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These Scotch-Irish were
strictly and stubbornly conservative in all matters of religion, as they
were, in fact, in regard to all things. They gave heed to the apostolic
counsel to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the
saints. They had no welcome for new doctrines in theology, new forms of
worship, or new institutions and agencies in the Church. They believed
that the Lord knew what He was doing when he appointed the ordinances and
agencies of the Church, and that there was no call for amending them by
human additions. They spoke much of the pattern prescribed in the Mount,
and every new proposal they instantly met with the peremptory challenge, —
"Where is your warrant in holy scripture? Show us that if you can; if you
cannot, then begone." Hence, in the earliest days, not only woman's
societies, young people's societies, and the like, but even sabbath-schools
and stated prayer-meetings, were unknown. It was not because the people
had not thought of these things; it was because they did not believe in
them. They found no warrant in holy scripture for such special agencies.
They asked, "Where has the Lord authorized these as among the stated means
of grace?" In our time we attach great importance to these and the like
agencies, and very properly, but it is worthy of remark that for
nine-tenths of its history Christianity has made no use of these agencies,
and that the greatest revivals in the history of the Christian Church, and
the epochs of its greatest power were in times when the greater part of
the machinery of the modern Church was unknown.
Our fathers laid most
urgent and insistent emphasis on the religious training of the household,
on the strict and searching care of the pastor, and on the prescribed
ordinances of the Church. These they regarded as divinely warranted and
all-sufficient, and all further ordinances as merely human innovations,
worldly amendments, and cunningly contrived schemes to improve on God's
plan. Undoubtedly this was good for the time, but whether it is best for
our time, is another question. Many of our wisest pastors and people are
now inquiring whether this prodigious multiplication of all sorts of
agencies and societies in the Church is, upon the whole, a blessing and a
help in the advancement of the kingdom of God? Whether it may not be true
that too much of the interest, enthusiasm, activity and money of the
Church is expended in the mere running of machinery? Whether all these
agencies are provided for in the constitution of the Church as prepared by
her Divine Head, as they certainly are not provided for in any of the
standards or liturgies of any of the great Reformed Communions? Whether
the modern Church is wiser than the fathers, and wiser than the
scriptures, and whether all these multiform agencies are not the product
of the Zeitgeist, the spirit of this world invading the kingdom of God?
This is not a foolish inquiry. This modern mill doubtless turns out a
larger grist; it may be a question whether the grist is of equal quality
and value. No doubt our fathers erred in one direction: perhaps we err in
the other. Sabbath-schools were very grudgingly introduced in southwestern
Pennsylvania, and elsewhere among the genuine Scotch-Irish people.
They were looked upon at
first as simply a device for turning over to the Church the responsibility
which God had placed on the home, and on the head of it as the priest of
his household. They thought it was a scheme to realize in the Church
Plato's theory, that all children should be considered children of the
state, and that no mother should know her own child as specially her own,
and for whose training she was specially responsible. Perhaps these
Sabbath-schools among the Scotch-Irish were introduced in southwestern
Pennsylvania as early as anywhere, and in Upper Buffalo as early as
anywhere in that region. So far as can be ascertained, the first
Sabbath-school in that congregation was set up in 1815. By degrees, these
Sabbath-schools grew in favor, and now for a great many years, no part of
the country has exceeded that part in zeal for Sabbath-schools. As soon as
these were fairly introduced, the old-fashioned "catechisings" began to
dwindle. These "catechisings" were a rather peculiar institution, but one
in great vogue for many years. The extended rural congregation was divided
into definite districts. In addition to diligent pastoral visitation from
house to house throughout the entire congregation, which visitation did
not mean a modern fashionable call, but a calling together of the whole
family, when the pastor talked face to face with every member of the
family, including hired people, accompanied with solemn prayer and
exhortation, — in addition to this, in each district there was held at
stated intervals, as often as once a year, "catechisings," when the people
of the district assembled in some designated house, where the pastor held
a religious service, included in which was a thorough examination of all
present in the Shorter Catechism. Now, the Sabbath-school gradually
superseded this wholesome custom, and the catechising, and much else, was
turned over to the Sabbath-school. The gain on the one hand, and the loss
on the other, presents a question on which wise and good people may
differ.
