CHAPTER III
THE FIRST CHURCH SERVICE--THE FIRST SUMMER.
Pages 19-26
The church of that day was not very much more than half its present size, nor had it a front tower or wings. It was only an unpretentious square brick building, with a tiny belfry on one end over the entrance door, but it was not the exterior of the church that would have held one's eyes fixed, and attention riveted at that date, but the interior where the Dominie's wife sat in the high-backed pew this early July Sunday in '76, on every side of her the members of a congregation who had been six years without a minister, and who waited eagerly for a pastor's form in their pulpit, and a pastor's wife in the minister's pew.
Above the heads of the congregation was a wooden ceiling with great rafters. The walls were plastered a shade approaching white, while the woodwork was painted blue. The pulpit was shaped like a wine glass [page 20] and stood in the north end of the church. That also was painted blue and surmounted by a sounding board on which "Holiness to the Lord," was appropriately inscribed, and at the further end of the church was a large window covered with a red curtain. The elders and deacons sat at the right and left of the pulpit, and Colonel Johannes Van Rensselaer the Lord of the Lower Manor, held an honored place in his elevated and canopied pew among his army of lease holders.
As was the custom, a part of the service was under way before the Dominie entered. Beneath the pulpit sat the "voorleser" who was almost as important as the minister himself in the appropriate carrying on of the service. This dignitary began the service by reading the Scriptures, including the commandments, after which he gave out a psalm and pitched the tune. Now attention was divided between the Dominie and the Dominie's wife, for as the music of the psalm arose, a clear voice joined in the singing, whose flute-like notes were a joy to the music-loving High and Low Dutch people about her. From the first Sunday in the Claverack church the singing of the Dominie's wife never ceased to charm the congregation, and had there [page 21] been any withholding of allegiance to the new-comer up to this moment, the opening psalm would have dissipated the last doubt.
The Dominie himself entered at this point. Of medium height and slight of build, he advanced lightly up the aisle, bowing courteously to the right and left after the genial German custom, then paused at the foot of the pulpit stairs with bowed head for a moment of prayer. It was a pleasant countenance which faced the congregation for the first time that morning, his bright blue eyes sweeping over the scene before him with an interest equal to that of the people. It was a pivotal moment for pulpit and pew, but they both stood the test. A liturgy was used for the service as in all the Reformed Churches on the continent. With a clear voice and animated gestures the Dominie began his discourse. We have no account of that first sermon, but have no doubt it was of the full length offered at that period, a carefully written, scholarly discourse, as proved by the time-yellowed specimens still in existence, with their fine chirography and minute marginal references.
Though the services of those days were lengthy, [page 22] there were blessed breaks in the hours, which gave the children hidden away in the high-backed pews, occasional relaxation from the serious aspect of the remaining time. When the deacons stepped forth with their money bags suspended from long poles, and furnished with jingling bells, it is safe to affirm that all the youthful eyes in the church followed their course up and down the aisles, and childish ears caught the sound of tinkling bells after the deacons and their bags had passed from their sight.
Even on the first Sunday there seems to have been a feature of the service which never failed to hold the childish attention, or prayerful interest of the parents in all the fifty years to follow. Catherine Elizabeth Emerick, the infant daughter of Frantz and Elizabeth Emerick was baptized at that time, and for "Testium" as the old records have it, there were "Peter Adam Smit and his vrouwe." One can hardly grasp in these days of the over-churching of certain localities, and the possibility of reaching a minister at a few moments' notice, the privations of a God-fearing people stretching over a wide reach of country, far from the ministrations of a man of God. Baptisms were long [page 23] deferred, marriages were only possible at distant periods or performed by civil officers, burials were often without a word of prayer. There must have been many heart burnings in the thirty-two pastorless years of this church, out of the preceding fifty.
As if the people called first for the sacramental duties of their minister, almost every Sabbath became a baptismal day. Long lines of parents and god-parents stood before him at the Sunday morning service, consecrating their children to God, while the Dominie's hand was laid in blessing on numerous little heads. Thirteen children were baptized during the remainder of the first year, and in the next thirteen years, one thousand one hundred and twenty-four children received the rite of baptism, and one hundred and sixteen persons omitted with the church. Nor was this all, Communion Sunday was once more observed, and the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was again celebrated. According to the old Dutch custom, communicants left their seats, and group after group surrounded the Lord's table, where the elements were distributed to each by hand of the Dominie himself. Christmas, [page 24] New Year's day, Good Friday, Easter, and Whitsunday were also feast days, and new spiritual life began to show itself in the community, as the church one more threw open its doors, and the people went up to the House of the Lord.
The young people also grasped their opportunity. It was a summer of love-making. The young farmer dreamed of his sweet-heart in the fields as he planted and pruned and harvested, while maidenly hearts beat quickly when the lover passed at sunrise or nightfall, for was not the Dominie ready, and the time of harvesting of crops was near. Why longer delay the marriage day?
George Phillips and Genoa Ostrander were married in July of this year. In September, Conrad Petri and Anna Margretta Stall from the Manor of Livingston drove over to the Dominie's for the tying of the nuptial bands. Every month after this had its marriage celebrations. Later, April, May and August became favorite bridal months. In time September and October and November sometimes saw two, three, or more weddings in a day. In fact all months favorable for this joyful function, and no month passed [page 25] without from two, to eight or ten marriages, the Dominie marrying four hundred and twenty-eight couples before the year 1789. Baptizing the children, marrying the lovers, burying the dead, meant something in this congregation. They were not occasional events, but weekly, and often daily duties.
Meanwhile life in the parsonage had settled into quiet lines and homely duties. The pastor's wife spun and wove and cared for her little boys, giving and receiving the hospitalities of a minister's household. Both she and the Dominie were possessed of a cultivated musical taste. In crossing the ocean from a music-loving German town, he had brought with him, as seemed to be the custom of the times, some form of merchandise whose ready sale in the new country, would make the early days of the stranger in a strange land financially comfortable. In this case the merchandise imported from Germany was composed of three pianos or spinets. Two of these were destined never to reach American shores, for the voyagers encountered a great storm at sea, and the two pianos which had been given special care in a place above decks, were, with everything else within reach, thrown [page 26] overboard to lighten the ship. The third piano had been packed in the hold, and was saved. It became a familiar sight to the Claverack congregation to see the Dominie playing upon this piano, while his wife sang from a thick old book of German chorals of eight hundred pages.
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