” and often’ were very 
successful farmers, like the eccentric 
Parson Howe of Hopkinton. They 
often contrived to bring up large fam- 
ilies, sending their sons to college, 
and laying up a modest competence 
for old age. In some cases they eked 
out a scanty salary by fitting ‘ ingen- 
uous’”’ youth for college, or taking 
charge tor a time of some rusticated 
sophomores. The wives, it should be 
said in this connection, were not sel- 
dom quite as thrifty and caretaking as 
the parsons themselves, looking well 
to the ways of their households, and 
suffering none to eat the bread of 
idleness. Many of them, no doubt, 
deserve canonization. The parsonage, 
as pictured in the life of Lyman 
Beecher at Litchfield and of Moses 
Hallock at Plainfield, Mass., must 
have been a scene of busy life and of 
intellectual activity. 
The staple of the regular Sunday 
discourses was for the most part 
Biblical or experimental, more rarely 
ethical, down to the beginning of the 
present century. On Fast. days and 
Thanksgiving days more latitude was 
taken, and sermons on such occasions 
were often strongly political, not to 
say partizan, in their character. The 
early New England pulpit had the 
courage of its convictions, and often 
used ‘‘great plainness of speech.” 
Samuel Hopkins, greatly honored as 
atheologian in his day, is worthy of 
still greater honor, for his fearless 
denunciation of the slave trade, when 
his rich parishioners in Newport, R. 
I., were coining gold out of the traffic 
in human flesh. Jonathan Edwards, 
at Northampton, drew upon himself 
the displeasure of the worldly part of 
his parish by his faithful rebukes of 
sin and his opposition to the ‘half- 
way covenant,” and went into exile 
at Stockbridge among the Indians, 
rather than condescend to “ prophesy 
smooth things.” And there were 
many others. 
The position which the ministers 
held gave them great boldness in 
attacking what they considered wick- 
edness in high places, and _ political 
opponents were not spared. Even 
royal Governors did not always go 
unscathed. 
It is not to be wondered at, as 
human nature is, that ecclesiastical 
interlopers in the parish domain, dis- 
senters from the “standing orcer,” 
and restless spirits generally, were 
frowned down by the New England 