From a very early date,
probably from the beginning of the settlements, neighbors were accustomed
to meet together for prayer at stated times. These meetings were purely
voluntary, and were not thought of as ordinances of the Church. Such
meetings were held in Buffalo certainly as early as 1794, as I have heard
my grandfather say that when his father moved into that community in that
year, he attended a meeting of neighbors for prayer, and that it was there
that his prejudice against Watts hymns was removed. These hymns were used,
and he said, "If this is not worship acceptable to God, I do not know what
is." These neighborhood meetings were continued once a week, or once in
two weeks for many years before stated prayer-meetings became an
institution of the Church. Doctor Francis Herron, so long pastor of the
First Church of Pittsburgh, had a great battle with his elders when he
proposed to set up a weekly prayer-meeting. These elders resisted the
proposal as an innovation and an impertinence, and refused to have
anything to do with them. For a long time these weekly meetings were
regarded as social gatherings for prayer and conference, and in no sense
as an integral part of the authorized services of the Church. Hence they
were always called "societies." The voice of no woman was ever heard in
either remark or prayer in any such meeting. Any attempt of any woman,
however pious, to speak or pray would have been instantly and sternly
suppressed. Very rarely did any layman open his mouth to speak or exhort
except in the Sabbath-school. Our fathers were, in fact, very high
churchmen, and had very strict ideas concerning ordinances and the
authorized ministry of the Church. Everything must be strictly canonical,
and according to the prescribed order. The supervision of the people by
the pastor and session was vigilant, and discipline was strictly enforced.
Compared with our modern laxity, the old-time discipline seems often to
have been needlessly severe, harsh, and sometimes even cruel. People were
hauled up and "sessioned" for offences which now are not even seriously
thought of. I have myself heard the names of ladies of the first standing
in the congregation, read out from the pulpit, and the bearers of them
suspended from the communion of the Church, until they gave satisfactory
evidence of repentance, for the sin of "promiscuous dancing;" such dancing
being in its most rudimentary form, some sort of awkward jig in a private
parlor with a few neighbors.
And this was no idle form.
It meant not only religious, but a sort of social ostracism. A playing
card was regarded with horror, and the use, or even the possession of such
a thing, was a serious offence. I have known my own father, one of the
gentlest of men, seize a pack of cards found in the hands of a hired man,
and forthwith fling it into the flames. And yet, in those early days there
were some remarkable twists in their ethical ideas. The use of liquor was
almost universal, and they seem to have been utterly blind to the evil of
lotteries. The people of the old First Church of Pittsburgh, while they
resisted the setting up of a weekly prayer-meeting, organized and carried
through a lottery to raise revenue for their church.
Divorce was practically
unknown. If husband and wife had a quarrel, however bitter, it never
occurred to them to seek relief in the divorce court. They fought it out
and made up again, and went on as before. But such quarrels were extremely
rare, and family loyalty was a marked characteristic of the race. All the
same, the women had hard lives. And this, not from any intentional neglect
or unkindness of their husbands; but simply from the hard conditions under
which their lives were passed. They had not only the ordinary duties of
the housewife, including the care of their children, but they had to
prepare the fabrics and make the clothing, the bedding, the table-linen
and all like supplies for their households. They took care of the gardens,
milked the cows, tended the poultry, dried the fruits for winter use, made
all the jams, pickles, preserves, butters and the like for the entire
family. Then they had no modern conveniences in their houses, their
utensils and all facilities for doing their work being of the crudest and
clumsiest description. There were no cook-stoves, laundries, running water
in the house, or other such conveniences. Everything was awkward, heavy
and hard. Then they had the care of the sick in their own homes and among
their neighbors, there being no nurses and very few physicians. Their toil
and drudgery were early and late, heavy and unremitting, and in addition
to all this they were environed by many and great dangers. Yet, they
accepted their lot with unshaken fortitude and uncomplaining patience, and
did their hard duties with a brave, cheerful, and utterly self-sacrificing
spirit. Blessings on the memory of our mothers, grandmothers and
great-grandmothers! They were genuine heroines if such ever lived on the
earth.
