distance, and "reasonable" was a most expansive word. Tobacco was not to
be smoked or chewed near any meeting-house. The odor of cooking food on
Sunday was an abomination in the nostrils of the Most High. And we
should bear in mind that these rules were enforced from sunset on
Saturday to sunset on Sunday--the twenty-four hours of the Puritan
Sabbath. The Holy Day, as spent by the preacher, John Cotton, may be
taken as typical of the strenuous hours of the Sabbath as observed by
many a New England pastor:

"He began the Sabbath at evening, therefore then performed family duty
after supper, being longer than ordinary in exposition. After which he
catechized his children and servants, and then returned to his study.
The morning following, family worship being ended, he retired into his
study until the bell called him away. Upon his return from meeting
(where he had preached and prayed some hours), he returned again into
his study (the place of his labor and prayer), unto his favorite
devotion; where having a small repast carried him up for his dinner, he
continued until the tolling of the bell. The public service of the
afternoon being over, he withdrew for a space to his pre-mentioned
oratory for his sacred addresses to God, as in the forenoon, then came
down, repeated the sermon in the family, prayed, after supper sang a
Psalm, and toward bedtime betaking himself again to his study he closed
the day with prayer."

To many a modern reader such a method of spending Sunday for either
preacher or laymen would seem not only irksome but positively
detrimental to physical and mental health; but we should bear in mind
that the opportunity to sit still and listen after six days of strenuous
muscular toil was probably welcomed by the colonist, and, further, that
in the absence of newspapers and magazines and other intellectual