When the building, like several others of the period, a commodious, oblong structure with a tower, belfry and weather-cock vane at one end of it, was nearly finished, the important matter of seating the congregation was taken up. This also was an affair of the town. It had already been decided at the annual town meeting in the spring to have pews along the walls and "seats" or benches only on both sides of the "alley" (broad aisle). The actual plan of the sittings, still extant, shows pews also around the benches on the floor, separated from the wall-pews by the narrow aisles, and five pews in the gallery. These pews were of the high, square variety, with seats on hinges, and were evidently regarded as places of superior dignity. Towards the end of the year, the town held a series of meetings with especial reference to the seating. The question of primary importance concerned the apportioning of the sittings according to social rank. At the meeting in November, a committee of five of the most prominent citizens was instructed to draw up "their Scheam or Platt for Seating of the meeting House and present it to the Town" for approval. The following month the committee was further instructed by the following votes: "1. Voted That in Seating the new meeting House the committee have Respect principally to men's estate. "2. To have Regard to men's Age. "3. Voted that some Regard and Respect [be paid] to men's usefullness, but in a less Degree." And that no mistake should be made, a committee of six was appointed to "estimate the pews and seats," that is, to "dignify" or appraise their social value. Another connected question concerned the seating of the sexes. At the meeting in November, it was voted that males should be at the south, females at the north, end; the men at the right of the pulpit, the women at the left. At the first meeting in December the town distinctly refused to allow men and their wives to sit together. But this was clearly opposed to the sentiment of some of the more influential members of the community, for at the adjourned meeting four days later, when "The Question was put whether the Committee be forbidden to Seat men & their wives together, Especially Such as Incline to Sit together: It passed in the Negative." Under this indirect and qualified authorization, married people were for the most part seated together in the pews, but apart on the benches, while in some cases the husband was assigned to a pew and the wife to a bench. The events and conditions here described are reflected in Edwards's sermon, especially in what he says of the extent of the "accommodations" in heaven and in his remarks on the "seats of various dignity and different degrees and circumstances of honor and happiness" there, as compared with what we find in houses of worship on earth.