Sabbath in Puritan New England. Alice Morse Earle

not go to any other seat where others are placed: And if any one of the inhabitants shall act contrary, he shall for the first offence be reproved by the deacons, and for a second pay a fine of two shillings, and a like fine for each offence ever after." Or this of the Stratham church: "When the comety have Seatid the meeting-house every person that is Seatid shall set in those Seats or pay Five Shillings Pir Day for every day they set out of There seats in a Disorderly Manner to advance themselves Higher in the meeting-house." These two church-laws were very lenient. In many towns the punishments and fines were much more severe. Two men of Newbury were in 1669 fined £27 4s. each for "disorderly going and setting in seats belonging to others." They were dissatisfied with the seats assigned to them by the seating committee, and openly and defiantly rebelled. Other and more peaceable citizens "entred their Decents" to the first decision of the committee and asked for reconsideration of their special cases and for promotion to a higher pew before the final orders were "Jsued."

      In all the Puritan meetings, as then and now in Quaker meetings, the men sat on one side of the meeting-house and the women on the other; and they entered by separate doors. It was a great and much-contested change when men and women were ordered to sit together "promiscuoslie." In front, on either side of the pulpit (or very rarely in the foremost row in the gallery), was a seat of highest dignity, known as the "foreseat," in which only the persons of greatest importance in the community sat.

      Sometimes a row of square pews was built on three sides of the ground floor, and each pew occupied by separate families, while the pulpit was on the fourth side. If any man wished such a private pew for himself and family, he obtained permission from the church and town, and built it at his own expense. Immediately in front of the pulpit was either a long seat or a square inclosed pew for the deacons, who sat facing the congregation. This was usually a foot or two above the level of the other pews, and was reached by two or three steep, narrow steps. On a still higher plane was a pew for the ruling elders, when ruling elders there were. The magistrates also had a pew for their special use. What we now deem the best seats, those in the middle of the church, were in olden times the free seats.

      Usually, on one side of the pulpit was a square pew for the minister's family. When there were twenty-six children in the family, as at least one New England parson could boast, and when ministers' families of twelve or fourteen children were far from unusual, it is no wonder that we find frequent votes to "inlarge the ministers wives pew the breadth of the alley," or to "take in the next pue to the ministers wives pue into her pue." The seats in the gallery were universally regarded in the early churches as the most exalted, in every sense, in the house, with the exception, of course, of the dignity-bearing foreseat and the few private pews.

      It is easy to comprehend what a source of disappointed anticipation, heart-burning jealousy, offended dignity, unseemly pride, and bitter quarrelling this method of assigning scats, and ranking thereby, must have been in those little communities. How the goodwivcs must have hated the seating committee! Though it was expressly ordered, when the committee rendered their decision, that "the inhabitants are to rest silent and sett down satysfyed," who can still the tongue of an envious woman or an insulted man? Though they were Puritans, they were first of all men and women, and complaints and revolts were frequent. Judge Sewall records that one indignant dame "treated Captain Osgood very roughly on account of seating the meeting-house." To her the difference between a seat in the first and one in the second row was immeasurably great. It was not alone the Scribes and Pharisees who desired the highest seats in the synagogue.

      It was found necessary at a very early date to "dignify the meeting," which was to make certain seats, though in different localities, equal in dignity; thus could peace and contented pride be partially restored. For instance, the seating committee in the Sutton church used their "best discresing," and voted that "the third seat below be equal in dignity with the foreseat in the front gallery, and the fourth seat below be equal in dignity with the foreseat in the side gallery," etc., thus making many seats of equal honor. Of course wives had to have seats of equal importance with those of their husbands, and each widow retained the dignity apportioned to her in her husband's lifetime. We can well believe that much "discresing" was necessary in dignifying as well as in seating. Often, after building a new meeting-house with all the painstaking and thoughtful judgment that could be shown, the dissensions over the seating lasted for years. The conciliatory fashion of "dignifying the seats" clung long in the Congregational churches of New England. In East Hartford and Windsor it was not abandoned until 1824.

      Many men were unwilling to serve on these seating committees, and refused to "medle with the seating," protesting against it on account of the odium that was incurred, but they were seldom "let off." Even so influential and upright a man as Judge Sewall felt a dread of the responsibility and of the personal spleen he might arouse. He also feared in one case lest his seat-decisions might, if disliked, work against the ministerial peace of his son, who had been recently ordained as pastor of the church. Sometimes the difficulty was settled in this way: the entire church (or rather the male members) voted who should occupy the foreseat, or the highest pew, and the voted-in occupants of this seat of honor formed a committee, who in turn seated the others of the congregation.

      In the town of Rowley, "age, office, and the amount paid toward building the meeting-house were considered when assigning seats." Other towns had very amusing and minute rules for seating. Each year of the age counted one degree. Military service counted eight degrees. The magistrate's office counted ten degrees. Every forty shillings paid in on the church rate counted one degree. We can imagine the ambitious Puritan adding up his degrees, and paying in forty shillings more in order to sit one seat above his neighbor who was a year or two older.

      In Pittsfield, as early as the year 1765, the pews were sold by "vandoo" to the highest bidder, in order to stop the unceasing quarrels over the seating. In Windham, Connecticut, in 1762, the adoption of this pacificatory measure only increased the dissension when it was discovered that some miserable "bachelors who never paid for more than one head and a horse" had bid in several of the best pews in the meeting-house. In New London, two women, sisters-in-law, were seated side by side. Each claimed the upper or more dignified seat, and they quarrelled so fiercely over the occupation of it that they had to be brought before the town meeting.

      In no way could honor and respect be shown more satisfactorily in the community than by the seat assigned in meeting. When Judge Sewall married his second wife, he writes with much pride: "Mr. Oliver in the names of the Overseers invites my Wife to sit in the foreseat. I thought to have brought her into my pue. I thankt him and the Overseers." His wife died in a few months, and he reproached himself for his pride in this honor, and left the seat which he had in the men's foreseat. "God in his holy Sovereignty put my wife out of the Fore Seat. I apprehended I had Cause to be ashamed of my Sin and loath myself for it, and retired into my Pue," which was of course less dignified than the foreseat.

      Often, in thriving communities, the "pues" and benches did not afford seating room enough for the large number who wished to attend public worship, and complaints were frequent that many were "obliged to sit squeased on the stairs." Persons were allowed to bring chairs and stools into the meeting-house, and place them in the "alleys." These extra seats became often such encumbering nuisances that in many towns laws were passed abolishing and excluding them, or, as in Hadley, ordering them "back of the women's seats." In 1759 it was ordered in that town to "clear the Alleys of the meeting-house of chairs and other Incumbrances." Where the chairless people went is not told; perhaps they sat in the doorway, or, in the summer time, listened outside the windows. One forward citizen of Hardwicke had gradually moved his chair down the church alley, step by step, Sunday after Sunday, from one position of dignity to another still higher, until at last he boldly invaded the deacons' seat. When, in the year 1700, this honored position was forbidden him, in his chagrin and mortification he committed suicide by hanging.

      The young men sat together in rows, and the young women in corresponding seats on the other side of the house. In 1677 the selectmen of Newbury gave permission to a few young women to build a pew in the gallery. It is impossible to understand why this should have roused the indignation of the bachelors of the town, but they were excited and angered to such a pitch that they broke a window, invaded the meeting-house, and "broke the pue in pessis." For this sacrilegious act they were fined £10 each, and sentenced to be whipped or pilloried.