Seating the Meeting.
Perhaps no duty was more important and more difficult of satisfactory
performance in the church work in early New England than "seating the
meeting-house." Our Puritan forefathers, though bitterly denouncing all
forms and ceremonies, were great respecters of persons; and in nothing was
the regard for wealth and position more fully shown than in designating the
seat in which each person should sit during public worship. A committee of
dignified and influential men was appointed to assign irrevocably to each
person his or her place, according to rank and importance. Whittier wrote
of this custom:--
"In the goodly house of worship, where in order due and fit,
As by public vote directed, classed and ranked the people sit;
Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire before the clown,
From the brave coat, lace embroidered: to the gray frock shading down."
In many cases the members of the committee were changed each year or at
each fresh seating, in order to obviate any of the effects of partiality
through kinship, friendship, personal esteem, or debt. A second committee
was also appointed to seat the members of committee number one, in order
that, as Haverhill people phrased it, "there may be no Grumbling at them
for picking and placing themselves."
This seating committee sent to the church the list of all the attendants
and the seats assigned to them, and when the list had been twice or thrice
read to the congregation, and nailed on the meeting-house door, it became a
law. Then some such order as this of the church at Watertown, Connecticut,
was passed: "It is ordered that the next Sabbath Day every person shall
take his or her seat appointed to them, and not go to any other seat where
others are placed: And if any one of the inhabitants shall act contrary, he
shall for the first offence be reproved by the deacons, and for a second
pay a fine of two shillings, and a like fine for each offence ever
after." Or this of the Stratham church: "When the comety have Seatid the
meeting-house every person that is Seatid shall set in those Seats or pay
Five Shillings Pir Day for every day they set out of There seats in a
Disorderly Manner to advance themselves Higher in the meeting-house." These
two church-laws were very lenient. In many towns the punishments and fines
were much more severe. Two men of Newbury were in 1669 fined £27 4s.
each for "disorderly going and setting in seats belonging to others." They
were dissatisfied with the seats assigned to them by the seating committee,
and openly and defiantly rebelled. Other and more peaceable citizens
"entred their Decents" to the first decision of the committee and asked for
reconsideration of their special cases and for promotion to a higher pew
before the final orders were "Jsued."
In all the Puritan meetings, as then and now in Quaker meetings, the men
sat on one side of the meeting-house and the women on the other; and they
entered by separate doors. It was a great and much-contested change when
men and women were ordered to sit together "promiscuoslie." In front,
on either side of the pulpit (or very rarely in the foremost row in the
gallery), was a seat of highest dignity, known as the "foreseat," in which
only the persons of greatest importance in the community sat.
Sometimes a row of square pews was built on three sides of the ground
floor, and each pew occupied by separate families, while the pulpit was
on the fourth side. If any man wished such a private pew for himself and
family, he obtained permission from the church and town, and built it at
his own expense. Immediately in front of the pulpit was either a long seat
or a square inclosed pew for the deacons, who sat facing the congregation.
This was usually a foot or two above the level of the other pews, and was
reached by two or three steep, narrow steps. On a still higher plane was a
pew for the ruling elders, when ruling elders there were. The magistrates
also had a pew for their special use. What we now deem the best seats,
those in the middle of the church, were in olden times the free seats.
Usually, on one side of the pulpit was a square pew for the minister's
family. When there were twenty-six children in the family, as at least one
New England parson could boast, and when ministers' families of twelve
or fourteen children were far from unusual, it is no wonder that we find
frequent votes to "inlarge the ministers wives pew the breadth of the
alley," or to "take in the next pue to the ministers wives pue into her
pue." The seats in the gallery were universally regarded in the early
churches as the most exalted, in every sense, in the house, with the
exception, of course, of the dignity-bearing foreseat and the few private
pews.
It is easy to comprehend what a source of disappointed anticipation,
heart-burning jealousy, offended dignity, unseemly pride, and bitter
quarrelling this method of assigning scats, and ranking thereby, must have
been in those little communities. How the goodwivcs must have hated the
seating committee! Though it was expressly ordered, when the committee
rendered their decision, that "the inhabitants are to rest silent and
sett down satysfyed," who can still the tongue of an envious woman or an
insulted man? Though they were Puritans, they were first of all men and
women, and complaints and revolts were frequent. Judge Sewall records that
one indignant dame "treated Captain Osgood very roughly on account of
seating the meeting-house." To her the difference between a seat in the
first and one in the second row was immeasurably great. It was not alone
the Scribes and Pharisees who desired the highest seats in the synagogue.
