were some whose stern principles condemned the practice as a carnality, they were a small minority.  Those whose fleshly appetites were to be gratified by it took a different view of the subject very generally; and as this was the condition of pretty much the whole community, whose members figured now as hosts and now as guests, the verdict was nearly unanimous in its favor.  In truth, the due observance of the day seemed to consist of two parts, worship and feasting; each was necessary to the other to form a complement, and without both it would have been jejune and unsatisfactory.  Besides, this was the annual period for the reunion of friends and relatives, parted for the rest of the year, and in some instances considerable journeys were undertaken in order once more to unite the severed circle and gather again around the beloved board.  Fathers and mothers, with smiles of welcome, kissed their returned children; brothers and sisters joined cordial hands and rushed into each other’s embraces, and the placid grandparents danced the little ones on their knees, and traced resemblances to others.  It would have been a cold and inhospitable greeting, to be invited, after listening to a two hours’ sermon, to sit around a dinner not beyond the common.  Not to such a feast did stout-hearted and hard-headed Jonathan invite his friends.  He rightly understood that there was a carnal and a spiritual man, nor was he disposed to neglect the claims of either.  The earth was given to the saints “with the fullness thereof,” and he meant to have his portion.  Therefore it was that while one part of the family went to “meeting” to pray, the other remained at home to—­cook.  Thus, by a judicious division of duties the honored day was celebrated with befitting rites and ceremonies.

After waiting for a reasonable time, until all who were expected to attend were supposed to be in the house, the minister rose from his seat, in the high, wine-glass shaped pulpit, over which hung, like the sword of Damocles, by a cord, an immense sounding-board, considered indispensable, duly to scatter round that each might have his appropriate portion, the crumbs of salvation he dispensed, and “gave out” an appropriate hymn, in which the Supreme Being was acknowledged as the Ruler of the Seasons.  This was sung, it must be confessed, by a sadly shrunken choir, stoutly supported, however, by the congregation in the body of the meeting-house, without the sound of tabret, or harp, or other musical instruments; for in those days not even the flute or grave bass-viol, those pioneers of the organ, were permitted in the Sanctuary.  To the hymn succeeded a long and fervent prayer, in which Mr. Robinson, the minister (the term Reverend had then a slight papistical twang), after bewailing with ingenious particularity the sins and back-slidings of himself and people, and the ingratitude of the whole land, and recounting the innumerable blessings that had crowned their basket and their store, entreated