In the year 1883 I prepared a somewhat detailed sketch of the history of the North Precinct of the original town of Braintree, subsequently incorporated as Quincy, which was published and can now be found in the large volume entitled “History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts.” In the preparation of that sketch I had at my command a quantity of material of more or less historical value,—including printed and manuscript records, letters, journals, traditions both oral and written, etc.,—bearing on social customs, and political and religious questions or conditions. The study of this material caused me to use in my sketch the following language:— “That the earlier generations of Massachusetts were either more law-abiding or more self-restrained than the later, is a proposition which accords neither with tradition nor with the reason of things. The habits of those days were simpler than those of the present; they were also essentially grosser. The community was small; and it hardly needs to be said that where the eyes of all are upon each, the general scrutiny is a safeguard to morals. It is in cities, not in villages, that laxity is to be looked for.” But “now and again, especially in the relations between the sexes, we get glimpses of incidents in the dim past which are as dark as they are suggestive. Some such are connected with Quincy.... The illegitimate child was more commonly met with in the last than in the present century, and bastardy cases furnished a class of business with which country lawyers seem to have been as familiar then as they are with liquor cases now.”[1] Being now engaged in the work of revising and rewriting the sketch in which this extract occurs, I have recently had On this subject I concur entirely in the sentiments of our orator, Colonel Higginson, as expressed in his address at the Society’s recent centennial. The truth of history is a sacred thing,—a thing of far more importance than its dignity,—and the truth of history should not be sacrificed to sentiment, patriotism or filial piety. Neither, in like manner, when it comes to scientific historical research, can propriety, whether of subject or, in the case of original material, of language, be regarded. To this last principle the published pages of Winthrop and Bradford bear evidence; and, in my judgment, the Massachusetts Historical Society has, in a career now both long and creditable, done nothing more creditable to itself than in once for all, through the editorial action of Mr. Savage and Mr. Deane, settling this principle in the publications referred to. I am, of course, well aware that Mr. Savage did not edit Winthrop’s History for this Society, but nevertheless he is so But in the case of history, as with medicine and many other branches of science and learning, there are, as I have already said, many matters which cannot be treated freely in works intended for general circulation,—matters which none the less may be, and often are, important and deserving of thorough mention. Certainly they should not be ignored or suppressed. And this is exactly one of the uses to which historical societies are best adapted. Like medical and other similar associations, historical societies are scientific bodies in which all subjects relating to their department of learning both can and should be treated with freedom, so that reference may be made, in books intended for popular reading, to historical-society collections as pure scientific depositories. It is this course I propose to pursue in the present case; and such material at my disposal as I cannot well use freely in the work upon which I am now engaged, will be incorporated in the present paper, and made accessible in the printed Proceedings of the Society for such general reference as may be desirable. Among the unpublished material to which I have referred are the records of the First Church of Quincy,—originally and for more than a century and a half (1639-1792) the Braintree North Precinct Church. The volume of these records covering the earliest period of the history of the Society cannot now be found. It was in the possession of the church in 1739, for it was then used and referred to by the Rev. John Hancock, father of the patriot, and fifth pastor of the church, in the preparation of two centennial sermons preached by him at that time; but eighty-five years later, when, in 1824, the parish was separated from the town, the earliest book of regular There is, however, another volume of records still in existence, apparently not kept by the regular precinct clerk, the entries in which, all relating to the period between 1673 and 1773, seem to have been made by five successive pastors. Small and bound in leather, the paper of which this volume is made up is of that rough, parchment character in such common use during the last century, and the entries in it, in five different handwritings, are in many cases scarcely legible, and frequently of the most confidential character. In the main they are records of births, baptisms, marriages and deaths; but some of them relate to matters of church discipline, and these throw a curious light on the social habits of a period now singularly remote. In view of what this volume contains, the loss of the previous volume containing the record of the church’s spiritual life from the time it was organized to 1673, a period of thirty-four years, becomes truly an hiatus valde deflendus.