It was found necessary at a very early date to "dignify the meeting,"
which was to make certain seats, though in different localities, equal in
dignity; thus could peace and contented pride be partially restored. For
instance, the seating committee in the Sutton church used their "best
discresing," and voted that "the third seat below be equal in dignity with
the foreseat in the front gallery, and the fourth seat below be equal in
dignity with the foreseat in the side gallery," etc., thus making many
seats of equal honor. Of course wives had to have seats of equal importance
with those of their husbands, and each widow retained the dignity
apportioned to her in her husband's lifetime. We can well believe that much
"discresing" was necessary in dignifying as well as in seating. Often,
after building a new meeting-house with all the painstaking and thoughtful
judgment that could be shown, the dissensions over the seating lasted for
years. The conciliatory fashion of "dignifying the seats" clung long in the
Congregational churches of New England. In East Hartford and Windsor it was
not abandoned until 1824.
Many men were unwilling to serve on these seating committees, and refused
to "medle with the seating," protesting against it on account of the odium
that was incurred, but they were seldom "let off." Even so influential and
upright a man as Judge Sewall felt a dread of the responsibility and of
the personal spleen he might arouse. He also feared in one case lest his
seat-decisions might, if disliked, work against the ministerial peace of
his son, who had been recently ordained as pastor of the church. Sometimes
the difficulty was settled in this way: the entire church (or rather the
male members) voted who should occupy the foreseat, or the highest pew, and
the voted-in occupants of this seat of honor formed a committee, who in
turn seated the others of the congregation.
In the town of Rowley, "age, office, and the amount paid toward building
the meeting-house were considered when assigning seats." Other towns had
very amusing and minute rules for seating. Each year of the age counted one
degree. Military service counted eight degrees. The magistrate's office
counted ten degrees. Every forty shillings paid in on the church rate
counted one degree. We can imagine the ambitious Puritan adding up his
degrees, and paying in forty shillings more in order to sit one seat above
his neighbor who was a year or two older.
In Pittsfield, as early as the year 1765, the pews were sold by "vandoo"
to the highest bidder, in order to stop the unceasing quarrels over
the seating. In Windham, Connecticut, in 1762, the adoption of this
pacificatory measure only increased the dissension when it was discovered
that some miserable "bachelors who never paid for more than one head and
a horse" had bid in several of the best pews in the meeting-house. In New
London, two women, sisters-in-law, were seated side by side. Each claimed
the upper or more dignified seat, and they quarrelled so fiercely over the
occupation of it that they had to be brought before the town meeting.
In no way could honor and respect be shown more satisfactorily in the
community than by the seat assigned in meeting. When Judge Sewall married
his second wife, he writes with much pride: "Mr. Oliver in the names of the
Overseers invites my Wife to sit in the foreseat. I thought to have brought
her into my pue. I thankt him and the Overseers." His wife died in a few
months, and he reproached himself for his pride in this honor, and left the
seat which he had in the men's foreseat. "God in his holy Sovereignty put
my wife out of the Fore Seat. I apprehended I had Cause to be ashamed of my
Sin and loath myself for it, and retired into my Pue," which was of course
less dignified than the foreseat.
Often, in thriving communities, the "pues" and benches did not afford
seating room enough for the large number who wished to attend public
worship, and complaints were frequent that many were "obliged to sit
squeased on the stairs." Persons were allowed to bring chairs and stools
into the meeting-house, and place them in the "alleys." These extra seats
became often such encumbering nuisances that in many towns laws were passed
abolishing and excluding them, or, as in Hadley, ordering them "back of the
women's seats." In 1759 it was ordered in that town to "clear the Alleys of
the meeting-house of chairs and other Incumbrances." Where the chairless
people went is not told; perhaps they sat in the doorway, or, in the summer
time, listened outside the windows. One forward citizen of Hardwicke had
gradually moved his chair down the church alley, step by step, Sunday after
Sunday, from one position of dignity to another still higher, until at last
he boldly invaded the deacons' seat. When, in the year 1700, this honored
position was forbidden him, in his chagrin and mortification he committed
suicide by hanging.
