surmounted it.

Although these localities had become wastes, still the ruins of the famous mansion, were peopled to my imagination, which was already kindled by frequent stories of the almost regal position of the owner of the estate, and of his sumptuous feasts, in the preparation of the last of which, the elegant mansion was destroyed.

One of my recreations was to ring the evening bell of old Trinity. The sexton, Mr. Uriah Gordon, became so satisfied with my expertness in ringing, that he trusted me with the keys of the gate and the church porch. I was vain enough to believe, that no one but myself could, with so few pulls at the rope, 66 SET the bell, and bring out its loudest tones. pleasant, I confess, walking among the graves; and it tried my courage, as I was only a lad, to lay the ghosts which fear set in my path.

It was not very

It is fit, having described the scenes of my childhood and the incidents of my school life, to appropriate a chapter to churches and ministers.

CHAPTER V.

MEETING-HOUSES, CHURCHES, MINISTERS.

"There stands the messenger of truth. There stands
The legate of the skies. His theme divine,
His office sacred, his credentials clear.

By him the violated law speaks out

Its thunders; and by him, in strains as sweet
As angels use, the gospel whispers peace."

HEN I was young, it was considered by

WE

Congregationalists, Baptists, &c., a concession to Romanism to call places of worship "churches." I had supposed, after a long absence from Newport, that, on my return to old scenes, I should hardly find Puritan prejudices still in full force. It was ordered, however, that I should be disappointed. Being desirous of examining the church where I received my earliest religious impressions, viz., the Second Congregational, under the pastoral care of Rev. William Pattin, the successor of Rev. Ezra Stiles, of Connecticut, I called at a house in Clarke Street, where the old sanctuary still remained, and asked of an old lady to lend me the keys of the CHURCH.

I

was answered, with some appearance of ill feeling, that they were not the keepers of church keys. Upon this announcement, I expressed some regret, as I wished very much to sit once more in the old pew where I had listened for so many years to Mr. Pattin's exhortations. "Oh!” I received for answer, "we have the MEETINGHOUSE keys: we have nothing to do with ZION CHURCH." The keys were withheld until I repeated "meeting-house," when my wish was granted.

Reader, please accompany me to the place where in my boyhood, instead of drinking the simple and pure milk of the word, I was fed on strong meat, exceedingly dry and hard of digestion; and hence I became morally dyspeptic. Of this I was not aware, until healthier spiritual food revealed my almost chronic disease of hardness of heart. It was not because of any thing peculiar in the views presented by the pastor; for, at the time, the then accredited doctrines of Christianity were, with a few exceptions, one and the same in all the churches; but because of my teacher's abstruse way of stating his religious convictions. The church, or, more prop

erly speaking, the meeting-house, lacking in every thing deserving the name of architectural order, proportion, or convenience, without form or comeliness, was cold as the north pole in winter, and at fever-heat in summer. The windows, which clattered violently when there was any wind, and which a few coppers' worth of wood would have choked into silence, constituted the bassoon accompaniment to Mr. Yeoman's pitch-pipe in the choir. Fire was deemed an element utterly irreconcilable with devotion in our meetinghouse. With the thermometer at zero, how could the minister, by no means a warm-blooded man, be expected to inflame the souls of his hearers with spiritual caloric? In the coldest weather, he was muffled to the chin. The softer sex had foot-stoves; but the live coals in these, when kindled at home, were nearly dead before being placed at the head of the pew. The boys, poor fellows! were to be pitied, in their wellworn short jackets, and thin overcoats, hardly reaching to their knees, with trousers, but no drawers (an article almost unknown), with very short socks, and shoes of poor leather, porous enough to absorb the snow and rain. Boots

were a great luxury, and India-rubbers were unheard of.

The singing, notwithstanding the pains taken to instruct in the art, was execrable, although I took part in it! At one time, the choir did what choirs are apt to do, - went off in a huff. Discord ran riot the next Sunday. The scene was at the same time ludicrous and painful. Four of the congregation, with the leader already referred to, volunteered as a quintette to "carry the singing." There were two bass voices, one tenor, and two treble. If they had started, and kept together to the end of each verse, the music might have been pleasing. But no: they had been in the habit of singing Lenox, Worcester, Bridgewater, and a hundred other fugue tunes, in which one part runs a race after another, fearful of not winding up together on the last syllable. But the most disagreeable feature of the performance was the thinness of the tones, owing to the singers sitting in their separate pews, which happened to be at the cardinal points of the compass.

It was common for many who did not relish the minister's dry, expository lectures upon the