Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/61

 of settlement. His first call, made by the committee of the church in November, 1688, he held in suspense, failing to respond to it for some months; until the young men of the parish, feeling that their elders were making no advance, took the matter into their own hands, and gave him a second call in April, 1689; and he commenced his duties as their preacher from that time, although not regularly ordained until the close of the year.

Whether owing to the unauthorized interference of the young men, which settled him thus prematurely, or by some intentional and overreaching misconception on the part of Mr. Parris, there sprung up a constant and imbittered discussion as to the terms of his settlement—he maintaining himself to be entitled by the terms of his agreement to the parsonage house and the glebe lands; which the other party maintained to be their inalienable church property, which they had neither the intention nor the power to convey away.

This sharp mercantile spirit, which he constantly betrayed in his perpetual "hig