The service conducted in a meeting-house.
1774. We went to meeting at Wells and had the pleasure of hearing my friend upon “Be not partakers in other men’s sins. Keep yourselves pure.”—J. Adams, ‘Familiar Letters,’ p. 10. (N.E.D.)
1781. ’Tis true, Mr. Tryon went not to meeting; but he was forgiven this offence, because he went to church.—Samuel Peters, ‘History of Connecticut,’ p. 122 (Lond.).
1788. [The children were] left at home, while their parents were gone to meeting.—Mass. Spy, Dec. 25.
1793. Sunday——attended meeting.—Id., March 7.
1799. Not long since I was at meeting, and had such difficulty in getting out of the house, that I heartily wished there never were any gowns or robes in existence.—Id., March 27.
1801. A sailor went to meeting, and being unacquainted he placed himself in the Deacon’s seat. When the Deacon sung the first line of the psalm, the sailor looked at him with an evil eye; the congregation joined, and sung the psalm through; the sailor then arose, and knocked the deacon down, and told him it was he that began all that damned noise.—Id., Nov. 25.
1814. The ladies living in the street generally walk to meeting, and unless protected by some gentleman are in much danger of being run over.—From ‘A Card,’ id., Jan. 12.
1818. He desired that his family should be regular in attendance at meeting, and he himself went when the situation of his patients permitted.—Eulogy of Dr. Caspar Wistar, by Chief Justice Tilghman of Pa.
1821. Their girls appear at meeting with exquisite bonnets, nearly equal in size to the hoop petticoats of former times.—Mass. Spy, Jan. 17: from the Ploughboy.
a. 1821. The other evening, I accidentally ogled Jack Rattle in meeting, and my old tyrant has looked like a thunder-cloud ever since.—Connecticut Herald: J. T. Buckingham, ‘Miscellanies,’ i. 76 (1822).
1822. The practice of carrying children to meeting on the Sabbath, so soon as they can be restrained from play and noise, is worthy of praise.—Id., May 22.
1823. When you sleep at meeting, do it without disguise or concealment. A church is no place for hypocrisy.—Id., Nov. 5: from the Portland Gazette.
1825. Poor Lydia Norris (the little child) was never at ‘meeting,’ after the day of the funeral.—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ i. 21.
1826. For heaven’s sake, exclaimed my spouse, what have [the sleeves of your flannel waistcoat] to do with going to meeting?—Mass. Spy, Nov. 15: from the Nantucket Inquirer.
1827. Mr. H. had just returned from meeting.—Id., Aug. 1.
1829. Not one of the family was permitted to stay from meeting.—Id., June 10: from the Boston Philanthropist.
1845. He was taking long and deep draughts of fragrance from a half-blown rose-bud, when he unexpectedly snuffed up the bud itself, and being unable to extricate it, was led, crying, out of meeting.—‘Lowell Offering,’ v. 170.
1849.
| Two fellers, Isrel named and Joe, | |
| One Sundy mornin’ ’greed to go | |
| Agunnin’ soon’z the bells wuz done | |
| And meetin’ finally begun, | |
| So’st no one would n’t be about | |
| Their Sabbath-breakin’ to spy out. | |
Lowell, ‘The Two Gunners.’ |
1853. You may see them take a horse, and ride bare-backed until they tear them [their clothes] to pieces, that they are not fit to come to meeting in.—Brigham Young, June 5: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ i. 251.
1857. I have to pay every dime I can get for morocco shoes, for my women to wear to meeting; and they will wear out a pair while going once to meeting.—H. C. Kimball at the Bowery, Aug. 2: id., v. 137.
1878. You’re as clever as a robin, Happy. I guess you’ve done me more good than the minister an’ meetin’ together, since you’ve lived here, and I’ve strove to tell ye on’t, frequent, but somehow I couldn’t fetch round to.—Rose T. Cooke, ‘Happy Dodd,’ chap. xxvii.