The young men sat together in rows, and the young women in corresponding
seats on the other side of the house. In 1677 the selectmen of Newbury
gave permission to a few young women to build a pew in the gallery. It is
impossible to understand why this should have roused the indignation of the
bachelors of the town, but they were excited and angered to such a pitch
that they broke a window, invaded the meeting-house, and "broke the pue in
pessis." For this sacrilegious act they were fined £10 each, and sentenced
to be whipped or pilloried. In consideration, however, of the fact that
many of them had been brave soldiers, the punishment was omitted when they
confessed and asked forgiveness. This episode is very comical; it exhibits
the Puritan youth in such an ungallant and absurd light. When, ten years
later, liberty was given to ten young men, who had sat in the "foure backer
seats in the gallery," to build a pew in "the hindermost seat in the
gallery behind the pulpit," it is not recorded that the Salem young women
made any objection. In the Woburn church, the four daughters of one of the
most respected families in the place received permission to build a pew in
which to sit. Here also such indignant and violent protests were made by
the young men that the selectmen were obliged to revoke the permission.
It would be interesting to know the bachelors' discourteous objections to
young women being allowed to own a pew, but no record of their reasons
is given. Bachelors were so restricted and governed in the colonies that
perhaps they resented the thought of any independence being allowed to
single women. Single men could not live alone, but were forced to reside
with some family to whom the court assigned them, and to do in all respects
just what the court ordered. Thus, in olden times, a man had to marry to
obtain his freedom. The only clue to a knowledge of the cause of the fierce
and resentful objection of New England young men to permitting the young
women of the various congregations to build and own a "maids pue" is
contained in the record of the church of the town of Scotland, Connecticut.
"An Hurlburt, Pashants and Mary Lazelle, Younes Bingham, prudenc Hurlburt
and Jerusha meachem" were empowered to build a pew "provided they build
within a year and raise ye pue no higher than the seat is on the Mens
side." "Never ye Less," saith the chronicle, "ye above said have built said
pue much higher than ye order, and if they do not lower the same within one
month from this time the society comitte shall take said pue away." Do you
wonder that the bachelors resented this towering "maids pue?" that they
would not be scornfully looked down upon every Sabbath by women-folk,
especially by a girl named "meachem"? Pashants and Younes and prudenc had
to quickly come down from their unlawfully high church-perch and take a
more humble seat, as befitted them; thus did their "vaulting ambition
o'erleap itself and fall on the other side." Perhaps the Salem maids also
built too high and imposing a pew. In Haverhill, in 1708, young women were
permitted to build pews, provided they did not "damnify the Stairway." This
somewhat profane-sounding restriction they heeded, and the Haverhill maids
occupied their undamnifying "pue" unmolested. Medford young women, however,
in 1701, when allowed only one side gallery for seats, while the young men
were assigned one side and all the front gallery, made such an uproar that
the town had to call a meeting, and restore to them their "woman's rights"
in half the front gallery.
Infants were brought to church in their mothers' arms, and on summer days
the young mothers often sat at the meeting-house door or in the porch,--if
porch there were,--where, listening to the word of God, they could attend
also to the wants of their babes. I have heard, too, of a little cage, or
frame, which was to be seen in the early meeting-houses, for the purpose
of holding children who were too young to sit alone,--poor Puritan babies!
Little girls sat with their mothers or elder sisters on "crickets" within
the pews; or if the family were over-numerous, the children and crickets
exundated into "the alley without the pues." Often a row of little
daughters of Zion sat on three-legged stools and low seats the entire
length of the aisle,--weary, sleepy, young sentinels "without the gates."
The boys, the Puritan boys, those wild animals who were regarded with such
suspicion, such intense disfavor, by all elderly Puritan eyes, and who were
publicly stigmatized by the Duxbury elders as "ye wretched boys on ye Lords
Day," were herded by themselves. They usually sat on the pulpit and gallery
stairs, and constables or tithingmen were appointed to watch over them and
control them. In Salem, in 1676, it was ordered that "all ye boyes of ye
towne are and shall be appointed to sitt upon ye three pair of stairs in ye
meeting-house on ye Lords Day, and Wm. Lord is appointed to look after ye
boyes yt sitte upon ye pulpit stairs. Reuben Guppy is to look and order soe
many of ye boyes as may be convenient, and if any are unruly, to present
their names, as the law directs." Nowadays we should hardly seat boys in a
group if we wished them to be orderly and decorous, and I fear the man "by
the name of Guppy" found it no easy task to preserve order and due gravity
among the Puritan boys in Salem meeting. In fact, the rampant boys behaved
thus badly for the very reason that they were seated together instead of
with their respective families; and not until the fashion was universal of
each family sitting in a pew or group by itself did the boys in meeting
behave like human beings rather than like mischievous and unruly monkeys.