These earnest and
sober-minded Scotch-Irish were not without their amusements. While to them
life was not play, yet there was no little play in their lives, else they
never could have been the brave, enduring and worthy lives they were. For
the most part of course, their amusements were extremely simple and
inexpensive. It must be confessed that sometimes they were not too
refined, in fact, rather coarse and rough, but generally they were hearty,
honest and wholesome. The interchange of visits among neighbors and
relatives in the intervals of hard work was very common. The people in
general were extremely hospitable. Relatives and friends were welcome to
come and spend the day and night too, at any time without warning. Any
decent person on a journey was welcome to draw bridle at the door of any
ample house, and have provision for himself and his horse over night,
without money and without price. In the long winter evenings, one family
would go over to a neighboring one and "sit up till bedtime;" bed-time
being rather an early hour. But there was plenty of time for ginger-bread,
doughnuts, hickory nuts, sweet cider, and the like simple refreshments.
Then often a family would specially invite a lot of their neighbors to
"make a visit." This meant spending the entire day, and sometimes the
night, during which there would be much feasting. It was very common for
people "to neighbor" as they called it; that is, if a barn was to be
raised, or a job of threshing to be done, or anything requiring a number
of men, all the men in the neighborhood would be invited to attend and
help. Along with these gatherings of men there would often be a similar
gathering of the women in the afternoon, for a quilting or some such work,
and then after a big supper, the evening would be spent in rustic jollity.
There were corn-huskings also, not very popular among the better class, as
they were apt to be rough and to take on some of the features of rowdyism.
Singing-schools, spelling-schools, debating societies, and the like were
very common in the winter months, and at such assemblies the whole
neighborhood would gather and greatly enjoy themselves. Their customs in
respect of weddings were extremely simple and practical. When a young
farmer reached the point when he contemplated marriage he paid his
addresses to the daughter of some neighboring farmer. In the early days
the people had but limited contact with the world at large, and had almost
no acquaintance beyond the immediate neighborhood. Hence the young fellows
seldom went far from home for their wives. When things had progressed far
enough to warrant the fixing of the marriage day, everything was made
ready with great deliberation and thoroughness. The bride-to-be, or her
mother rather, had been getting ready for that day ever since she was
born. The feathers, linens, woolens, and other furnishings for her house,
as also for her person, had been steadily accumulating through all the
years of her girlhood. As the time drew near, the father had ready a fine
horse and a fine cow, as an indispensable part of her dowry. On two
successive Sabbaths preceding the wedding, after the benediction was
pronounced in the church one of the clerks would "publish the bans between
John Doe and Jane Roe." The marriage was celebrated at the home of the
bride, and always during the day, and never at night. The special friends
of that family, together with the family of the groom were sure to be
there. There was much feasting and merry-making, and there the parties
passed the night. The next day, usually on horseback, the bridal party
proceeded to the home of the groom's family, for the "infare." There were
gathered the relatives and friends of the groom, together with the family
of the bride. Here the day was spent in more feasting and merry-making.
This closed the wedding festivities. But the next Sabbath, "they made
their appearance." This custom was invariable in the early days, and
continued long after my childhood. The bride and groom, together with
their special attendants, arrayed in all their wedding finery, came
together to the church, waited till the services were just about to begin
when everybody was supposed to be in place, when they would enter arm in
arm, and march down the main aisle, to their place in the pew. No matter
in which aisle their pew might be, that day they must sweep down the main
aisle. Until this "appearance" was duly made, the wedding ceremonies were
not regarded as complete. After that, they settled down to the serious
business of life. Of theatrical, operatic, and other such pretentious and
expensive exhibitions, there were absolutely none. If a young fellow
wished to take his sweetheart to an entertainment, he did not need to pay
a month's salary for carriage, tickets, gloves and flowers, to say nothing
of fashionable clothes. He simply called for her at her home, and walked
across the fields to the school-house, if it was not too far, and if it
was too far to walk, he would take her up behind him on horseback and ride
away, the girl clinging tightly, particularly if the horse was a little
frisky, as in that case he was very apt to be. The young fellow commonly
had sense enough to have a spur or other irritant secreted about his
person.
