and held a bell, from which
the bell-rope hung down to the floor in the centre of the church aisle.
The old church at Hingham, Massachusetts, still standing and still used,
is a good specimen of this shape. It was built in 1681, and is known as
the "Old Ship," and is a comely and dignified building. As more elegant
and costly dwelling-houses were built, so were better meeting-houses;
and the third form with lofty wooden steeple at one end, in the style
of architecture invented by Sir Christopher Wren, after the great fire
of London, multiplied and increased until every town was graced with an
example. In all these the main body of the edifice remained as bare,
prosaic, and undecorated as were the preceding churches, while all the
ambition of both builders and congregation spent itself in the steeple.
These were so varied and at times so beautiful that a chapter might be
written on New England steeples. The Old South Church of Boston is a
good example of this school of ecclesiastical architecture, and is a
well-known historic building as well.

The earliest meeting-houses had oiled paper in the windows, and when
glass came it was not set with putty, but was nailed in. The windows had
what were termed "heavy current side-shutters." The outside of the
meeting-house was not "colored," or "stained" as it was then termed, but
was left to turn gray and weather-stained, and sometimes moss-covered
with the dampness of the great shadowing hemlock and fir trees which
were usually planted around New England churches. The first
meeting-houses were often decorated in a very singular and grotesque
manner. Rewards were paid by all the early towns for killing wolves; and
any person who killed a wolf brought the head to the meeting-house and
nailed it to the outer wall; the fierce grinning heads and splashes of
blood made a grim and horrible decoration. All kinds of notices were
also nailed to the meeting-house door where all of the congregation
might readily see them,--notices of town-meetings, of sales of cattle or
farms, lists of town-officers, prohibitions from selling guns to the
Indians, notices of intended marriages, vendues, etc. It was the only
meeting-place, the only method of advertisement. In front of the church
was usually a row of stepping-stones or horse-blocks, for nearly all
came on horseback; and often on the meeting-house green stood the
stocks, pillory, and whipping-post.

A verse from an old-fashioned hymn reads thu