In Stratford, in 1668, a tithingman was "appointed to watch over the youths
of disorderly carriage, and see that they behave themselves comelie, and
use such raps and blows as in his discretion meet."
I like to think of those rows of sober-faced Puritan boys seated on the
narrow, steep pulpit stairs, clad in knee-breeches and homespun flapped
coats, and with round, cropped heads, miniature likenesses in dress and
countenance (if not in deportment) of their grave, stern, God-fearing
fathers. Though they were of the sedate Puritan blood, they were boys, and
they wriggled and twisted, and scraped their feet noisily on the sanded
floor; and I know full well that the square-toed shoes of one in whom
"original sin" waxed powerful, thrust many a sly dig in the ribs and back
of the luckless wight who chanced to sit in front of and below him on the
pulpit stairs. Many a dried kernel of Indian corn was surreptitiously
snapped at the head of an unwary neighbor, and many a sly word was
whispered and many a furtive but audible "snicker" elicited when the dread
tithingman was "having an eye-out" and administering "discreet raps and
blows" elsewhere.
One of these wicked youths in Andover was brought before the magistrate,
and it was charged that he "Sported and played and by Indecent Gestures and
Wry Faces caused laughter and misbehavior in the Beholders." The girls were
not one whit better behaved. One of "ye tything men chosen of ye town of
Norwich" reported that "Tabatha Morgus of s'd Norwich Did on ye 24th day
February it being Sabbath on ye Lordes Day, prophane ye Lordes Day in ye
meeting house of ye west society in ye time of ye forenoone service on s'd
Day by her rude and Indecent Behaviour in Laughing and Playing in ye time
of ye s'd Service which Doinges of ye s'd Tabatha is against ye peace of
our Sovereign Lord ye King, his Crown and Dignity." Wanton Tabatha had to
pay three shilings sixpence for her ill-timed mid-winter frolic. Perhaps
she laughed to try to keep warm. Those who laughed at the misdemeanors of
others were fined as well. Deborah Bangs, a young girl, in 1755 paid a fine
of five shillings for "Larfing in the Wareham Meeting House in time of
Public Worship," and a boy at the same time, for the same offence, paid a
fine of ten shillings. He may have laughed louder and longer. In a law-book
in which Jonathan Trumbull recorded the minor cases which he tried as
justice of the peace, was found this entry: "His Majesties Tithing man
entered complaint against Jona. and Susan Smith, that on the Lords Day
during Divine Service, they did _smile_." They were found guilty, and
each was fined five shillings and costs,--poor smiling Susan and Jonathan.
Those wretched Puritan boys, those "sons of Belial," whittled, too, and cut
the woodwork and benches of the meeting-house in those early days, just as
their descendants have ever since hacked and cut the benches and desks in
country schoolhouses,--though how they ever eluded the vigilant eye and ear
of the ubiquitous tithingman long enough to whittle will ever remain an
unsolved mystery of the past. This early forerunning evidence of what
has become a characteristic Yankee trait and habit was so annoyingly and
extensively exhibited in Medford, in 1729, that an order was passed to
prosecute and punish "all who cut the seats in the meeting-house."
Few towns were content to have one tithingman and one staff, but ordered
that there should be a guardian set over the boys in every corner of the
meeting-house. In Hanover it was ordered "That there be some sticks set up
in various places in the meeting-house, and fit persons by them and _to
use them_." I doubt not that the sticks were well used, and Hanover boys
were well rapped in meeting.
