6o CENTENNIAL HISTORY
genuine sense of their own dignity, and manifested it in the sanctuary in the seating of the people. This was done according to rank, and was a task of no slight importance. It was assigned, sometimes yearly, to a special committee. By this committee seats were carefully set apart for individuals, and each was expected to occupy his own. In 1669, in one of the colonies, two men, whose names are given, were fined £27, 4s. for being disorderly, and "sitting on a seat belonging to others." The rank of each person was determined partly by age, and partly by list or taxable estate. The children usually sat by themselves-in the gallery, when there was one ; and in many instances the men and women were seated apart, on opposite sides of the house,-a custom that still survives in some Methodist churches and at some prayer-meetings. In the records of Waterbury-if I may refer again to a parish with whose history I am somewhat familiar-there are numerous entries illustrating the important place the seating of a congregation occupied in the thoughts of the citizens. For instance, on the 14th of December, 1719, "it was agreed by vote that the meeting-house should be seated, and the rule to do it by shall be by list of estate and by age, reckoning one year in age to four pound of estate." In 1729, their second meeting-house was ready for occupancy, and the task of seating had to be entered upon again. "This seems to have been conducted," says Dr. Henry Bronson in his History, "with a scrupulous regard to the dignity of individuals. As the minister was the most reverend and respectable personage in the community, it was meet that he and his family should be cared for first. It was then voted that the men should sit in the west end and the women in the east end of the new meeting-house, and that but one head should be counted in a man's list… It was decided that all the males of sixteen years and upward should be seated, and a committee was appointed to determine the rank of the pews, and to place the congregation in them according to rule. In the latter part of the long period during which the second edifice in that town was occupied (it lasted from 1729 to 1795) the congregation was