USA > Connecticut > Colonial Days And Ways: As Gathered from Family Papers > Part 18
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Thursday, Friday, Saturday, the rain poured down upon the wheat-fields, of which more had been sown than ever before in the history of the township, owing to the country's pressing needs, and the crops per acre were greater than ever before, as the early part of the season had been favorable in that vicinity.
On Saturday, at sunset, the rain was still steadily descending, but on the Sunday morning the sun rose brilliantly. According to the creed of the weather-wise, any change in the weather that could be depended upon to last for more than twenty- four hours must take place in the daytime. It was plain to the dullest that another rain upon the wheat would leave it in a hopeless condition.
Yet, with few exceptions, the farmers all assem- bled at the meeting-house on the Sabbath morning, filled with gravest apprehensions concerning the fate of the precious wheat, and at the same time showing a grim determination to lose it, if needs must, rather than to do wrong.
The people usually mustered at the church a good while before the stated service time, while
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the parson was always punctual at the moment. On this day he was descried approaching the meet- ing-house at an even more rapid pace than usual, and a full half-hour earlier, and not accompanied by his family or near neighbors.
Hastily mounting the southern flight of exterior steps, and standing there, the parson announced that there would be no sermons preached by him that day. The wheat was in danger, and, in the great struggle in which they were engaged, wheat meant human lives. As the Sabbath was made for man, it was plain that to save lives on that day was a proper Sabbatical labor. He then, still standing at the top of the steps, offered a very short prayer, and dismissed the congregation with a benediction, and an exhortation to all who had no endangered wheat of their own to give their services to those who needed them most.
So numerous were the laborers, so well and rapidly did they all work, so briskly blew the dry- ing wind, and so hotly shone the harvest sun, that by the time the night dews had begun to gather the crop had been saved.
In this labor the women and even the children had borne their share ; for they could toss up the wet wheat-spears by forkfuls to catch the wind and sun as well as could the men. Very early in the morn- ing the parson had sent his household into his own fields, and had advised all of his near-by neighbors of his opinion in regard to the duty of the moment.
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His daughter Juliana, writing of this unwonted Sabbath-day employment, says:
" Papa, Mamma, Sister Betsey, Brothers Jack and Tommy and I all worked as hard as we could all day, not only in our wheat, but in that of Uncle Simeon and Uncle Paul after ours was all done."
Such an instance is worth recording, because it is by no means likely that it was the only one of its kind, though so much has been said about the ultra-strictness of the Puritans. They certainly did not approve of "needless labors or vain recre- ations on the Lord's Day," but I think it will be found that they believed in doing whatever was necessary to forward the undertakings which seemed righteous in their eyes on any day of the week.
CHAPTER XXIII
"WELL DONE, GOOD AND FAITHFUL"
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CHAPTER XXIII.
"WELL DONE, GOOD AND FAITHFUL."
The Meeting-house as a News Depot. A Season of Discourage- ment.
A Meeting-house of the Eighteenth Century. The News of Burgoyne's Surrender. A Half-century Sermon. Descendants.
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OROM the earliest days the meet- 0 0 F ing-house was the place to hear, and the minister was the person to announce, all political news of importance. During the Revo- lutionary War there was an ever-growing anx- iety to hear from the distant "front,"- so very distant it was in those days of toilsome com- munication !- and on Sunday mornings, fully an hour before service time, people would begin to gather around the meeting-house from every direction; for it was here, if anywhere, that private news from the army might be met. Opportunities for sending letters home were few ; but sometimes a packet might be received that had passed from hand to hand. A might have happened to be coming from the Army of the North down as far as Albany, and there have given the packet to B, who chanced to have business in Red Hook, at which place he found that C was going to Pough- keepsie, whence the latter's friend D might be called to go to Pleasant Valley, and there find E ready to convey the precious missive to the wait-
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ing friends in Sharon, who considered intelligence less than a fortnight old as fresh news.
In the autumn of 1777 it was many weeks since one of these rare bundles of letters from the North- ern army had reached Sharon. Sad to sternness were the faces which gathered about the high steps of the meeting-house on a certain bright October morning.
For a long time everything had seemed to be going against the revolting colonies. They had lost New York, Newport, Ticonderoga, and Phila- delphia, had suffered wasting defeats on Long Island and at Fort Washington, and been badly beaten at Brandywine and Germantown. To off- set these losses were only the victory at Trenton and the partial success at Princeton. The British controlled the Lower Hudson, and made destructive raids upon southern Connecticut, marking their course by the ashes of defenseless towns and the blood of non-combatants.
