dark throughout the week, was hard for every one
to bear. In some of the early log-built meeting-houses, fur bags made of
wolfskins were nailed to the seats; and in winter church attendants
thrust their feet into them. Dogs, too, were permitted to enter the
meeting-house and lie on their masters' feet. Dog-whippers or
dog-pelters were appointed to control and expel them when they became
unruly or unbearable. Women and children usually carried foot-stoves,
which were little pierced metal boxes that stood on wooden legs, and
held hot coals. During the noon intermission the half-frozen church
attendants went to a neighboring house or tavern, or to a noon-house to
get warm. A noon-house or "Sabba-day house," as it was often called, was
a long low building built near the meeting-house, with horse-stalls at
one end and a chimney at the other. In it the farmers kept, says one
church record, "their duds and horses." A great fire of logs was built
there each Sunday, and before its cheerful blaze noonday luncheons of
brown bread, doughnuts, or gingerbread were eaten, and foot-stoves were
filled. Boys and girls were not permitted to indulge in idle talk in
those noon-houses, much less to play. Often two or three families built
a noon-house together, or the church built a "Society-house," and there
the children had a sermon read to them by a deacon during the "nooning";
sometimes the children had to explain aloud the notes they had taken
during the sermon in the morning. Thus they throve, as a minister wrote,
on the "Good Fare of brown Bread and the Gospel." There was no nearer
approach to a Sunday-school until this century.

The services were not shortened because the churches were uncomfortable.
By the side of the pulpit stood a brass-bound hour-glass which was
turned by the tithing-man or clerk, but it did not hasten the closing of
the sermon. Sermons two or three hours long were customary, and prayers
from one to two hours in length. When the first church in Woburn was
dedicated, the minister preached a sermon nearly five hours long. A
Dutch traveller recorded a prayer four hours long on a Fast Day. Many
prayers were two hours long. The doors were closed and watched by the
tithing-man, and none could leave even if tired or restless unless with
good excuse. The singing of the psalms was tedious and unmusical, just
as it was in churches of all denominations both in America and England
at that date. Singing was by ear and very unc