[2] For a full understanding of the situation it is merely necessary further to say that, during the period to which all the entries in the volume from which I am about to quote relate, Braintree was a Massachusetts sea-board town of the ordinary character. It numbered a population ranging The following entry is in the handwriting of the Rev. Moses Fiske, pastor of the church during thirty-six years, from 1672 to 1708, and it bears date March 2, 1683:— “Temperance, the daughter of Brother F——, now the wife of John B——, having been guilty of the sin of Fornication with him that is now her husband, was called forth in the open Congregation, and presented a paper containing a full acknowledgment of her great sin and wickedness,—publickly bewayled her disobedience to parents, pride, unprofitableness under the means of grace, as the cause that might provoke God to punish her with sin, and warning all to take heed of such sins, begging the church’s prayers, that God would humble her, and give a sound repentance, &c. Which confession being read, after some debate, the brethren did generally if not unanimously judge that she ought to be admonished; and accordingly she was solemnly admonished of her great sin, which was spread before her in divers particulars, and charged to search her own heart wayes and to make thorough work in her Repentance, &c. from which she was released by the church vote unanimously on April 11th 1698.” The next entry of a case of church discipline is of a wholly different character. The individual subjected to it bore the “Samuel Tomson, a prodigie of pride, malice and arrogance, being called before the church in the Meeting-house 28, July, 1697, for his absenting himselfe from the Publike Worshipe, unlesse when any strangers preached; his carriage being before the Church proud and insolent, reviling and vilifying their Pastor, at an horrible rate, and stileing him their priest, and them a nest of wasps; and they unanimously voated an admonition, which was accordingly solemnly and in the name of Christ, applyed to him, wherein his sin and wickedness was laid open by divers Scriptures for his conviction, and was warned to repent, and after prayer to God this poor man goes to the tavern to drink it down immediately, as he said, &c.” Then, under date of August 27, 1697, a month later, Mr. Fiske proceeds:— “He delivered to me an acknowledgment in a bit of paper at my house in the presence of Leif’t Marsh and Ensign Penniman, who he brought. ’Twas read before the Church at a meeting appointed 12. 8. They being not willing to meet before. Leif’t Col. Quinsey gave his testimony against it, and said that his conversation did not agree therewith.” The next entry, also in the same handwriting, is dated Dec. 25, 1697:— “At the church meeting further testimony came in against him: the church generally by vote and voice declared him impenitent, and I was to proceed to an ejection of him, by a silent vote in Public. But I deferred it, partly because of the severity of the winter, but chiefly This occurred on the 11th of April, 1698; and on the 17th Mr. Fiske proceeds:— “After the end of the public worship his confession was read publickly, and the major part of the Church voted his absolution.” The next case of discipline in order of the entries relates to an earlier period, 1677. It records the excommunication of one Joseph Belcher. The proceedings took place at meetings held on the 7th of October and the 11th of November. “Joseph Belcher, a member of this Church though not in full communion, being sent for by the Church, after they had resolved to inquire into the matter of scandall, so notoriously infamous both in Court and Country, by Deacon Basse and Samuel Tompson, to give an account of these things; they returning with this answer from him, that he would consider of it and send the church word the next Sabbath, whether he would come or no; on which return by a script, whereunto his name was subscribed, which he also owned to the elder, in private the weeke after, wherein he scornfully and impudently reflected upon the officer and church, and rudely refused to have anything to doe with us; so after considerable waiting, he persisting in his impenitence and obstinacy, (the Elders met at Boston unanimously advising thereto) the Church voted his not hearing of them, some few brethren not acting, doubting of his membership but silent. He was proceeded against according to Matthew 18, 17,[4] and rejected.” The next entry also records a case of excommunication, under date