The singularity and latitude of the summons drew together, from
all parts of New England, and also from the Middle States, men of every
shade of opinion, from the straightest orthodoxy to the wildest heresy,
and many persons whose church was a church of one member only. A great
variety of dialect and of costume was noticed; a great deal of
confusion, eccentricity, and freak appeared, as well as of zeal and
enthusiasm. If the Assembly was disorderly, it was picturesque. Madmen,
madwomen, men with beards, Dunkers, Muggletonians, Come-outers,
Groaners, Agrarians, Seventh-day Baptists, Quakers, Abolitionists,
Calvinists, Unitarians, and philosophers, all came successively to the
top, and seized their moment, if not their _hour_, wherein to chide or
pray or preach or protest. The faces were a study. The most daring
innovators, and the champions-until-death of the old cause, sat side by
side. The still living merit of the oldest New England families, glowing
yet after several generations, encountered the founders of families,
fresh merit emerging and expanding the brows to a new breadth, and
lighting a clownish face with sacred fire. The Assembly was
characterised by the predominance of a certain plain sylvan strength and
earnestness' (_Dial_, iii. 101).
If the shade of Bossuet could have looked down upon the scene, he would
have found fresh material for the sarcasms which a hundred and fifty
years before he had lavished on the Variations of the Protestant
Churches.
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