The Old Peabody Pew | Page 4

green-clad
hillocks that might, like their scriptural sisters, "skip with joy," and
there are grand, rocky hills tufted with gaunt pine trees--these leading
the eye to the splendid heights of a neighbour State, where
snow-crowned peaks tower in the blue distance, sweeping the horizon
in a long line of majesty.

Tory Hill holds its own among the others for peaceful beauty and fair
prospect, and on its broad, level summit sits the white- painted
Orthodox Meeting-House. This faces a grassy common where six roads
meet, as if the early settlers had determined that no one should lack
salvation because of a difficulty in reaching its visible source.
The old church has had a dignified and fruitful past, dating from that
day in 1761 when young Paul Coffin received his call to preach at a
stipend of fifty pounds sterling a year; answering "that never having
heard of any Uneasiness among the people about his Doctrine or
manner of life, he declared himself pleased to Settle as Soon as might
be Judged Convenient."
But that was a hundred and fifty years ago, and much has happened
since those simple, strenuous old days. The chastening hand of time has
been laid somewhat heavily on the town as well as on the church. Some
of her sons have marched to the wars and died on the field of honour;
some, seeking better fortunes, have gone westward; others, wearying of
village life, the rocky soil, and rigours of farm-work, have become
entangled in the noise and competition, the rush and strife, of cities.
When the sexton rings the bell nowadays, on a Sunday morning, it
seems to have lost some of its old-time militant strength, something of
its hope and courage; but it still rings, and although the Davids and
Solomons, the Matthews, Marks, and Pauls of former congregations
have left few descendants to perpetuate their labours, it will go on
ringing as long as there is a Tabitha, a Dorcas, a Lois, or a Eunice left
in the community.
This sentiment had been maintained for a quarter of a century, but it
was now especially strong, as the old Tory Hill Meeting-House had
been undergoing for several years more or less extensive repairs. In
point of fact, the still stronger word, "improvements," might be used
with impunity; though whenever the Dorcas Society, being female, and
therefore possessed of notions regarding comfort and beauty, suggested
any serious changes, the finance committees, which were inevitably
male in their composition, generally disapproved of making any
impious alterations in a tabernacle, chapel, temple, or any other

building used for purposes of worship. The majority in these august
bodies asserted that their ancestors had prayed and sung there for a
century and a quarter, and what was good enough for their ancestors
was entirely suitable for them. Besides, the community was becoming
less and less prosperous, and church-going was growing more and more
lamentably uncommon, so that even from a business standpoint, any
sums expended upon decoration by a poor and struggling parish would
be worse than wasted.
In the particular year under discussion in this story, the valiant and
progressive Mrs. Jeremiah Burbank was the president of the Dorcas
Society, and she remarked privately and publicly that if her ancestors
liked a smoky church, they had a perfect right to the enjoyment of it,
but that she didn't intend to sit through meeting on winter Sundays,
with her white ostrich feather turning grey and her eyes smarting and
watering, for the rest of her natural life.
Whereupon, this being in a business session, she then and there
proposed to her already hypnotized constituents ways of earning
enough money to build a new chimney on the other side of the church.
An awe-stricken community witnessed this beneficent act of vandalism,
and, finding that no thunderbolts of retribution descended from the
skies, greatly relished the change. If one or two aged persons
complained that they could not sleep as sweetly during sermon-time in
the now clear atmosphere of the church, and that the parson's eye was
keener than before, why, that was a mere detail, and could not be
avoided; what was the loss of a little sleep compared with the
discoloration of Mrs. Jere Burbank's white ostrich feather and the
smarting of Mrs. Jere Burbank's eyes?
A new furnace followed the new chimney, in due course, and as a sense
of comfort grew, there was opportunity to notice the lack of beauty.
Twice in sixty years had some well-to-do summer parishioner painted
the interior of the church at his own expense; but although the roof had
been many times reshingled, it had always persisted in leaking, so that
the ceiling and walls were disfigured by unsightly spots and stains and
streaks. The question of shingling was tacitly felt to be