of May 4, 1683:— “Isaac Theer, (the son of Brother Thomas Theer) being a member of this Church but not in full communion, having been convicted of notorious scandalous thefts multiplied, as stealing pewter from Johanna Livingstone, stealing from John Penniman cheese, &c., and others, and stealing an horse at Bridgewater, for which he suffered the law, after much laboring with him in private and especially by the officers of the The next also is a case of excommunication. It appears from the records (p. 658) that “Upon the 9th day of August ther went out a fleet Souldiers to Canadee in the year 1690, and the small pox was abord, and they died, sixe of it; four thrown overbord at Cap an.” Among these four was Ebenezer Owen, who left a widow and a brother Josiah; and it is to them that this entry relates:— “Josiah Owen, the son of William Owen (whose parents have been long in full communion), a child of the covenant, who obtained by fraud and wicked contrivance by some marriage with his brother Ebenezer Owen’s widdow, as the Pastor of the church had information by letters from the Court of Assistance touching the sentence there passed upon her (he making his escape). And living with her as an husband, being, by the Providence of God, surprised at his cottage by the Pastor of the Church with Major Quinsey and D. Tompson (of whom reports were that he was gone, we intending to discourse with her and acquaint [her] with the message received from the said Court informing hertheir appointment of an open confession of their sin in the congregation), he was affectionately treated by them, and after much discourse, finding him obstinate and reflecting, he was desired and charged to be present the next Sabbath before the Church, The above, four in number, are all the cases of church discipline recorded as having been administered during the Fiske pastorate. Considering that this pastorate covered more than a third of a century, and that during it the original township had not yet been divided into precincts,—all the inhabitants of what are now Quincy, Randolph and Holbrook as well as those of the present Braintree, being included in the church to which Mr. Fiske ministered,—the record indicates a high standard of morality and order. The town at that time had a population of about seven hundred souls, which during the next pastorate increased to one thousand. Mr. Fiske died on the 10th of August, 1708, and the Rev. Joseph Marsh was ordained as his successor on the 18th of the following May (1709). At this time the town was divided for purposes of religious worship into two precincts, the Records of the North Precinct—now Quincy—beginning on the 17th of January, 1708. It then contained, “by exact enumeration,” seventy-two families, or close upon four hundred souls. The record now proceeds in the handwriting of Mr. Marsh:— “The first Church meeting after my settlement was in August 4, 1713, in the meeting-house. It was occasioned by the notoriously scandalous life of James Penniman, a member of the Church, though not in full communion. The crimes charged upon him and proved The next entry is one of eight years later, and reads as follows:— “1721. Samuel Hayward was suspended from the Lord’s supper by the Brethren for his disorderly behaviour in word and deed, and his incorrigibleness therein.” Up to this time it had been the custom of the Braintree church that any person “propounded” for membership should, before being admitted, give an oral or written relation of his or her religious experience,—a practice in strict accordance with the usage then prevailing, with perhaps a few exceptions, throughout Massachusetts.[6] The record, under date of December 31, 1721, contains the following in relation to this:— “Dr. Belcher’s son Joseph, junior Sophister, [admitted.] He made the last Relation, before the brethren consented to lay aside Relations. “Because some persons of a sober life and good conversation have signified their unwillingness to join in full communion with the Church, unless they may be admitted to it without making a Public Relation of their spiritual experiences, which (they say) the Church has no warrant in the word of God to require, it was therefore proposed to the Church the last Sacrament-day that they would not any more require a Relation as above said from any person who desired to partake in the Ordinance of the Lord’s Supper with us, and after the case had been under debate at times among the brethren privately for the space of three weeks, the question was put to them January 28 1721/2 being on a Lord’s Day Evening in the Meeting-house, whether they would any more insist upon the making a Relation as a necessary Term of full communion with them? “It passed in the negative by a great majority.” Two months later the case of James Penniman again presented itself. It was now nearly nine years since he had been solemnly admonished; and on the 4th of April, 1722,— “Sabbath day. It was proposed to the church last Sabbath