"Before the time of service, the congregation gradually assembled in early season, coming on foot or on horseback, the ladies behind their lords or brothers or one another, on pillions, so that before the time of service the whole space before the meeting-house was filled with a waiting, respectful, and expecting multitude. At the moment of service the pastor issued from his mansion with Bible and manuscript sermon under his arm, with his wife leaning on one arm, flanked by his negro man on his side, as his wife was by her negro woman, the little negroes being distributed according to their sex by the side of their respective parents. Then followed every other member of the family according to age and rank, making often, with family visitants, somewhat of a formidable procession. As soon as it appeared, the congregation, as if moved by one spirit, began to move towards the door of the church; and before the procession reached it, all were in their places. "As soon as the pastor entered the church, the whole congregation rose and stood until the pastor was in the pulpit and his family seated,--until which was done the whole assembly continued standing. At the close of the service the congregation stood until he and his family had left the church, before any one moved towards the door. "Forenoon and afternoon the same course of proceeding was had, expressive of the reverential relation in which the people acknowledged that they stood towards their clergyman. "Such was the account given me by Mrs. Dowse in relation to times previous to my birth, and which I relate as her narrative, and not as part of my recollections. The procession from the parsonage, the disappearance of the people on the appearance of the procession, and that their pastor was received with every mark of decorum and respect, I well remember, but of their rising at his entrance and standing after the service until he had departed, I have no recollection; my time was almost twenty years after that narrated by Mrs. Dowse. During that period the Revolution had commenced." Some might think it an advantage, if more of the decorum and reverence of such a state of society had been preserved to our day; for this respect paid to the minister was but part of a general and all-pervading system. Children were more reverential to their parents, scholars to their teachers, the people to their magistrates. A want of reverence threatens now to become the besetting sin of America, whether young or old. The clergy of New England have, as a body, been distinguished for a rare union of the speculative and the practical. In both points they have been so remarkable, that in observing the great development of either of these qualities by itself one would naturally suppose that there was no room for the other.