The religious exercises in the “meeting- house” were named from their principal part, “preaching”. That is the meaning of the noun which I am not able to find in the dictionary; but it was so used among us in my boyhood. My mother might have said to us, “It is time to get ready to go to “preaching”; and one of the boys might have asked her, “What shirt am I to wear to “preaching” today?” or after our return one might have said, “There were a good many at preaching.” Whether all the people there used the word so, or not, I cannot tell; but such was the meaning the word conveyed to my mind. My recollection is confirmed by finding the word so employed in the earlier part of my diary. “Preaching” included all the public services on an ordinary Sabbath.
The following is a lively description of a typical Lord’s Day in the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Bloomington, Indiana in the 1850s. The author, Daniel Cargill Faris (1843-1919), recounts his experience in the church of his youth. He was the son of James Faris who was the first pastor of the congregation. The account is found in his personal writings. Daniel Cargill Faris would later serve as the pastor of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Barnet, Vermont.
“PREACHING”
by D. C. Faris
Written on Nov. 21, 1904
While the building in which the congregation gathered for worship on the Sabbath was called the “meeting house”, the services held there were not called “meeting”, that name being given to the week-day services held from house to house in the homes of the people. The religious exercises in the “meeting- house” were named from their principal part, “preaching”. That is the meaning of the noun which I am not able to find in the dictionary; but it was so used among us in my boyhood. My mother might have said to us, “It is time to get ready to go to “preaching”; and one of the boys might have asked her, “What shirt am I to wear to “preaching” today?” or after our return one might have said, “There were a good many at preaching.” Whether all the people there used the word so, or not, I cannot tell; but such was the meaning the word conveyed to my mind. My recollection is confirmed by finding the word so employed in the earlier part of my diary. “Preaching” included all the public services on an ordinary Sabbath.
“Preaching” commenced at 11:00 A.M., and continued, with the exception of an “interval” of fifteen or twenty minutes, till probably near 3:00 P.M. The older people spoke of the closing time as “night”, whatever the hour might be. I used to hear “Aunt Becky” (Wilson) speak of having seen such a one “at night”, meaning, after the congregation had been dismissed. I suppose that formerly among the Covenanters in Scotland, in the winter days it was literally “night” when the services ended, and on that account this expression had grown to mean the end of the services, and still continued to be used by their descendants although having come to a southern country where it was not literally night.
A little before 11:00 o’clock people might be seen coming from different directions toward the house of worship – some on foot, some on horseback (occasionally two or three on one horse), and some in two horse wagons (heavy lumber-wagons without springs of any sort). A buggy (a one seated, one horse, four-wheeled vehicle, with springs, but without a cover), or a carriage (a two seated, covered, four-wheeled, spring vehicle, drawn by two horses) was scarcely used there in my earliest recollection. Mr. McCrum’s people, who lived “in town” came in a carriage, I think. The people left their wagons under the trees, to the branches of which they hitched their horses. There the women and children got out and walked to the door of the meeting-house. They went in at once and sat in their pews. The men, and the older boys, lingered about the sides of the house until the hour of service arrived. The horses had no shelter, summer or winter, except that afforded by the tree under which they stood. It was long after my earliest recollections when “Uncle Charles” Ervin made an innovation, by putting up a shed for his horses. His hitching-place, where afterwards this shed was built, was away back between the road and the grave-yard. When it was about time for “preaching” Father and Mother and Aunt Becky and the boys in quiet procession, walked to the meeting-house. Father went at once into the pulpit, and Mother into the front pew of the west side of the middle block. She took with her Aunt Becky and the little children. James, David, John, Thomas and Samuel sat in the pew just behind. They always came into the house upon their arrival. Soon after, the men and boys, one by one, came down the aisles, each showing more or less of the awkwardness which he felt, while facing the people already seated.
When the hour had come the preacher would rise, and when he had said, “Let us pray”, all the congregation would stand up until the close of the prayer.
In all the prayers in the meeting-house it was the custom for the people to rise and remain standing till the prayer was ended. Only a person holding a sleeping child, or a person who was not well, ever thought of sitting in time of prayer.
After the opening prayer, the minister announced a psalm, and read it in meter.
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