Political and business and even medical and sanitary subjects were popular in the early New England pulpit. Mr. Peters preached many a long sermon to urge the formation of a stock company for fishing, and canvassed all through the commonwealth for the same purpose. Cotton Mather said plainly that ministers ought to instruct themselves and their congregations in politics; and in Connecticut it was ordered by law that each minister should give sound and orthodox advice to his congregation at the time of civil elections. Every natural phenomenon, every unusual event called forth a sermon, and the minister could find even in the common events of every-day life plain manifestations of Divine wrath and judgment. He preached with solemn delight upon comets, and earthquakes, and northern lights, and great storms and droughts, on deaths and diseases, and wonders and scandals (for there were scandals even in puritanical New England), on wars both at home and abroad, on shipwrecks, on safe voyages, on distinguished visitors, on noted criminals and crimes,--in fact, upon every subject that was of spiritual or temporal interest to his congregation or himself. And his people looked for his religious comment upon passing events just as now-a-days we read articles upon like subjects in the newspaper. Thus was the Puritan minister not only a preacher, but a teacher, adviser, and friend, and a pretty plain-spoken one too. XXIII. The Early Congregations. On Sunday morning in New England in the olden time, the country church-members whose homes were near the meeting-house walked reverently and slowly across the green meadows or the snowy fields to meeting. Townspeople, at the sound of the bell or drum or horn, walked decorously and soberly along the irregular streets to the house of God. Farmers who lived at a greater distance were up betimes to leave their homes and ride across the fields and through the narrow bridle-paths, which were then the universal and almost the only country roads. These staid Puritan planters were mounted on sturdy farmhorses, and a pillion was strapped on behind each saddle, and on it was seated wife, daughter, or perhaps a young child--I should like to have seen the church-going dames perched up proudly in all their Sunday finery, masked in black velvet, a sober Puritan travesty of a gay carnival fashion. Riding-habits were hardly known until a century ago, and even after their introduction were never worn a-pillion-riding, so the Puritan women rode in their best attire. Sometimes, in unusually muddy or dusty weather, a very daintily dressed "nugiperous" dame would don a linen "weather skirt" to protect her fine silken petticoats.