frequency of these
meetings, as a serious inroad upon the industry of the colony; but the
effort was resisted, and that successfully, by the elders, "alleging
their tenderness of the church's liberty, as if such a precedent might
enthrall them to the civil power, and as if it would cast a blemish
upon the elders, which would remain to posterity; that they should
need to be regulated by the civil magistrate, and also raise an ill
savor of the people's coldness, that would complain of much preaching,
&c, whereas liberty for the ordinances was the main end professed of
our coming hither." They were social beings, and loved stimulus like
the rest of mankind, and had no public amusements. These causes are
sufficient to account for the fondness for the weekly lecture; but if
to them be superadded the peculiarity of their civil and religious
polity, which inculcated an extraordinary affection for each other as
God's chosen people destined to communion, not here only, but forever;
and the isolation of their situation, cutting them off from
participation in the stirring events to which they had been
accustomed, we should wonder if they had not met frequently together.
The elders, jealous of their influence, showed in this instance, as
they did in others, a knowledge of human nature, superior to that of
the magistrates, and the latter were glad to retreat from the position
they had taken, "lest the people should break their bonds through
abuse of liberty," if the wholesome restraint exerted by the elders,
by means of the lectures, in order to retain the people in subjection
to the civil power, should be withdrawn.

As the Assistant walked on, he began to meet persons coming out of
their houses, in obedience to the invitation. There was the staid
citizen, whose sobriety bordered on sternness, with hair closely
cropped to avoid the "unloveliness of love-locks," covered with a
large flapped peaked hat, and arrayed in broad white band and
sad-colored garments, on whose arm leaned his wife, or walked
independently at his side, bearing on her head a hat of similar shape
to her husband's, or else having it protected with hood, or cap, or
coif; a white vandyke neckerchief falling over the shoulders, and
rising high in the neck; long-waisted bodice of velvet or silk, open
in front, and laced down to a point, on which was placed a rosette,
with voluminous fardingale of like material, gathered up in folds
behind, and supplying, though with