fifty more people, and that, if formed, "at least a part of them should be sold at auction, for a period of five years, for certain sums payable annually, to be applied towards the support of the pastor." They could think of no better plan for "seating" than the old, but opined that the substitution of slips, even if they were not sold, would contribute much to the convenience, comfort, and eventually the harmony of the parish. Their report, with the plan attached, was placed where everybody could study both; but the scheme of altering the pews to slips was not carried out till 1830, and the "seating" was still the work of a committee. To show with what nervousness, not to say trepidation, the "seating" was viewed, even if the slips were made, we quote: "Should this method (slips) be adop[t]ed, the committee recommend that the seating committee be instructed to preserve, as far as possible, the present order of seats and seat-mates. This they believe to be very important, for should any changes be made, the hazard of producing dissatisfaction will be very great."
There was but one redeeming feature in the ancient "seating," — that by which the seats nearest the pulpit were left unclaimed, to be occupied by the aged or deaf, and were called the "deaf-seats." It seems almost incredible to a modern father that the children in this meeting-house were sent up into the gallery to occupy the square pews that ran along next the wall. Dr. Humphrey, one of the pastors, called them "high, square play-houses," and said that the boys, not content to be so shut up, opened communications with their jack-knives, though occasionally seized by the tithingman and marched to his seat. The young men sitting in the long, straight gallery seats at length rebelled, and making known their grievances through the press, got seats assigned in the new slips; and finally, in 1836, the old order gave place to the new, and the pews were leased at a fixed price, the precedence of choice being sold at auction. The democratic "first come, first served," had penetrated even to the sanctuary.
The advent of the Boston and Albany Railroad gave a new impulse to the growth of the town, which even before that had become a noted manufacturing centre; and though there were several churches of other denominations, the temple that had witnessed the separation of the town from the parish, and had seen the inauguration of the Sunday school as an adjunct to the church, and the beginning of many Christian enterprises, was fast becoming too small, and the question of enlarging or rebuilding was often mooted. A fire on a Sunday morning in January, 1851, settled the question. It had ruined the small organ and done so much injury as to call for extensive repairs; and so an entirely new edifice was decided upon. Mr. Leopold Eidlitz was the architect. The present church is capable of seating eleven hundred people. It is a Gothic church, built of gray Berkshire limestone. The interior is finished in dark chestnut. The pulpit is merely a reading desk, on a broad platform; and a fine organ is at the minister's back. The women of the parish raised the money to buy the carpets and cushions of the edifice, which when finished and furnished had cost a little over $28,000, exclusive of bell and clock and the marble doorsteps. When the cornerstone was laid, in 1852, there were present five men who had aided in raising the frame of the first meeting-house, sixty-one years before, among them being one of the men who had received extra pay for extra perilous services. In its construction we hear no more of "rations of rum." There are several memorial windows, the largest of which, opposite the pulpit, connects the worshippers of to-day with the memory of the pastor who sold his watch that he might lend its proceeds to his country in her hour of need. It is the gift of Mrs. H. G. Marquand, of New York, in memory of her parents, her father having been one of the sons of the first pastor. On the 6th of July, 1853, Dr. John Todd, who was pastor of the church more than thirty years, and of whom, were this a general history of the church, instead of the special study which it is, there would here be much to say, preached the dedication sermon of this "latter house," which is now sel-
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