The Norwalk people come down through history shining with a halo of gentle
lenity, for their tithingman was ordered to bear a short, small stick only,
and he was "Desired to use it with clemency." However, if any boy proved
"incoridgable," he could be "presented" before the elders; and perhaps he
would rather have been treated as were Hartford boys by cruel Hartford
church folk, who ordered that if "any boye shall be taken playing or
misbehaving himself in the time of publick worship whether in the
meeting-house or about the walls he shall be examined and punished at the
present publickly before the assembly depart." Parson Chauncey, of Durham,
when a boy misbehaved in meeting, and was "punched up" by the tithingman,
often stopped in his sermon, called the godless young offender by name,
and asked him to come to the parsonage the next day. Some very tender and
beautiful lessons were taught to these Durham boys at these Monday morning
interviews, and have descended to us in tradition; and the good Mr.
Chauncey stands out a shining light of Christian patience and forbearance
at a time when every other New England minister, from John Cotton down,
preached and practised the stern repression and sharp correction of all
children, and chanted together in solemn chorus, "Foolishness is bound up
in the heart of a child."
One vicious tithingman invented, and was allowed to exercise on the boys,
a punishment which was the refinement of cruelty. He walked up to the
laughing, sporting, or whittling boy, took him by the collar or the arm,
led him ostentatiously across the meeting-house, and seated him by his
shamefaced mother on the women's side. It was as if one grandly proud in
kneebreeches should be forced to walk abroad in petticoats. Far rather
would the disgraced boy have been whacked soundly with the heavy knob of
the tithingman's staff; for bodily pain is soon forgotten, while mortifying
abasement lingers long.
The tithingman could also take any older youth who misbehaved or "acted
unsivill" in meeting from his manly seat with the grown men, and force him
to sit again with the boys; "if any over sixteen are disorderly, they shall
be ordered to said seats." Not only could these men of authority keep the
boys in order during meeting, but they also had full control during the
nooning, and repressed and restrained and vigorously corrected the luckless
boys during the midday hours. When seats in the galleries grew to be
regarded as inferior to seats and pews on the ground floor, the boys, who
of course must have the worst place in the house, were relegated from the
pulpit stairs to pews in the gallery, and these square, shut-off pews grew
to be what Dr. Porter called "the Devil's play-houses," and turbulent
outbursts were frequent enough.
The little boys still sat downstairs under their parents' watchful eyes.
"No child under 10 alowed to go up Gailary." In the Sutherland church, if
the big boys (who ought to have known better) "behaved unseemly," one of
the tithing-men who "took turns to set in the Galary" was ordered "to bring
Such Bois out of the Galary & set them before the Deacon's Seat" with the
small boys. In Plainfield, Connecticut, the "pestigeous" boys managed to
invent a new form of annoyance,--they "damnified the glass;" and a church
regulation had to be passed to prevent, or rather to try to prevent them
from "opening the windows or in any way damnifying the glass." It was
doubtless hot work scuffling and wrestling in the close, shut-in pews high
up under the roof, and they naturally wished to cool down by opening or
breaking the windows. Grown persons could not inconsiderately open the
church windows either. "The Constables are desired to _take notic_
of the persons that open the windows in the tyme of publick worship." No
rheumatic-y draughts, no bronchitis-y damps, no pure air was allowed to
enter the New England meeting-house. The church doubtless took a vote
before it allowed a single window to be opened.
In Westfield, Massachusetts, the boys became so abominably rampant that the
church formally decided "that if there is not a Reformation Respecting
the Disorders in the Pews built on the Great Beam in the time of Publick
Worship the comite can pul it down."
The fashion of seating the boys in pews by themselves was slow of
abolishment in many of the churches. In Windsor, Connecticut, "boys' pews"
were a feature of the church until 1845. As years rolled on, the tithingmen
became restricted in their authority: they could no longer administer "raps
and blows;" they were forced to content themselves with loud rappings on
the floor, and pointing with a staff or with a condemning finger at the
misdemeanant. At last the deacons usurped these functions, and if rapping
and pointing did not answer the purpose of establishing order (if the boy
"psisted"), led the stubborn offender out of meeting; and they had full
authority soundly to thrash the "wretched boy" on the horse-block. Rev. Dr.
Dakin tells the story that, hearing a terrible noise and disturbance while
he was praying in a church in Quincy, he felt constrained to open his eyes
to ascertain the cause thereof; and he beheld a red-haired boy firmly
clutching the railing on the front edge of the gallery, while a venerable
deacon as firmly clutched the boy. The young rebel held fast, and the
correcting deacon held fast also, until at last the balustrade gave way,
and boy, deacon, and railing fell together with a resounding crash.
