the pew-owner painted in large white letters. They were secured when
closed by clumsy wooden buttons. In many country congregations the elderly
men--stiff old farmers--had a fashion of standing up in the middle of the
sermon to stretch their cramped limbs, and they would lean against and hang
over the pew door and stare up and down the aisle. In Andover, Vermont,
old Deacon Puffer never let a summer Sunday pass without thus resting and
diverting himself. One day, having ill-secured the wooden button at the
door of his pew, the leaning-place gave way under his weight, and out he
sprawled on all-fours, with a loud clatter, into the middle of the aisle,
to the amusement of the children, and the mortification of his wife.

Thus it may be seen, as an old autobiography phrases it, "diversions was
frequent in meeting, and the more duller the sermon, the more likely it was
that some accident or mischief would be done to help to pass the time."




V.

Seating the Meeting.



Perhaps no duty was more important and more difficult of satisfactory
performance in the church work in early New England than "seating the
meeting-house." Our Puritan forefathers, though bitterly denouncing all
forms and ceremonies, were great respecters of persons; and in nothing was
the regard for wealth and position more fully shown than in designating the
seat in which each person should sit during public worship. A committee of