Providence." Perhaps a mouse and a snake had a battle in the
neighborhood, and the minister must expound it as "symbolizing the
conflict betwixt Satan and God's poor people," the latter being the
mouse triumphant. Then if there were a military expedition, the minister
might think it needful to accompany it. If there were even a muster, he
must open and close it with prayer, or, in his absence, the captain must
officiate instead.

One would naturally add to this record of labors the attendance on
weddings and funerals. It is strange how few years are required to make
a usage seem ancestral, or to reunite a traditional broken one. Who now
remembers that our progenitors for more than a century disused religious
services on both these solemn occasions? Magistrates alone could perform
the marriage ceremony; though it was thought to be carrying the monopoly
quite too far, when Governor Bellingham, in 1641, officiated at his own.
Prayer was absolutely forbidden at funerals, as was done also by Calvin
at Geneva, by John Knox in Scotland, by the English Puritans in the
Westminster Assembly, and by the French Huguenots. The bell might ring,
the friends might walk, two and two, to the grave; but there must be no
prayer uttered. The secret was, that the traditions of the English and
Romish Churches must be avoided at all sacrifices. "Doctor," said King
James to a Puritan divine, "do you go barefoot because the Papists wear
shoes and stockings?" Even the origin of the frequent New-England habit
of eating salt fish on Saturday is supposed to have been the fact that
Roman Catholics eat it on Friday.

But if there were no prayers said on these occasions, there were
sermons. Mr. John Calf, of Newbury, described one specimen of funeral
sermon in immortal verse:--