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Hard cover, 12mo, in green pebbled cloth, blocked with an image of a clergyman seated on the ground in gold, within a trellis-like framework in black, titles centered to the front board in black and gold, with similar to the spine. 89pp. Copyright 1874. Twenty litographed illustrations including the tissue-guarded frontispiece by S.J. Barnes, engraved by Bricher-Conant, a Boston firm. (Illustrator S.J. Barnes has not been traced.) CONDITION: Very Good Plus, with small dents to head and foot of front board. Hinges are in order but show minor manufacturing defects. Lightly rubbed along joints and tips. Lightly age-toned. Former owner signature in old ink, dated 1875.**The Author's foreward explains that this speech, originally a sermon, was one he was asked to deliver many times both in his Music Hall and lyceum setttings. It's views would seem to represent one of the sources of conflict with his flock at the Park-Street Church in Boston, which would eventually see their pastor, William H.H. Murray, be asked to resign. It is a pretty uproarious satire on the characteristics of New England Congregational decision-making, in as far as the really important things go-- arrangements for anything new, such as a church picnic, (the menu choices for said picnic being debated with theological arguments). This sort of humor might remind one of Mark Twain. It also presages the progressive views Murray espoused, and his arguments for outdoor life being essential to the health and welfare of the comman man, themes he would expand upon in the following decades with his other fiction. Wright 1767. Scarce.
Ref: ADIR 9367
$75.00