THE CHURCH
Farmington was a very godly place; so, at least, her people thought.
Among the many well-known attractions of the town, its religious
privileges stood easily at the head. A little way up the hill, on a
level piece of ground, the early settlers long ago had built a great
white church. The congregation professed the United Presbyterian faith;
and this was the state religion, not only of Farmington but of all the
country around. The church itself was a wonder to behold. It seemed to
us children to have been built to accommodate all the people in the
world and then have room to spare. No other building we had ever seen
could be compared in size with this great white church. And when we read
of vast cathedrals and other wonderful buildings, we always thought of
the United Presbyterian church, and had no idea that they were half so
grand.
The main part of the building was very long and wide, and the ceiling
very high; but more marvellous still was the great square belfry in the
front. None of us boys ever knew how high it was; we always insisted
that it was really higher than it seemed, and we were in the habit of
comparing it with all the tall objects we had ever seen or of which we
had heard or read. It was surely higher than our flag-pole or our
tallest tree, higher than Niagara Falls or Bunker Hill Monument; and we
scarcely believed that anyone had ever climbed to its dizzy top,
although there was a little platform with a wooden railing round it
almost at its highest point. We had heard that inside the belfry was an
endless series of stairs, and that the sexton sometimes went to the top,
when a new rope was to be fastened to the bell; but none of us had so
much as looked up through the closed trap-door which kept even the most
venturesome from the tower.
The church stood out in plain view from every portion of the town; and
for a long distance up and down the valley road, and over beyond the
creek on the farther hill it loomed majestic and white,—a constant
reminder to the people who lived round about that, however important the
other affairs of life, their church and their religion were more vital
still.
I never heard when the church was built. As well might we have asked
when the town was settled, or when the country road came winding down,
or even when the river began flowing between the high green hills. If
any one object more than another was Farmington, surely it was the great
white church.
I am certain that the people of the town, and, in fact, of all the
country round, had no thought that religion was anything more or less,
or anything whatever, than communion with the church.
High up in the belfry swung a monstrous bell. None of us had seen it,
but we knew it was there, for every Sunday its deep religious tones
floated over the valley and up the hills, breaking the stillness of the
Sabbath day. Sometimes, when we were a little early at church, at the
ringing of the bell we would look up to the tower and fancy that through
the open slats of the belfry we could see some great object swinging
back and forth; and then, too, all of us had seen the end of a rope in a
little room back of the organ on the second floor, and we had been told
that the other end was fastened to the great bell away up in the high
tower, and we used to wonder and speculate as to how strong the sexton
must be to pull the rope that swung the mighty bell.
Every Sabbath morning the procession of farmers’ wagons drove by our
home on their way to church, and we learned to know the color of the
horses, the size of the wagons and carriages, and the number of members
in each family, in this weekly throng; we even knew what time to expect
the several devotees, and who came first and who came last, and we
assumed that those who passed earliest were the most religious and
devout. These Sabbath pilgrims were dressed in their best clothes, and
looked serious and sad, as became communicants of the church. The pace
at which they drove, their manner of dress, cast of countenance, and
silent and stolid demeanor were in marked contrast to their appearance
on any other days.
The Sabbath, the church, and religion were serious and solemn matters to
the band of pilgrims who every Sunday drove up the hill. All our
neighbors and acquaintances were members of the United Presbyterian
church, and to them their religion seemed a very gloomy thing. Their
Sabbath began at sun-down on Saturday and lasted until Monday morning,
and the gloom seemed to grow and deepen on their faces as the light
faded into twilight and the darkness of the evening came.
My parents were not members of the church; in fact, they had little
belief in some of its chief articles of faith. In his youth my father
was ambitious to be a minister, for all his life he was bent on doing
good and helping his fellowman; but he passed so rapidly through all the
phases of religious faith, from Methodism through Congregationalism and
Universalism to Unitarianism and beyond, that he never had time to stop
long enough at any one resting spot to get ordained to preach.