On the north the advance of Burgoyne had been nearly unchecked. On the west, in the State of New York, lay the notoriously Royalist county of Dutchess. Thus this part of western Connecticut seemed to lie between three fires, and, unprotected as it was left because nearly all its able-bodied men were in Gates's army, it had many and grave rea- sons for apprehension. When the eyes of one met those of another, there was an unuttered question in every glance.
While the near-by members of the congregation
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came on foot, probably most of those from a dis- tance arrived on horseback. The meeting-house itself I can delineate from the descriptions given me by my father, Robert Worthington Smith, who remembered it well, as it was not taken down until 1824, having been used for sixty-one years. The house was about eighty feet by sixty in dimensions, and stood about midway in the broad street, and nearly in front of the present edifice, upon a some- what steep pitch of rocks which has since been blasted away and filled in, so that only a gentle green slope remains.
The house had three doors of entrance, each reached by long flights of stairs on the north, east, and south sides. The greatest length of the meeting-house was from north to south, but the three main aisles, one quite broad and the other two narrower, ran from east to west, while short cross-aisles connected the north and south doors with the main side aisles. On the west side, reached by a flight of steps some sixteen feet in height, was the lofty pulpit, overhung by the cumbrous extinguisher-like sounding-board. The square pews were divided into three groups, the middle group being for families, that on the south side for maidens who had no family ties and did not belong to the choir, and for widows ; that on the north side was reserved for single men who did not sing. The front pews of the central group were considered the posts of honor.
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Around three sides of the building ran high gal- leries, the lower one opposite the pulpit containing the choir. Starting from the center of the choir, the bass and counter-singers tapered off toward the north side gallery, where sat the taller boys nearest the choir, and after them the smaller boys nearer to the pulpit. Starting again from the middle of the choir and going south, the "air " and " second " singers (wearing funny little close, white caps in- stead of the big bonnets, which were supposed to, and probably did, break the volume of the wearers' voices) shaded off by soft gradations to young girls who held hymn-books and tried to appear unconscious of the fact that there were boys (with eyes) in the opposite gallery. Over the first ran a second but narrower gallery, set apart, the one side for the male and the other for the female slaves.
Into the church which was built in 1824, near to the old one, stoves were immediately placed ; but in that in which Parson Smith preached no such comfort was known. This building was finished in 1768, and though there were no fireplaces, the danger of setting fire to their new church by means of the foot-stoves began immediately to exercise the minds of the church-members, and a fine of ten shillings was exacted for each foot-stove that might be carelessly left within the church after the hours of service.
At the last stroke of the bell, on a certain Sun- day of late October in 1777, a quick, emphatic
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footfall rang on the stone step leading from the ground to the southern entrance, and all in the building rose, not so much to show their deference to the pastor whom they all loved as to manifest their reverence to the ordained servant of their common Master. As the preacher came down the aisle he gravely and graciously acknowledged the bows and courtesies of the people in the pews. After ascending the stairs to the pulpit, he paused a moment to bow to the front, then to the right, and then to the left. This was the signal that all might now be seated, and in the general soft rustle that ensued the pastor waited with bowed head.
On this day both prayers and hymns seemed prophetic - at least, every person who told of it long after always said so. When the text was announced, "Watchman, what of the night? The watchman saith, The morning cometh," its last three words rang out with such a clarion tone that all present felt that this was to be "a field day with the Parson." Earnest sometimes to vehemence, gifted with a melodious and powerful voice, and glowing with natural eloquence, Mr. Smith's ser- mons never lacked originality and force, and on this day his flock thought him inspired as with faithful stroke he drew the picture of an oppressed people struggling for liberty against fearful odds. Tears coursed unrestrained down cheeks better accustomed to the touch of snow and wind, as the late reverses were recounted, until some of the
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older members began to wonder "what Parson could be thinking of, to discourage the people so ?" Then suddenly his tone changed. "Our weakness," he said, "is the Lord's opportunity. He has permitted our past humiliation that our sins might be punished and that He might show us that He is mighty to save. He has promised to succor those who look to Him for their help, and He is faithful who has promised." Then, kindling as with prophetic fire, his face glowing, his lithe form dilating and quivering with feel- ing, he triumphantly exclaimed :
" Behold ! the morning Now cometh. I see its beams already gilding the mountain tops. Its brightness is already bursting over all the land." He closed his Bible and stood with uplifted hand, while a silence, as of expectation, fell alike upon the preacher and his hearers. Then, during the solemn hush which preceded the benediction, could be dis- tinguished from afar the hasty clatter of a horseman dashing into the village from the north. Faces turn toward the doors, but not a whisper breaks the hush. All know that the sacred stillness of a New Eng- land Sabbath would not be thus broken without good reason. The eager horseman makes directly for the church. Hope is triumphant over fear, but with hope is mingled terror, and anxious eyes blaze out from blanched faces as the rider, springing from his horse, enters the church, his spurs clanking along the uncarpeted floor and up the pulpit stairs.
