thing to be tolerated, except in cases of utter necessity. People who stayed away were hunted up by the tithingmen;* for one needless absence they were to be fined; for such absence persisted in four weeks, they were to be set in the stocks' or lodged in a wooden cage. Within the meetinghouse the entire congregation, but especially the boys, were vigilantly guarded by the town constables, each one being armed with a rod, at one end of which was a hare's foot, and at the other end a hare's tail. This weapon they wielded with justice tempered 10 by gallantry; if a woman fell asleep, it was enough to tingle her face gently with the bushy end of the rod; but if the sleeper were a boy, he was vigorously thumped awake by the hard end of it.

15

In the presence of God and his appointed ministers, it was not for man to be impatient; and the modern frailty that clamors for short prayers and short sermons had not invaded their sanctuaries or even their thoughts. When they came to church, they settled themselves down to a regular religious siege, which was expected 20 to last from three to five hours. Upon the pulpit stood an hourglass; and as the sacred service of prayer and psalm and sermon moved ruthlessly forward, it was the duty of the sexton to go up hour by hour and turn the glass over. The prayers were of course extemporane-25 ous; and in that solemn act, the gift of long continuance was successfully cultivated; the preacher, rising into raptures of devotion and storming heaven with volleys of petitionary syllogism, could hardly be required to take much note of the hourglass. "Mr. Torrey stood 30 up and prayed near two hours," writes a Harvard student in the seventeenth century; "but the time obliged him to close, to our regret; and we could have gladly heard him an hour longer." Their sermons were of sim

6

5

ilar longitude, and were evidently exhaustive-except of the desire of the people to hear more.

In his theme, in his audience, in the appointments of each sacred occasion, the preacher had everything to stimulate him to put into his sermons his utmost intellectual force. The entire community were present, constituting a congregation hardly to be equaled now for its high average of critical intelligence; trained to acute and rugged thinking by their habit of grappling day by day with the most difficult problems in theology; fond 10 of metaphysical distinctions; fond of system, minuteness, and completeness of treatment; not bringing to church any moods of listlessness or flippancy; not expecting to find there mental diversion, or mental repose; but going there with their minds aroused for strenuous 15 and robust work, and demanding from the preacher solid thought, not gushes of sentiment, not torrents of eloquent sound. Then, too, there was time enough for the preacher to move upon his subject carefully, and to turn himself about in it, and to develop the resources of it 20 amply, to his mind's content, hour by hour, in perfect assurance that his congregation would not desert him either by going out or by going to sleep....

5

If the methods of the preacher resembled those of a theological professor, it may be added that his congre-25 gation likewise had the appearance of an assemblage of theological students; since it was customary for nearly every one to bring his notebook to church, and to write in it diligently as much of the sermon as he could take down. They had no newspapers, no thea-30 ters, no miscellaneous lectures, no entertainments of secular music or of secular oratory, none of the genial distractions of our modern life; the place of all these was filled by the sermon. The sermon was without a

competitor in the eye or mind of the community. It was the central and commanding incident in their lives; the one stately spectacle for all men and all women year after year; the grandest matter of anticipation or of memory; the theme for hot disputes on which all. New England would take sides, and which would seem sometimes to shake the world to its center.

Thus were the preachers held to a high standard of intellectual work. Hardly anything was lacking that could incite a strong man to do his best continually, to 10 the end of his days; and into the function of preaching, the supreme function at that time in popular homage and influence, the strongest men were drawn. Their pastorships were usually for life; and no man could long satisfy such listeners, or fail soon to talk himself 15 empty in their presence, who did not toil mightily in reading and in thinking, pouring ideas into his mind even faster than he poured them out.

XVI.

RESOLUTIONS.

BY JONATHAN EDWARDS.*

1. Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God and my own good, profit, and 20 pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence.

2. Resolved, To do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in 25 general.

3. Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can. 4. Resolved, To live with all my might while I do live. 5. Resolved, Never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.

6. Resolved, To be endeavoring to find out fit objects of liberality and charity.

7. Resolved, Never to do anything out of revenge.

8. Resolved, Never to suffer the least motions of anger towards irrational beings.

9. Resolved, Never to speak evil of any one so that it shall tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.

10. Resolved, That I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.

3

11. Resolved, To live so at all times, as I think is best in my most devout frames, and when I have the clearest notions of the things of the gospel and another world. 12. Resolved, To maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.

13. Resolved, Never to do anything which, if I should see in another, I should count a just occasion to despise him for, or to think any way the more meanly of him.

14. Resolved, To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently as that I may find, and plainly 2 perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.

15. Resolved, Never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession which I cannot hope God will accept.

16. Resolved, Never to say anything at all against anybody, but when it is perfectly agreeable to the highest degree of Christian honor, and of love to man

10

20

25

30

kind, agreeable to the lowest humility and sense of my own faults and failings, and agreeable to the golden rule;* often, when I have said anything against any one, to bring it to, and try it strictly by, the test of this resolution.

17. Resolved, In narrations, never to speak anything but the pure and simple verity.

18. Resolved, Never to speak evil of any, except I have some particular good call to it.

19. Resolved, To inquire every night, as I am going 10 to bed, wherein I have been negligent—what sin I have committed-and wherein I have denied myself; also, at the end of every week, month, and year.

20. Resolved, Never to do anything of which I so much question the lawfulness as that I intend, at the same time, to consider and examine afterwards whether it be lawful or not; unless I as much question the lawfulness of the omission.

21. Resolved, To inquire every night, before I go to bed, whether I have acted in the best way I possibly could with respect to eating and drinking.

20

22. Resolved, Never to allow the least measure of any fretting or uneasiness at my father and mother. Resolved, to suffer no effects of it, so much as in the least alteration of speech, or motion of my eye; and to be 25 especially careful of it with respect to any of our family.

23. On the supposition that there never was to be but one individual in the world, at any one time, who was properly a complete Christian, in all respects of a right stamp, having Christianity always shining in its 30 true luster, and appearing excellent and lovely, from whatever part and under whatever character viewed: Resolved, to act just as I would do if I strove with all my might to be that one, who should live in my time.