INGERSOLL DESCRIBES WHAT SUNDAYS WERE LIKE IN HIS CHILDHOOD
When I was a
boy Sunday was considered altogether too holy to be happy in. Sunday used to
commence then when the sun went down on Saturday night. We commenced
at that time for the purpose of getting a good ready, and when the sun fell
below the horizon on Saturday evening, there was a darkness fell upon the house
ten thousand times deeper than that of night.
Nobody said
a pleasant word; nobody laughed; nobody smiled; the child that looked the
sickest was regarded as the most pious. That night you could not even crack
hickory nuts. If you were caught chewing gum it was only another evidence of the
total depravity of the human heart. It was an exceedingly solemn night.
Dyspepsia
was in the very air you breathed. Everybody looked sad and mournful. I have
noticed all my life that many people think they have religion when they are
troubled with dyspepsia. If there could be found an absolute specific for that
disease, it would be the hardest blow the church has ever received.
On Sunday morning the solemnity had simply increased. Then we went to church.
The minister was in a pulpit about twenty feet high, with a little
sounding-board above him, and he commenced at "firstly" and went on and on to
about "twenty-thirdly." Then he made a few remarks by way of application; and
then took a general view of the subject, and in about two hours reached the last
chapter in Revelation. In those days, no matter how cold the weather was, there was no fire in the church. It was thought to be a kind of sin to be comfortable while you were thanking God. The first church that ever had a stove in it in New England, divided on that account...
After the sermon we had an intermission. Then came the catechism with the chief end of man. We went through with that. We sat in a row with our feet coming in about six inches of the floor. The minister asked us if we knew that we all deserved to go to hell, and we all answered "Yes." Then we were asked if we would be willing to go to hell if it was God's will, and every little liar shouted "Yes."
Then the same sermon was preached once more, commencing at the other end and going back. After that, we started for home, sad and solemn -- overpowered with the wisdom displayed in the scheme of the atonement.
When we got home, if we had been good boys, and the weather was warm, sometimes they would take us out to the graveyard to cheer us up a little. It did cheer me. When I looked at the sunken tombs and the leaning stones, and read the half-effaced inscriptions through the moss of silence and forgetfulness, it was a great comfort. The reflection came to my mind that the observance of the Sabbath could not last always...
But at last the Sunday wore away, and the moment the sun went
down, we were free. Between three and four o'clock we would go out to see how
the sun was coming on. Sometimes it seemed to me that it was stopping from pure
meanness. But finally it went down. It had to. And when the last rim of light
sank below the horizon, off would go our caps, and we would give three cheers
for liberty once more...