to excommunicate James Penniman for his contumacy in sin, but this day The following entries complete the record during the Marsh pastorate of sixteen years, which ended March 8, 1726, Mr. Marsh then dying in his forty-first year:— “September 9. Brother Joseph Parmenter made a public Confession, in the presence of the Congregation for the sin of drunkenness. “September 21. At a Church meeting of the Brethren to consider his case, the question was put whether they would accept his confession [to] restore him; it passed in the negative, because he has made several confessions of the sin, and is still unreformed thereof: the Brethren concluded it proper to suspend him from Communion in the Lord’s Supper, for his further humiliation and warning. He was accordingly suspended. “March 3d, 1722-3. Sabbath Evening. Brother Parmenter having behaved himself well (for aught anything that appears) since his suspension, was at his desire restored again by a vote of the Brethren, nemine contradicente. “March 10. Joseph, a negro man, and Tabitha his wife made a public confession of the sin of fornication, committed each with the other before marriage, and desired to have the ordinance of Baptism administered to them. “May 26. The Brethren of the Church met together to consider what is further necessary to be done by the Church towards the reformation of James Penniman. He being present desired their patience towards him, and offered a trifling confession, which was read, but not accepted by the Brethren, because he manifested no sign of true repentance thereof: they came to (I think) a unanimous vote that he should be cast out of the Church for his incorrigibleness in his evil waies, whenever I shall see good to do it, and I promised to wait upon him some time, to see how he would behave himself before I proceeded against him. “At the same church meeting Major Quincey was fairly and clearly chosen by written votes to the office of tuning the Psalm in our Assemblies for Public Worship. “January 26, 1723/4 Lord’s-day. In the afternoon, after a sermon on 1 Cor. 5.5.[7] James Penniman persisting in a course of Idleness, “February 2, 1723/4. Lord’s Day. After the public service the Church being desired to stay voted—that Benjamin Neal, David Bass and Joseph Neal jun. members in full communion have discovered such a perverse spirit and been guilty of such disorderly behaviour in the House and Worship of God that they deserve to be suspended from communion with us at the Lord’s table. “February 9. Lord’s Day evening. David Bass acknowledging his offensive behavior and promising to be more watchfull for time to come, the brethren signified their consent that he be restored to full communion with them. “March 1. This day (being Sacrament day) Benjamin Neal and Joseph Neal, confessing their offensive behavior in presence of the Brethren, were restored to the liberty of full communion.” The above are all the record entries relating to matters of discipline during the Marsh pastorate, which ended March 8, 1726. They cover a period of sixteen years. On the 2d of November following the Rev. John Hancock was ordained, and the following entries are in his handwriting:— “January 21, 1728. Joseph P—— and Lydia his wife made a confession before the Church which was well accepted for the sin of Fornication committed with each other before marriage. “August 12, 1728. The Church met again at the house of Mrs. Marsh to examine into the grounds of some scandalous reports of the conduct of Brother David Bass on May the 29th who was vehemently suspected of being confederate with one Roger Wilson in killing a lamb belonging to Mr. Edward Adams of Milton. The witnesses, viz. Capt. John Billings, Mr. Edward and Samuel Capons of Dorchester, being present, the Church had a full hearing of the case, who unanimously agreed that brother Bass, though he denied the fact of having an hand in killing the lamb, yet was guilty of manifest prevaricating in the matter, and could not be restored to their communion without giving them satisfaction, and desired the matter might be suspended. “[Nov. 11, 1728.] On Monday November the 11, 1728 we had another church meeting to hear and consider Brother David Bass’s confession, which (after some debate) was accepted; and it was unanimously voted by the Church that it should be read before the whole Congregation, with which brother Bass would by no means comply, and so the matter was left at this meeting. “But on December the 15 following David Bass’s confession was read publicly before the Church and Congregation, which he owned publicly, and was accepted by the brethren by a manual vote. “September 28, 1729. Elizabeth M—— made a confession before the whole congregation for the sin of fornication, which was accepted by the Church. “July 2, 1732. Abigail, wife of Joseph C——, made a confession of the sin of fornication, which was well accepted by the Church, though she was ill and absent. “August 6, 1732. Ebenezer H—— and wife made their