A quiet philosopher looking
at these simple and inexpensive amusements might well ask, if they were
not quite as rational, as wholesome, and as satisfying as whist parties,
wine parties, and the showy functions of modern life? There was here much
less of style and dress, of pomp and parade, of show and splendor; and
there was also less of hollow pretence and bitter envy, of luxurious vice
and destroying dissipation; of disgust, despair and suicide.
They were very forward in
helping one another in case of need. If there was sickness or death in a
family, everybody in the community would offer his or her service, and do
it heartily. If by reason of illness or other misfortune, one got behind
with his seeding or harvesting, the neighbors would gather in force with
their teams and hired men and help him through. Particularly, if a widow
needed help on her farm it was sure to be promptly forthcoming. Men would
leave their own fields to gather her harvest. In the early days physicians
were very rare, and dentists unknown. When one fell ill, the mother of the
house, or some other woman of the neighborhood usually did the doctoring.
When certain interesting and important occasions came in the family, there
were sure to be two or three motherly women in the community who could do
the office of midwife and nurse both in one. Meanwhile, the man in the
case would take to the tall timber. Bleeding, ipecac, calomel and above
all, boneset, were relied upon chiefly. In every community there was some
elderly man who kept a thumb-lance, which he used alike to bleed men and
horses, and which he was accustomed to jab into the arm of any sick one
whom he could make hold still long enough. My grandfather was such a man.
He firmly believed that each spring, everybody about the place should let
blood, take a stiff dose of castor oil, and follow it up for a week or so
with copious draughts of a strong tea made of boneset. This "cleaned out"
the system of the winter gorge, and put things in good shape for the
summer. There may have been something in this, for certainly he never laid
down on his bed with illness during the nearly eighty years of his life.
At the same time, when any really dangerous disease got into the
settlement, nearly everybody who took it died. When one got a severe
toothache, there was but one remedy, and that was to have the tooth jerked
out. There were no dentists to do this, but other men here and there had
the necessary tool and nerve to do it. Here again my grandfather was
useful. Commonly the same man who had the "thumb-lance" had the "pullikens"
as they called it. This cruel instrument was a short rod of steel with
savage claws annexed, and when once this terrific apparatus got well
clinched on a tooth, and in the hands of a muscular and determined man,
something had to give way. The instrument never broke, and the man seldom
let go his hold. No matter about the shrieks and yells of the tortured
victim, and his writhings round the room, out must come the tooth. These
neighborly services, of course, were always entirely gratuitous.
With all their Calvinism
there was a vein of superstition in our forbears. Two classes of men are
specially prone to superstition, — the one is the ignorant and debased,
and the other is the highly gifted and sober-minded. The one class cowers
and grovels in stupid dread of the mysterious unknown by which they feel
themselves surrounded and oppressed: while the other class is overborne by
the mystery of existence and the immanence and awfulness of the unseen
world. Those who live on the dead levels, and have a humdrum existence,
are the freest from the influence of the invisible and the mysterious. At
opposite poles, the devil-worshipper of South Africa and Doctor Samuel
Johnson, the poor unlettered slave and Abraham Lincoln, were more or less
under the influence of what we call superstition. Hence, in our strong,
forceful, serious, pious forefathers, whose minds dwelt much on the
spiritual and the unseen, there was the intermixture of certain
superstitious notions and ideas. They always denied it in words, but their
imagination was always more or less overshadowed by these occult
influences. They said, we do not believe in ghosts, or apparitions, or
omens or signs, and yet they did. Certain signs boded evil, and certain
others boded good. They considered the phases of the moon when they
planted their corn and potatoes, and even when they killed their pigs.
Many of them would not sit down to a table with thirteen, nor would they
begin any important undertaking on a Friday. Their ministers denounced
these conceits, and debarred from the communion all who cherished them,
and yet their fireside tales, their common talk, many of their customs and
usages clearly showed that their imagination was filled with spectres and
invisible agencies swarming in the world around them. This, however, was
really a vague impression rather than a matter of definite belief. It
never in the least weakened or intimidated them, nor touched their
stalwart faith in the absolute and sovereign authority of the holy
oracles. It was a feeling rather than a conviction. It would be easy to
give many amusing illustrations of the practical working of this sentiment
in the former days. |