My father seldom went to church on Sunday. He was almost the only man in
town who stayed away, excepting a very few who were considered worthless
and who managed to steal off with dog and gun to the woods and hills.
But Sunday was a precious day to my father. Even if the little creek had
been swollen by recent rains, and the water ran wastefully over the big
dam and off on its long journey through the hills, still my father never
ran his mill on Sunday. I fancy that if he had wished to do so the
people would not have permitted him to save the wasted power. But all
through the week my father must have looked forward to Sunday, for on
that day he was not obliged to work, and was free to revel in his books.
As soon as breakfast was over he went to his little room, and was soon
lost to the living world. I have always been thankful that the religion
and customs of the community rescued this one day from the tiresome
monotony of his life. All day Sunday, and far into the night, he lived
with those rare souls who had left the records of their lives and
spirits for the endless procession of men and women who come and go upon
the earth.
Both my father and my mother thought it best that we children go to
church. So, however much we protested (as natural children always
protest), we were obliged to go up the hill with the moving throng to
the great white church.
In another part of the town, in an out-of-the-way place, was the
unpretentious little Methodist church. It stood at the edge of the
woods, almost lost in their shadow, and seemed to shrink from sight, as
if it had no right to stand in the presence of the mighty building on
the hill. We never went to this church, except to revivals, and we never
understood how it was kept up, as its members were very poor. The
shoemaker and a few other rather unimportant people seemed to be its
only devotees. The Methodist preacher did not live in Farmington when I
first knew the town, but used to drive in from an adjoining village in
the afternoon, and preach the same sermon he had delivered in his home
town in the morning, and then go on to the next village and preach it
once more in the evening. Some years later, after a wonderful revival in
which almost all outsiders except our family were converted to
Methodism, this church became so strong that it was able to buy a piece
of ground in the village and put up a new building with a high steeple,
though it was nothing like as grand as the old white church on the hill.
After this the Methodist preacher came to Farmington to live.
But although we were not United Presbyterians, we children went
regularly to this church because we had to go. The old bell that rang
out so long on Sunday mornings always had a doleful sound to us, and
altogether Sunday was a sore cross to our young lives.
There were many substantial reasons why we did not like the Sabbath day.
Games of all kinds were prohibited; and although we managed sometimes to
steal away to play, still we had no sooner begun a game than someone
came along and made us stop. It made no difference who chanced to
come,—anyone had the right to stop our playing on the Sabbath day. Then,
too, on Sunday we must dress up. This was no small affair, for if we put
on our best clothes and our stockings and boots when we first got up we
were obliged to wear them nearly the whole day; whereas if we had on our
comfortable everyday clothes in the morning, we must change them in an
hour or less, so as to get ready for church. Even if we put on our best
clothes and went barefoot until the first bell rang, then we were
obliged to wash our feet,—for our mother would not let us put on our
stockings except in the early morning unless we first washed our feet.
Then, after church was out and we had eaten dinner, we either had to
wear our best clothes the rest of the day, or change them all; and then
it was only a little while until bedtime, and we could not play even if
we did change our clothes. If we just pulled off our boots and went
barefoot the rest of the day, then we must wash our feet at night.
Childhood was not all joy: it had its special sorrows, which grew less
as years crept on, and one of the chief of these burdens, as I recall
them, was the frequency with which we had to wash our feet.
