ORANGE CONG. CHURCH 73
reaches the same general conclusion. "There is no doubt," he says, "that the ministers of New England were the steady encouragers of education, the friends of goodness, and the advocates of piety. They made mistakes, had quarrels, were too urgent for class legislation, jealous of their influence ; and among them were base men. Yet with all their faults they may well ask comparison with the clergy of any sect anywhere. They were men with the common weaknesses, follies and vices, and are to be judged like other men ; their occupation was their only difference. But any community will be safer, richer and better which can secure a good pulpit ; and that of New England was equal at least to the intelligence and virtue of the time." There was good ground, therefore, in the qualities of the ministry, for the reverence of the people. But they were led to such reverence also by an idealizing process. The minister was to them the very embodiment of divine authority in regard to truth and morals. When he entered the meeting-house and made his way to the pulpit, the congregation rose to receive him, and sometimes they rose when he announced his text. Within our own remembrance, the practical love of a parish for its pastor used to culminate annually in a "donation visit," which, in its earliest form, was a "spinning bee." "On a given day, the women of the parish, bearing their wheels and flax, were wont to assemble at the house of the minister. The hum of the wheels was like the murmur of bees ; and their labors filled the chests of the minister's wife." "It was also the custom of the farmers of the parish, when the wintry winds began to whistle in the cracks of the doors and windows, each one of them on a day to drive up his cart, loaded with good wood, and drop it at the minister's door. Sixty loads for a year was only a fair allowance, and he was not a popular clergyman who failed thus to receive his supply." The reverence that was felt toward the house of God and the ministry, extended also to the first day of the week. The