parish was expected to receive any clergyman sent them from England, a
rule which often proved unsatisfactory; and deservedly so, since some
very disreputable offshoots of English families were thrust upon the
Virginia churches. In the Carolinas, where the church chose its own
clergyman, harmony and affection prevailed in the parishes as it did
among the New England Puritans. Though the Virginians did not always
love their clergymen, still they were ever steadfast in their affection
to their church, and regarded it as the only church.

Sunday was not observed with as much rigidity in New Netherland as in
New England, but strict rules and laws were made for enforcing quiet
during service-time. Fishing, gathering berries or nuts, playing in the
streets, working, going on pleasure trips, all were forbidden. On Long
Island shooting of wild fowl, carting of grain, travelling for pleasure,
all were punished. In Revolutionary times a cage was set up in City Hall
Park, near the present New York Post-office, in which boys were confined
who did not properly regard the Sabbath.

Before the Dutch settlers had any churches or domines, as they called
their ministers, they had _krankbesoeckers_, or visitors of the sick,
who read sermons to an assembled congregation every Sunday. The first
church at Albany was much like the Plymouth fort, simply a blockhouse
with loop-holes through which guns could be fired. The roof was mounted
with three cannon. It had a seat for the magistrates and one for the
deacons, and a handsome octagonal pulpit which had been sent from
Holland, and which still exists. The edifice had a chandelier and candle
sconces and two low galleries. The first church in New Amsterdam was of
stone, and was seventy-two feet long.

A favorite form of the Dutch churches was six or eight sided, with a
high pyramidal roof, topped with a belfry and a weather-vane. Usually
the windows were so small and of glass so opaque that the church was
very dark. A few of the churches were poorly heated with high stoves
perched up on pillars, the Albany and Schenectady churches among them,
but all the women carried foot-stoves, and some of the men carried
muffs.

Almost as important as the domine was the _voorleezer_ or chorister, who
was also generally the bell-ringer, sexton, grave-digger, funeral
inviter, schoolmaster, and sometimes town clerk. He "tuned the psalm";
turned the hour-glass; gave out the psalms on a hanging board to the