Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. THE COUNCIL OF ORDINATION. Friends were assembled together; the Elder and Magistrate also Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like the Law and the Gospel .... After the Puritan way and the laudable custom of Holland. The Courtship of Miles Standish. A FEW days after the funeral, letters missive from the little society went out to all the neighboring churches, calling a council to ordain the Reverend Cecil Grey a missionary to the Indians. It was a novel thing, in spite of the noble example that Roger Williams had set not many years before ; and the summons met with a general response. All the churches, far and near, sent delegates. If one could only have taken a peep, the day before the council, into the households of that part of New England, what a glimpse he would have gotten of Puritan domestic life ! What a brushing up there was of black coats, what a careful starching and ironing of bands; and above all, in Cecil's own neighborhood, what a mighty cookery for the ordination dinner the next day! For verily the capacity of the clerical stomach is marvellous, and is in fact the one thing in theology that does not change. New departures alter doctrines, creeds are modified, but the appetite of the clergy is not subject to such mutations. The morrow came, and with it the expected guests. The meeting-house was crowded. There were many ministers and lay delegates in the council. In the chair sat a venerable preacher, not unknown in the records of those days, — a portly man, with a shrewd and kindly face. Sterner faces were there also. The council wore a grave aspect, more like a court of judges before whom a criminal is cited to appear than an assembly of clergymen about to ordain a missionary. After some preliminaries, Cecil was c...