As may be imagined, at first and for years afterwards, they remained but "a feeble folk," regarded with suspicion and dislike by the more narrow-minded of their contemporaries, though the days were long gone by, when an Episcopalian, especially if suspected of a leaning towards Popery, was set in the pillory or the stocks. The Church, however, had been long flourishing, in my youth, and I was always particularly impressed when I attended service there, as I always did on Christmas Day, with the organ, an instrument utterly unknown in our other places of public worship, and with the comfort diffused by the large Russian stove which projected from a corner of the building; while we, for long years afterwards, shivered in our meeting-houses of a cold Sunday. To be sure, the younger children carried their mothers' hand-stoves, constructed of tin in a frame of wood and pierced with holes in the top, to let out such heat as could be communicated by a small pan of coals covered with ashes. But for the male part of the congregation, who despised such a luxury, it was almost impossible to avoid occasionally striking the benumbed feet together, and sometimes the clatter was almost as considerable, as in letting down the seats after the long prayer, especially if that proved to be a very protracted exercise. But I have known young ladies so indifferent to the severity of the weather, as to attend meeting, on very cold days of winter, with bare arms. What would delicate ladies, who, wrapped in warm furs, listen to service in a heated church, think of such exposure now? On one particular occasion, however, our minister announced the text,--"Who can stand before His cold?" and closed the services with the usual blessing, a little to the dissatisfaction, I think, of the more staid members of the congregation, who having come through cold and snow, or a furious wintry storm, it might be, to hear a sermon, were not altogether contented to miss the expected edification, or perhaps the opportunity of criticising the discourse. Indeed, I know not what my respected great grandsire, an elder of the church in his day, would have said to such defection from spiritual needs towards indulgence in carnal comfort. For it is said, that when some less searching and thorough-going preacher of the word exchanged with our minister, or casually officiated for him, the old gentleman tottered out of the meeting-house, leaning on his staff, and with elevated eyebrows muttered pretty audibly to those near him,--"Peas in a bladder--thorns under a pot--no food to-day!" And however it might be with many of his neighbors, not the minutest particle of the quality of original Puritanism had been shaken out of his system by the changes of the times. The family tradition is, that before the sunset of Saturday everything necessary for the support of nature upon the Sabbath was cooked and in readiness. Whether he allowed the