confession of the sin of fornication. “July 1, 1733. Tabitha, a servant of Judge Quincy, and a member of this Church, made her confession for stealing a 3 pound bill from her Master, which was accepted. “August 11, 1734. Nathan S—— and wife made their confession of the sin of fornication which was well accepted by the church. “September 28, 1735. Elizabeth P——, widow, made her confession of the sin of fornication and was accepted. “[Sept. 8, 1735.] At a meeting of the First Church of Christ in Braintree at the house of the Pastor, September the 8th 1735, after prayer—Voted, That it is the duty of this Church to examine the proofs of an unhappy quarrel between Benjamin Owen and Joseph Owen, members in full communion with this Church on May 30th 1735, whereby God has been dishonored and religion reproached. “After some examination thereof it was unanimously voted by the brethren—That the Pastor should ask Benjamin Owen whether he would make satisfaction to the Church for his late offensive behaviour, which he refused to do in a public manner, unless the charge could be more fully proved upon him. Whereupon there arose several debates upon the sufficiency of the proof to demand a publick confession of him; and there appearing different apprehensions among the brethren about it, it was moved by several that the meeting should be adjourned for further consideration of the whole affair. “Before the meeting was adjourned Benjamin Web acquainted the brethren with some scandalous reports he had heard of Elizabeth Morse, a member of this Church, when it was unanimously voted to be the duty of this Church to choose a Committee to examine into the truth of them and make report to the Church. And Mr. Benjamin Web, Mr. Moses Belcher Junr and Mr. Joseph Neal, Tert. were chose for the committee. “Then the meeting was adjourned to the 29th Inst. at 2 oclock P. M. “The brethren met upon the adjournment, and after humble supplication to God for direction, examined more fully the proofs of the late quarrel between Benj. Owen and Joseph Owen but passed no vote upon them. “Then it was voted by the brethren that he should make confession of his offence in the following words, viz: Whereas I have been left to fall into a sinful strife and quarrel with my brother Joseph Owen, I acknowledge I am greatly to blame that I met my brother in anger and strove with him, to the dishonor of God, and thereby also have offended my Christian brethren. I desire to be humbled before God, and to ask God’s forgiveness; I desire to be at peace with my brother, and to be restored to the charity of this Church, and your prayers to God for me. “To which he consented, as also to make it in public. “At the desire of the brethren the meeting was adjourned to Friday the 24 Inst. at 4 o’clock P. M. that they might satisfy themselves concerning the conduct of Joseph Owen in the late sinful strife between him and his brother. And the Pastor was desired to send to him to be present at the adjournment. “The brethren met accordingly, and after a long consideration of the proof had against Joseph Owen, it was proposed to the brethren whether they would defer the further consideration of Joseph Owen’s affair to another opportunity. It was voted in the negative. “Whereupon a vote was proposed in the following words viz: Whether it appears to the brethren of this Church that the proofs they have had against Joseph Owen in the late unhappy strife between him and his brother be sufficient for them to demand satisfaction from him. Voted in the affirmative. “And the satisfaction the brethren voted he should make for his offence was in the following words:—I am sensible that in the late unhappy and sinful strife between me and my brother Benj. Owen, I am blameworthy, and I ask forgiveness of God and this Church, and I desire to be at peace with my brother and ask your prayers to God for me. “Then it was proposed to the brethren whether they would accept this confession, if Joseph Owen would make it before them at the present meeting—Voted in the negative. “Whereupon it was voted that he should make this satisfaction for his offence before the Church upon the Lord’s day immediately before the administration of the Lord’s supper. With which he refusing to comply though he consented to make it before the Church at the present meeting, the meeting was dissolved. “October 26, 1735. Benj’n Owen made a public confession of his offence, and was restored to the charity of the Church. “[Nov. 10, 1735.] At a church meeting, Nov. 10th, 1735, the case of Elizabeth Morse came under consideration. And she having neglected to come and make satisfaction for her offence according to her promise, though she was in Town at that time, the brethren proceeded and unanimously voted her suspension from the communion of this church. It was likewise unanimously voted that the Pastor should admonish her in the name of the Church in a letter for her great offence. “Upon a motion made by some of the brethren to