p. 237 | Untitled article by Francis Hope

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · August 4, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 30

“A Breath of the Puritan.”

By Francis Hope

“THE Sabbath in Puritan New England,” is the title of a book by Mrs. Morse Earle which has just been published in London, England, and gives a very extended description of the kind of Sunday keeping to which many prominent divines are now desirous of returning. One of the most prominent features of the Puritan Sunday was the “tithing-man,” a gentleman who paced up and down the church armed with a long pole, one end of which was furnished with a heavy knob, the other with a fox-tail or hare’s foot. The hard end was for the benefit of male sleepers, the soft for female. When we remember that the customary length of the sermon was about three hours, though some of four or five hours long were not uncommon, it can readily be seen that this duty of the tithing-man was very necessary. Any man who resented being startled from his nap by the heavy blow of this official was soundly whipped and stigmatized as “a common sleeper at the public exercise.” The tithing-man also had to keep in order the boys. Outside the meeting-house he had charge of a large number of families, usually ten, hence his name, and was responsible for the children learning their catechism. He inspected the saloons. He entered private houses to assure himself that no one stayed at home on the “Sabbath,” and hustled up any loiterers. His business was also to see that no one fared too sumptuously (except the preachers); that young men and maidens did not spend too much time together, or do any courting Saturday nights. He was empowered to stop all Sunday work. He had to keep “a special eye out” on all bachelors, and make their lives as uncomfortable as possible, that they might protect themselves by a speedy marriage. He “warned people out of ye towne,” the “warned having henceforth no claim upon relief from the poor rates.” He also had to turn the hour glass on the minister’s desk; in fact, his time was taken up in performing the sundry acts of Puritan piety.

Many illustrations are given showing the absurd excess to which the Sunday laws were carried and enforced. In 1670 two lovers were punished for “sitting together on the Lord’s day under an apple tree in Goodman Chapman’s orchard.” A Dunstable soldier was fined forty shillings for putting a piece of an old felt hat in his shoe on the “Sabbath.” Captain Kemble, a prominent man of Boston, was in 1656 condemned to two hours in the public stocks, for “lewd and unseemly behavior,” which consisted in kissing his wife on the door-step, on his return from a three years’ voyage. An English sea captain was “soundly whipped” for a like offense. A man who had fallen into the water and absented himself from church to dry his only suit of clothes, was found guilty and “publicly whipped.” Smoking on Sunday was forbidden. To stay away from church meant cumulative pecuniary mulct. A severe flogging was inflicted on a man who dared say he was not profited by a certain preacher’s discourses. To criticise a sermon or the conduct of a minister meant church discipline and a heavy fine, and so forth.

And yet the most of these preachers were a most intemperate set. Even their ordination services were scenes of unseemly rowdy. An item from the journal of one reads: “Mr. L. was alert and kept us all merry. A jolly ordination. We lost all sight of decorum.” Not only were there “ordination banquets” but “ordination balls.” And at such feasts the most astonishing feature was the amount of “punch” that was put away.

An ordination feast is thus described by one who was present:—

There were six tables that held one with another eighteen persons each; upon each table a good rich plum pudding, a dish of boiled pork and fowls, a corn’d leg of pork with sauce proper for it, a leg of bacon, a leg of a la mode beef, a leg of mutton with caper sauce, a roast loin of veal, a roast turkey, a venison pastee, besides cheese cakes and tarts, cheese and butter. Half a dozen cooks were employed upon this occasion, and upwards of twenty tenders to wait upon the tables. They had the best of cider, one barrel of Lisbon wine, punch in plenty before and after dinner, made of old Barbados spirit. The cost of this moderate dinner was upwards of fifty pounds lawful money.

And yet there are those who are sighing for a return of the Puritan just because they enforced Sunday.

Hull, Eng. FRANCIS HOPE.