In addition to the more obvious and sufficient
motive, which has given rise to the same inconvenient and unpicturesque
manner of building, over nine-tenths of the continent of Europe, there had
been found a religious inducement for the inconvenient custom. One of the
enactments of the Puritans said, that "no man shall set his
dwelling-house, above the distance of half-a-mile, or a mile at farthest,
from the meeting of the congregation where the church doth usually
assemble for the worship of God." "The support of the worship of God, in
church fellowship," was the reason alleged for this arbitrary provision of
the law; but it is quite probable that support against danger of a more
temporal character was another motive. There were those within the fort
who believed the smoking piles that were to be seen, here and there, in
the clearings on the hills, owed their destruction to a disregard of that
protection which was thought to be yielded to those who leaned with the
greatest confidence, even in the forms of earthly transactions, on the
sustaining power of an all-seeing and all-directing Providence.
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