ore he began his
professional studies. His parents wished him to become a minister, but
he had no taste for theology, and selected the profession of law.

At that period there were few eminent lawyers in New England, nor was
there much need of them, their main business being the collection of
debts. They were scarcely politicians, since few political questions
were agitated outside of parish disputes. Nor had lawyers opportunities
of making fortunes when there were no merchant-princes, no grinding
monopolies or large corporations, and no great interest outside of
agricultural life; when riches were about equally distributed among
farmers, mechanics, sailors, and small traders. Young men contemplating
a profession generally studied privately with those who were prominent
in their respective callings for two or three years after leaving
college, and were easily admitted to the bar, or obtained a license to
preach, with little expectation of ever becoming rich except by
parsimonious saving.

With our modern views, life in Colonial times naturally seems to have
been dull and monotonous, with few amusements and almost no travel, no
art, not many luxuries, and the utter absence of what are called
"modern improvements." But if life at that time is more closely
scrutinized we find in it all the elements of ordinary pleasure,--the
same family ties, the same "loves and wassellings," the same convivial
circles, the same aspirations for distinction, as in more favored
civilizations. If luxuries were limited, people lived in comfortable
houses, sat around their big wood-fires, kept up at small cost, and had
all the necessities of life,--warm clothing, even if spun and woven and
dyed at home, linen in abundance, fresh meat at most seasons of the
year, with the unstinted products of the farm at all seasons, and even
tea and coffee, wines and spirits, at moderate cost; so that the New
Englanders of the eighteenth century could look back with complacency
and gratitude on the days when the Pilgrim Fathers first landed and
settled in the dreary wilderness, feeling that the "lines had fallen to
them in pleasant places," and yet be unmindful that even the original
settlers, with all their discomforts and dangers and privations, enjoyed
that inward peace and lofty spiritual life in comparison with which all
material luxuries are transient and worthless. It is only the divine
certitudes, which can exist under any external circumstances, that