"The seventh is a holy day,
For then Latona brought forth golden-rayed Apollo,"
And by our reckoning this was the seventh day of the week, and
not the first. I find among the papers of an old Justice of the
Peace and Deacon of the town of Concord, this singular
memorandum, which is worth preserving as a relic of an ancient
custom. After reforming the spelling and grammar, it runs as
follows: "Men that travelled with teams on the Sabbath,
Dec. 18th, 1803, were Jeremiah Richardson and Jonas Parker, both
of Shirley. They had teams with rigging such as is used to carry
barrels, and they were travelling westward. Richardson was
questioned by the Hon. Ephraim Wood, Esq., and he said that Jonas
Parker was his fellow-traveller, and he further said that a
Mr. Longley was his employer, who promised to bear him out." We
were the men that were gliding northward, this Sept. 1st, 1839,
with still team, and rigging not the most convenient to carry
barrels, unquestioned by any Squire or Church Deacon and ready to
bear ourselves out if need were. In the latter part of the
seventeenth century, according to the historian of Dunstable,
"Towns were directed to erect '_a cage_' near the meeting-house,
and in this all offenders against the sanctity of the Sabbath
were confined." Society has relaxed a little from its
strictness, one would say, but I presume that there is not less
_religion_ than formerly.
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