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 98the 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 99in 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 100pilgrims 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 103methodist 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 104wash 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 105just 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 106on 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 107run 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.
