impossible to be represented in the picture, but which reaches the
pricked-up ears of every cow in the settlement, and tells her that the
dewy pasture-hour is come. House after house awakes, and sends the smoke
up curling from its chimney, like frosty breath from living nostrils; and
as those white wreaths of smoke, though impregnated with earthy
admixtures, climb skyward, so, from each dwelling, does the morning
worship--its spiritual essence, bearing up its human imperfection--find
its way to the heavenly Father's throne.

The breakfast-hour being passed, the inhabitants do not, as usual, go to
their fields or workshops, but remain within doors; or perhaps walk the
street, with a grave sobriety, yet a disengaged and unburdened aspect,
that belongs neither to a holiday nor a Sabbath. And, indeed, this
passing day is neither, nor is it a common week-day, although partaking
of all the three. It is the Thursday Lecture; an institution which New
England has long ago relinquished, and almost forgotten, yet which it
would have been better to retain, as bearing relations to both the
spiritual and ordinary life, and bringing each acquainted with the other.
The tokens of its observance, however, which here meet our eyes, are of
rather a questionable cast. It is, in one sense, a day of public shame;
the day on which transgressors, who have made themselves liable to the
minor severities of the Puritan law receive their reward of ignominy. At
this very moment, this constable has bound an idle fellow to the
whipping-post, and is giving him his deserts with a cat-o'-nine tails.
Ever since sunrise, Daniel Fairfield has been standing on the steps of
the meeting-house, with a halter about his neck, which he is condemned to
wear visibly throughout his lifetime; Dorothy Talby is chained to a post
at the corner of Prison Lane, with the hot sun blazing on her matronly
face, and all for no other offence than lifting her hand against her
husband; while, through the bars of that great wooden cage, in the centre