I could not understand then, nor do I to-day, why we were made to go to church; surely our good parents did not know how we suffered, or they would not have been so cruel and unkind. I remember that the services began with singing by the choir in the gallery, and I sometimes used to turn around and look up to see the singers and the organ; and I remember especially a boy who used to sway back and forth, sideways, to pump the organ. I had an idea that he must be a remarkable lad, and endowed with some religious gifts, second only to the preacher. After the first song came the first prayer, which was not very short, but still nothing at all to the one yet in store. Then came more singing, and then the long prayer. My! what agony it was! I remember particularly the old preacher as he stood during those everlasting prayers. I can see him now,—tall and spare and straight, his white face encircled with a fringe of white whiskers. I always thought him very old, and supposed that he came there with the church, and was altogether different from other men. As he prayed, he clasped his hands on the great Bible that lay upon the altar, and kept his eyes closed and his face turned steadily toward the ceiling. He spoke slowly and in a moderate tone of voice, and in the most solemn way. I never could understand how he kept his eyes closed and his sad face turned upward for so long a time, excepting that he had a special superhuman power.
I could not have sat through that prayer, but for the fact that I learned to find landmarks as he went along. At a certain point I knew it was well under way; at another point it was about half done; and when he began asking for guidance and protection for the President of the United States, it was three-quarters over, and I felt like a shipwrecked mariner sighting land. But even the longest prayers have an end, and when this was through we were glad to stand up while they sang once more. Then came the sermon, which was longer yet; but we did not feel that we must sit quite so still as during the long prayer. First and last I must have heard an endless number of the good old parson’s sermons read in his solemn voice; but I cannot now remember a single word of anyone I heard. After the sermon came singing and a short prayer,—any prayer was short after what we had passed through,—then more singing, and the final benediction, which to us children was always a benediction of the most welcome kind.