Seba Smith

“ If we have any regard for our character, as an orderly and wellbehaved people; if we have any respect for the house of God, and the holy religion we profess, I think it is high time we took a decided stand, and adopted some strong measures to secure order and decorum during the hours of public worship. I feel impelled by a sense of duty to invite a general meeting to be held at this place to-morrow, to take the subject into consideration. ”

“ Thus having proved the origin of the good people of Brookhaven, it follows as a matter of course, that they were not only a pious people, a church-going people, but also great lovers of order and decorum. Happily, so important a conclusion does not rest for its authority on mere inference alone ”

“ A tasteful and costly church is erected, and the snug and elegant family pew succeeds to the former rude compartments. Each pew, like a sovereign and independent State, is governed by the head of the family, who has entire control over all matters of its internal police, subject, however, at all times, to the general and common laws of the society.
The illustration of our subject, drawn from the history of the good old town of Brookhaven, is derived from that period when the meeting-house was undergoing a change from a democratic to an aristocratic form of government. ”

“ The young men and the boys have got in the habit of going in early sometimes, before services begin, and crowding into the best seats, and occupying the chairs round the table; so that the older people, the pillars of the church, and those who bear most of the expense of supporting the gospel, have to go into the back seats or stow themselves round in the corners, wherever they can find a chance. This is the difficulty, and it seems to me the remedy would lie in some entirely new arrangement for seating the parish. ”

“ This revolution has been brought on and carried out by the wealth of the few who had the means to sustain it, and they in return receive the honors and distinctions usually bestowed on the successful leaders of a revolution. The many look up to them with reverence, and stand back and give place to them whenever they appear. ”

“ I think the inhabitants should be properly divided into classes, and each class assigned to a different pew, having reference to the rank and respectability of each class, and the respective proportions they contribute to the support of the gospel. ”

“ I think, if the young men have courting to do, they should do it at home and not in church. Why, Mr. Moderator, I've seen a young man, that I won't call by name, now, though he's here in this meeting, set with his arm round the girl that sot next to him half sermon time. ”

“ Phillips towards his salary shall be seated at the table, and that no women are permitted to set there, except Colonel Smith's lady, nor any woman kind; And that the President for the time being shall sit in the right-hand seat under the pulpit, and the clerk on the left; the trustees in the front seat, and the Justices that are inhabitants of the town are to be seated at the table, whether they pay forty shillings or less. And the pew number one, all such persons as have or shall subscribe twenty shillings; and the pew number two, such as subscribe to pay fifteen shillings ”