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The parson, his face flushing with the joy of a hope fulfilled, read only the three words, " Burgoyne has surrendered," and then burst into honorable tears. The next moment, calmed and solemn, he said, "Let us thank God for this great mercy." And moved by a common impulse, the whole congregation rose to the Puritan posture of prayer - the erect posture of the Ironsides, who prayed and fought and kept their powder dry; and stern and self-contained as they were, they thought it no shame to shed tears of thankfulness.
I have heard this story so often, not from those who had been present, of course, but from those whose parents had related it to them, that I can hardly realize that I, too, was not there to feel the haunting anxiety, the thrilling hope, the over- whelming joy of that glorious news.
The country parson's duties in colonial days embraced all that a similar charge now implies, and some that the modern minister knows nothing of. He was in all things expected to be the leader of his people. They looked to him for example in things political, social, and educational as well as in things theological, and it must in common justice be said that the pastor who failed to fulfil these expectations to the best of his ability was rarely found.
His duties were so many and so diverse that it was well that he had not also to contend with the rush, hurry, and consequent pressure of our own
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time. He had to work with hands as well as head, but he had not to compete with brilliant minds all over the continent whose Sunday utter- ances could be read at the Monday morning break- fast-tables of his deacons and elders, and compared with his own. Each pastor had the sick, the poor, the vicious, and the uncultured of his own small field to care for and struggle to bring to better circumstances and to higher ideals; but he did not have to concern himself about similar conditions and responsibilities all over the world; and if he did not seem to accomplish all that the same man would do in these days, he perhaps left a deeper impression on the minds of those among whom he lived and labored. The very long pastorates of that time would be almost a physical impossibility now.
There then existed no prejudice to long periods of candidacy. It was felt that the relation between pastor and flock should be, as it generally was, permanent, and should not be entered upon with- out due deliberation. Mr. Smith preached in Sharon as a candidate for more than a year, and was finally ordained pastor in August, 1755. In 1805 he preached his half-century sermon from the text: "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace : ... for mine eyes have seen thy salvation" (Luke ii. 29, 30).
After this Mr. Smith survived but little more than a year, dying in November, 1806. His greatly lamented wife had died six years before
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while in Albany, visiting her daughter, Mrs. Radcliff.
Thomas, the elder son of the Rev. and Mrs. Cotton Mather Smith, died at the age of nineteen. Elizabeth, their eldest daughter, married Dr. Lem- uel Wheeler, a surgeon at one time attached to General Washington's command, and afterward practising at Red Hook, now Tivoli, New York. Mrs. Wheeler left two daughters, one of whom became the wife of the Hon. John Davenport of New Haven, Connecticut, and the other was mar- ried to Mr. Hubert Van Waganen of Poughkeep- sie, New York.
The youngest daughter, Mary, married the Rev. Daniel Smith, for many years the pastor of the Congregational Church of Stamford, Connecticut. Years after the latter's decease it was discovered that he also was descended from the Rev. Henry Smith of Wethersfield. She left a son and daugh- ter. The first became the Rev. Thomas Mather Smith, for many years the head of the Theological Seminary at Gambier, Ohio. He was father of the Rev. John Cotton Smith, D.D., for more than twenty years the much-loved rector of the Church of the Ascension in New York city, dying in 1882. The sister of the Rev. T. M. Smith married Milo L. North, M.D., an eminent physician of Hartford, Connecticut, and Saratoga, New York.
Juliana, the diarist to whom we are so much in- debted, married, as before stated, the Hon. Jacob
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Radcliff, a member of the Supreme Court of Judi- cature of the State of New York, and for three terms mayor of New York city. Mrs. Radcliff died in 1823, leaving two daughters. The elder of these, Maria, married Mr. W. Tillman of Troy, New York, while the younger, Julia, married an English gentleman named Spencer, who settled in Eliza- beth, New Jersey.
From all of Parson Smith's three daughters have descended noble, strong, and sweet men and women. The only one of his sons who survived to an adult age was John Cotton Smith, who early entered political life and left it only with the disruption of the Federal party, to which he was attached. He was the last Federal governor of his State, retiring in 1817-"the most popular man of an unpopular party," says S. G. Goodrich, in his " Recollections." The correspondence be- tween Parson Smith and this son, extending at intervals from 1779 to 1806, is a beautiful record of paternal and filial affection. From those closely written foolscap sheets of coarse but excellent linen paper have been gleaned many of the facts relating to domestic life which have been inserted in these pages.
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