But more burdensome if possible than this was the general “cleaning” on
Sunday mornings. On week-days we almost always washed our faces and our
hands each day, but as a rule this duty was left largely to ourselves,
with a scolding now and then as a safeguard to its performance. Often,
of course, we passed such a poor inspection at mealtimes that we were
sent from the table to wash again. Still, for the most part we knew how
much was absolutely required, and we managed to keep just inside the
line. But on Sundays all was changed. Then our words and good intentions
went for naught. We were not even allowed to wash ourselves. Our mother
always took us in hand, and the water must be warm, and she must use
soap and a rag, and we had to keep our eyes shut tight while she was
rubbing the soapy rag all over our faces,—and she never hurried in the
least. We might have stood the washing of hands and faces, but it did
not end here. Every Sunday morning our mother washed our necks and ears;
and no boy could ever see the use of this. Nothing roused our righteous
indignation quite so much as the forced washing of our necks. The
occasion, too, was really less on Sunday than on any other day, because
then we always wore some sort of stiff collar around our necks. Neither
was it enough to wash our hands; our sleeves must be pushed up nearly to
our elbows, and our arms scrubbed as carefully as if they too were going
to show. Even if we had been in swimming on Saturday night, and had
taken soap and towels to the creek, and had been laughed at by the other
boys for our pains, still we must be washed just the same on Sunday
morning before we went to church. In the matter of Sunday washing our
mother seemed never to have the slightest confidence in anything we said
or did. There were no bathtubs in Farmington,—at least none that I ever
heard of; so we boys had something to be thankful for, although we did
not know it then. To be sure, we were often put into a common washtub on
Saturday night or Sunday morning, but sometimes swimming was accepted in
lieu of this.
When we were thoroughly cleaned, and dressed in our newest and most
uncomfortable clothes, with stiff heavy boots upon our captive feet, our
mother took us to the church. We were led conspicuously up the aisle,
between the rows of high pews, set down on a hard wooden seat, the door
of the pew fastened with a little hook to keep us safely in, and then
the real misery began. The smallest of us could not see over the high
pew in front, but we scarcely dared to play, except perhaps to get a
piece of string out of our pockets, or to exchange marbles or
jack-knives or memory-buttons, or something of the sort, and then we
generally managed to get into some trouble and run the risk of bringing
our mother into disgrace. In the pew in front of us there usually sat
the little girl with the golden curls,—or was it the one with the black
hair? I am not sure which it was, but it was one of these, and I managed
sometimes to whisper to her over the pew, until my mother or hers
stopped the game. I somehow got along better with her on Sunday than at
any other time,—perhaps because neither of us had then anything better
to do than to watch each other.
I could not understand then, nor do I to-day, why we were made to go to
church; surely our good parents did not know how we suffered, or they
would not have been so cruel and unkind. I remember that the services
began with singing by the choir in the gallery, and I sometimes used to
turn around and look up to see the singers and the organ; and I remember
especially a boy who used to sway back and forth, sideways, to pump the
organ. I had an idea that he must be a remarkable lad, and endowed with
some religious gifts, second only to the preacher. After the first song
came the first prayer, which was not very short, but still nothing at
all to the one yet in store. Then came more singing, and then the long
prayer. My! what agony it was! I remember particularly the old preacher
as he stood during those everlasting prayers. I can see him now,—tall
and spare and straight, his white face encircled with a fringe of white
whiskers. I always thought him very old, and supposed that he came there
with the church, and was altogether different from other men. As he
prayed, he clasped his hands on the great Bible that lay upon the altar,
and kept his eyes closed and his face turned steadily toward the
ceiling. He spoke slowly and in a moderate tone of voice, and in the
most solemn way. I never could understand how he kept his eyes closed
and his sad face turned upward for so long a time, excepting that he had
a special superhuman power.
I could not have sat through that prayer, but for the fact that I
learned to find landmarks as he went along. At a certain point I knew it
was well under way; at another point it was about half done; and when he
began asking for guidance and protection for the President of the United
States, it was three-quarters over, and I felt like a shipwrecked
mariner sighting land. But even the longest prayers have an end, and
when this was through we were glad to stand up while they sang once
more. Then came the sermon, which was longer yet; but we did not feel
that we must sit quite so still as during the long prayer. First and
last I must have heard an endless number of the good old parson’s
sermons read in his solemn voice; but I cannot now remember a single
word of anyone I heard. After the sermon came singing and a short
prayer,—any prayer was short after what we had passed through,—then more
singing, and the final benediction, which to us children was always a
benediction of the most welcome kind.