2l8
��MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN HOPKINTON.
��the conveyances often only the loco- motary means of nature.
In olden times in this vicinity, though people had the instinct of personal adornment the same as now, they often lacked the means of gratifying it. Extra articles of dress were so rare that peo- ple frequently walked to church in their daily accustomed garb, or trod the Sunday path with a most scrupulous care for their extra wardrobe. Women sometimes carried the skirts of their Sunday dresses on their arms till they arrived near or at the church door, when they let' them fall. The Sunday shoes were often carried in the hand till the journey to meeting was nearly ended, when they were put on for en- trance to the sanctuary. Present read- ers can comprehend the necessity of such care, when they reflect that in the olden time the price of a week's work of a woman was only equivalent to a yard of cloth, or a pair of shoes.
Church services in the former days were long, and savored of dogmatic the- ology. The principal prayer was much longer than the present average ser- mon, and the discourse proportionally extended. Such prolonged services were conducted in winter, at first, with- out the favor of any artificial warmth. In contemplating the situation of the worshipers in those old wintry days, the bleakness of the characteristic meeting- house of the times is to be taken into account. In the old Baptist church was an open aperture in an upper wall, where the crows have been known to perch while worship was in progress. The advent of foot-stoves gave much relief to the chilly congregations of earlier times, and the introduction of extremer experiences of the wintry the general heater put an end to the Sunday.
The representative minister of the olden time was a person of eminent scholarly culture and gentlemanly bear- ing. A thorough scholar and rhetori- cian, his Hjscourses were framed with strict regard to the logical sequences of his subject. The numerical divisions of his theme often carried him among units of the second order ; firstly, sec-
��ondly, and thirdly were only prelimina- ry to thirteenthly, fourteenthly, and fif- teenthly ; the grand category of predi- cations was terminated by a "conclu- sion." In his loftier intellectual schemes, he sometimes elaborated whole volumes of disquisitional matter. Rev. Ethan Smith, third minister in the town, was the author of several profound theological treatises. There was a dig- nity and austerity of manner pertaining to the characteristic primative clergy- man that made him a pattern of per- sonified seriousness. His grave de- meanor on his parochial rounds, when he spoke directly upon the obligations of personal religion, made his presence in the household a suggestion of pro- found respect and awe. He impressed his personality upon the receptive so- cial element of his parish. The dea- cons became only minor pastors, and the whole congregation of believers ex- pressed in subdued form the character of the shepherd of the flock.*
The support of a "learned and or- thodox minister" was implied in the original grant of this township. In the strict construction of the text of the original compact, "orthodoxy" meant Calvinistic Congregationalism. The disturbed condition of the early settle- ment prevented the establishment of a permanent local pastorate till 1757. On the 8th of September of that year, it was voted to settle the Rev. James Scales, and that he should be ordained on the 23d of the following November. His salary was to be sixty Spanish milled dollars, or their equivalent in paper bills, a year. When the town became incorporated in 1 765, the formal acknowledgment of Mr. Scales as legal pastor was renewed, it being the 4th of March, and his salary was named at
£*3> IOS -
""The austere influence of religion upon society in the olden time was attested by the legal strictures upon traveling, idling, etc.. on Sunday, of which conduct the tything-men were to take cognizance. Tything-men were chosen in this town as late as 1843, when Charles Barton, Sam- uel Frazief and Daniel Chase were select- ed. The law requiring such choice had even then become virtually a dead letter.
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