reconsider the vote of the church Oct. 24 relating to Joseph Owen, it was voted to reconsider the same. Voted also that his confession be accepted before the brethren at the present meeting, which was accordingly done, and he was restored to their charity. “December 7, 1735. Lieutenant Joseph Crosbey made confession of the sin of fornication, and was restored to the charity of the church. “December 21, 1735. John Beale made confession of the sin of fornication, and was restored to the charity of the brethren. “April 18, 1736. Susanna W—— made confession of the sin of fornication, and was restored to the charity of the brethren. “May 1, 1737. Sam P—— and wife made public confession of the sin of fornication. Accepted. “January 22, 1737/8. Charles S—— and wife made a public confession of the sin of fornication. “June 11, 1738. Benj’n Sutton and Naomi his wife, free negroes, made confession of fornication. “December 17, 1738. Jeffry, my servant, and Flora, his wife, servant of Mr. Moses Belcher, negroes, made confession of the sin of fornication. “May 20th, 1739. Benjamin C—— and wife, of Milton, made confession of fornication. “Jan’y 20, 1739/40. Joseph W—— and wife confessed the sin of fornication. “October 25, 1741. This Church suspended from their communion Eleazer Vesey for his disorderly unchristian life and neglecting to hear the Church, according to Matt. 18, 17.” “August 22, 1753. Ebenezer Adams was Suspended from the Communion of the Church for the false, abusive and scandalous stories that his Unbridled Tongue had spread against the Pastor, and refusing to make a proper Confession of his monstrous wickedness.” The other of these two records bears date almost exactly twenty years later, and was doubtless made because of the preceding entry. It is very brief, and as follows:— “November 3, 1773. The Church made choice of Ebenezer Adams for deacon, in the place of deacon Palmer, who resigned the stated exercise of his office.” After 1741, therefore, the only records of the North Precinct church are those contained in the book kept by the “After a considerable debate with respect to the raising of the new meeting-house, &c., the Question was put whether the committee should provide Bred Cheap Sugar Rum Sider and Bear &c. for the Raising of said Meeting House at the Cost of the Precinct. It passed in the affirmative.” I have been unable to discover any subsequent detailed statement of expenses incurred and disbursements made under the authority conferred by this vote. Such a document might be interesting. Two years before, when in 1729 the Rev. Mr. Jackson was ordained as pastor of the church of Woburn, among the items of expense were four, aggregating the sum of £23 1s., representing the purchase of “6 Barrels and one half of Cyder, 28 Gallons of Wine, 2 Gallons of Brandy and four of Rum, Loaf Sugar, Lime Juice, and Pipes,” all, it is to be presumed, consumed at the time and on the spot. It has of course been noticed that a large proportion of the entries I have quoted relate to discipline administered in cases of fornication, in many of which confession is made by husband and wife, and is of acts committed before marriage. The “June 1, 1765. The church then voted with regard to Baptizing children of persons newly married, That those parents that have not a child till seven yearly months after Marriage are subjects of our Christian Charity, and (if in a judgment of Charity otherwise qualified) shall have the privilege of Baptism for their Infants without being questioned as to their Honesty.” This rule prevailed in the Groton church for nearly forty years, until in January, 1803, it was brought up again for consideration by an article in the warrant calling a church meeting “to see if the church will reconsider and annul the rule established by former vote and usage of the church requiring an acknowledgment before the congregation of those persons who have had a child within less time than seven yearly months after marriage as a term of their having baptism for their children.” The compelling cause to the confessions referred to was therefore the parents’ desire to secure baptism for their offspring during a period when baptism was believed to be essential to salvation, with the Calvinistic hell as an alternative. The constant and not infrequently cruel use made by the church and the clergy of the parental fear of infant damnation—the “Whose rule the nuptial kiss restrains and there is one well-authenticated case of a Massachusetts clergyman whose practice it was thus to refuse to baptize Sabbath-born babes, who in passage of time had twins born to him on a Lord’s day. He publicly confessed his error, and in due time administered the rite to his children.