. The New England magazine . and Holliston, andthe house was thronged with guests. Itwas a season of fasting and prayer andgeneral solemnity, made all the moreimpressive by a sense of that Protestantindependence which encouraged them to HO FED ALE AND ITS FOUNDER. 199 dissolve their connection with the oldchurch in Mendon town. The sermonwas laborious and the prayers longand weighty and filled with the unctionof mysterious theological technicalities,known only to the ministers and theirMaker. The desired result wassecured, viz., a stringent cove-nant, the election of ruling eld-ers and deacons
. The New England magazine . and Holliston, andthe house was thronged with guests. Itwas a season of fasting and prayer andgeneral solemnity, made all the moreimpressive by a sense of that Protestantindependence which encouraged them to HO FED ALE AND ITS FOUNDER. 199 dissolve their connection with the oldchurch in Mendon town. The sermonwas laborious and the prayers longand weighty and filled with the unctionof mysterious theological technicalities,known only to the ministers and theirMaker. The desired result wassecured, viz., a stringent cove-nant, the election of ruling eld-ers and deacons and a scribe,and all the other means of numbered between forty and fifty persons in thesummer season. Its common tables were thronged;and all its available space for lodging rooms,economically partitioned off in the chambers andattics, scarcely sufficed for our decent parlor was our reception-room for visitors nota few, and our council hall for discussion, legisla-tive deliberation, and official consultation. Christian fellowship and the grace ofCzod. The Old House saw it all; and,perhaps, just one hundred and one yearsafterwards, it thought the judgment daywas at hand, when, in those selfsamerooms, the originators of the HopedaleCommunity thanked God for its protect-ing walls while they met together as prot-estants against all existing churches andgovernments. Long after the communityhad ceased to breathe the breath of life, itsfounder wrote the following reflections, — On Thursday evening, March 24, 1842, weheld our first religious meeting in the West Room— the same in which the Congregational Churchhad been instituted a little more than one hundredyears before. It was a deeply interesting occa-sion, full of* prayer, praise, thanksgiving, exhorta-tion, and fraternal congratulations^—a sort ofdedication of the whole premises to God andhumanity. Oh! that the enthusiastic hopes ofthat hour had been better realized. Thenceforth,for more than a year, our reg
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