Then, rising from the wooden debris, the thoroughly subdued boy and the
triumphant deacon left the meeting-house to finish their little affair;
and unmistakable swishing sounds, accompanied by loud wails and whining
protestations, were soon heard from the region of the horse-sheds. Parents
never resented such chastisings; it was expected, and even desired,
that boys should be whipped freely by every school-master and person of
authority who chose so to do.
In some old church-orders for seating, boys were classed with negroes,
and seated with them; but in nearly all towns the negroes had seats by
themselves. The black women were all seated on a long bench or in an
inclosed pew labelled "B.W.," and the negro men in one labelled "B.M." One
William Mills, a jesting soul, being asked by a pompous stranger where he
could sit in meeting, told the visitor that he was welcome to sit in Bill
Mills's pew, and that it was marked "B.M." The man, who chanced to be
ignorant of the local custom of marking the negro seats, accepted the kind
invitation, and seated himself in the black men's pew, to the delight of
Bill Mills, the amusement of the boys, the scandal of the elders, and his
own disgust.
Sometimes a little pew or short gallery was built high up among the beams
and joists over the staircase which led to the first gallery, and was
called the "swallows' nest," or the "roof pue," or the "second gallery." It
was reached by a steep, ladder-like staircase, and was often assigned to
the negroes and Indians of the congregation.
Often "ye seat between ye Deacons seat and ye pulpit is for persons hard of
hearing to sett in." In nearly every meeting a bench or pew full of aged
men might be seen near the pulpit, and this seat was called, with Puritan
plainness of speech, the "Deaf Pew." Some very deaf church members (when
the boys were herded elsewhere) sat on the pulpit stairs, and even in the
pulpit, alongside the preacher, where they disconcertingly upturned their
great tin ear-trumpets directly in his face. The persistent joining in the
psalm-singing by these deaf old soldiers and farmers was one of the bitter
trials which the leader of the choir had to endure.
The singers' seats were usually in the galleries; sometimes upon the ground
floor, in the "hind-row on either side." Occasionally the choir sat in two
rows of seats that extended quite across the floor of the house, in front
of the deacons' seat and the pulpit. The men singers then sat facing the
congregation, while the women singers faced the pulpit. Between them ran a
long rack for the psalm-books. When they sang they stood up, and bawled and
fugued in each other's faces. Often a square pew was built for the singers,
and in the centre of this enclosure was a table, on which were laid, when
at rest, the psalm-books. When they sang, the choir thus formed a hollow
square, as does any determined band, for strength.
One other seat in the old Puritan meeting-house, a seat of gloom,
still throws its darksome shadow down through the years,--the stool of
repentance. "Barbarous and cruel punishments" were forbidden by the
statutes of the new colony, but on this terrible soul-rack the shrinking,
sullen, or defiant form of some painfully humiliated man or woman sat,
crushed, stunned, stupefied by overwhelming disgrace, through the long
Christian sermon; cowering before the hard, pitiless gaze of the assembled
and godly congregation, and the cold rebuke of the pious minister's averted
face; bearing on the poor sinful head a deep-branding paper inscribed in
"Capitall Letters" with the name of some dark or mysterious crime, or
wearing on the sleeve some strange and dread symbol, or on the breast a
scarlet letter.
Let us thank God that these soul-blasting and hope-killing exposures--so
degrading to the criminal, so demoralizing to the community,--these foul,
in-human blots on our fair and dearly loved Puritan Lord's Day, were never
frequent, nor did the form of punishment obtain for a long time. In 1681
two women were sentenced to sit during service on a high stool in the
middle alley of the Salem meeting-house, having on their heads a paper
bearing the name of their crime; and a woman in Agamenticus at about the
same date was ordered "to stand in a white sheet publicly two several
Sabbath-Days with the mark of her offence on her forehead." These are the
latest records of this punishment that I have chanced to see.
Thus, from old church and town records, we plainly discover that each laic,
deacon, elder, criminal, singer, and even the ungodly boy had his alloted
place as absolutely assigned to him in the old meeting-house as was the
pulpit to the parson. Much has been said in semi-ridicule of this old
custom of "seating" and "dignifying," yet it did not in reality differ much
from our modern way of selling the best pews to whoever will pay the most.
Perhaps the old way was the better, since, in the early churches, age,
education, dignity, and reputation were considered as well as wealth.