Page:Historic towns of the middle states (IA historictownsofm02powe).pdf/131

 There remains a marriage contract in which a widower and a widow recite how much property each brings to the marriage state; the widow enumerating among other property three slaves, for whose freedom upon her decease, however, she provides. No doubt the justices, the consistory, the freeholders and the common people observed this order of precedence on this and all like occasions; the widow being preceded by a slave bearing a warming-box for her feet, a metrical version of the Psalms, and the book of devotion containing the liturgy, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Confession of Faith and the canons of the Church, as all these had been approved by the Synod of Dordrecht in 1619.

Long before this learned graduate of the University of Utrecht was secured, the Rev. Gideon Schaets, minister at Albany, was permitted by his Church to visit Schenectady at least four times a year, upon a week day ("since it would be unjust to let the community be without preaching"—so the record at Albany recites), and administer the Lord's Supper, baptize the children and officiate at marriages. Marriage, however, was a civil function over which a magistrate was com