The pews had
high backs, with narrow, uncushioned seats. The pulpit was high, - a
sort of theological fortification, - approached by wide, curving
flights of stairs on either side. Those who occupied the near seats
to the right and left of the pulpit had in front of them a blank
board partition, and could not by any possibility see the minister,
though they broke their necks backwards over their high coat-collars.
The congregation had a striking resemblance to a country New England
congregation of say twenty years ago. The clothes they wore had been
Sunday clothes for at least that length of time.
Such clothes have a look of I know not what devout and painful
respectability, that is in keeping with the worldly notion of rigid
Scotch Presbyterianism. One saw with pleasure the fresh and
rosy-cheeked children of this strict generation, but the women of the
audience were not in appearance different from newly arrived and
respectable Irish immigrants. They wore a white cap with long frills
over the forehead, and a black handkerchief thrown over it and
hanging down the neck, - a quaint and not unpleasing disguise.
The house, as I said, was crowded. It is the custom in this region
to go to church, - for whole families to go, even the smallest
children; and they not unfrequently walk six or seven miles to attend
the service.