[9] With the church refusing baptism on the one side, and with an eternity of torment for unbaptized infants on the other, some definite line had to be drawn. This was effected through what was known as “the seven months’ rule”; and the penalty for its violation, enforced and made effective by the refusal of the rites of baptism, was a public confession. Under the operation of “the seven months’ rule” the records of the Groton church show that out of two hundred persons owning the baptismal covenant in that church during the fourteen years between 1761 and 1775 no less than sixty-six confessed to fornication before marriage.[10] The entries recording these cases are very singular. At first the full name of the person, or persons in the case of husband and wife, is written, followed by the words “confessed and restored” in full. Somewhat later, about the year 1763, the record becomes regularly “Confessed Fornication;” which two years later is reduced to “Con. For.;” which is subsequently still further abbreviated into merely “C. F.” During the three years 1789, 1790 and 1791 I also find the following in regard to this church usage in Worthington’s “History of Dedham” (pp. 108, 109), further indicating that the Groton and Braintree records reveal no exceptional condition of affairs:— “The church had ever in this place required of its members guilty of unlawful cohabitation before marriage, a public confession of that crime, before the whole congregation. The offending female stood in the broad aisle beside the partner of her guilt. If they had been married, the declaration of the man was silently assented to by the woman. This had always been a delicate and difficult subject for church discipline. The public confession, if it operated as a corrective, likewise produced merriment with the profane. I have seen no instance of a public confession of this sort until the ministry of Mr. Dexter (1724-55) and then they were extremely rare. In 1781, the church gave the confessing parties the privilege of making a private confession to the church, in the room of a public confession. In Mr. Haven’s ministry, (1756-1803) the number of cases of unlawful cohabitation, increased to an alarming degree. For twenty-five years before 1781 twenty-five cases had been publicly acknowledged before the congregation, and fourteen cases within the last ten years.” It will be noticed in the above extract that the writer says he had “seen no instance of a public confession of this sort” prior to 1724, and that until after 1755 “they were extremely rare.” In the case of the Braintree records, also, it will be remembered there was but one case of public confession recorded prior to 1723, and that solitary case occurred in 1683. The Record Commissioners of the city of Boston in their sixth report (Document 114—1880) printed the Rev. John Eliot’s record of church members of Roxbury, which covers the period from the gathering of the church in 1632 to the year 1689, and includes notes of many cases of discipline. Among these I find the following, the earliest of its kind:— “1678. Month 4 day 16. Hanna Hopkins was censured in the Church with admonition for fornication with her husband before thei were maryed and for flying away from justice, unto Road Iland.” (p. 93.) During the next eighteen years I find in these records only seven entries of other cases generally similar in character to So far as they bear upon the question of sexual morality in Massachusetts during the eighteenth century, what do the foregoing facts and extracts from the records indicate?—what inferences can be legitimately drawn from them? And here I wish to emphasize the fact that this paper makes no pretence of being an exhaustive study. In it, as I stated in the beginning, I have made use merely of such material as chanced to come into my hands in connection with a very limited field of investigation. I have made no search for additional material, nor even inquired what other facts of a similar character to those I have given may be preserved in the records of the two other Braintree precincts. I have not sought to compare the records I have examined with the similar records I know exist of the churches of neighboring towns,—such as those of Dorchester, Hingham, Weymouth, Milton and Dedham. So doing would have involved an amount of labor which the matter under investigation would not justify on my part. I have therefore merely made use of a certain amount of the raw material of history I have chanced upon, bringing to bear on it such other general information of a similar character as I remember from time to time to have come across. Though the historians of New England, whether of the formal description, like Palfrey and Barry, or of the social and economic order, like Elliott and Weeden, have little if anything to say on the subject, I think it not unsafe to assert that during the eighteenth century the inhabitants of New England did not enjoy a high reputation for sexual morality. Lord Dartmouth, for instance, who, as secretary for the colonies, had charge of American affairs during a portion of the North administration, in one of his conversations with Governor And yet, speaking again from the material which chances to be at my own disposal, I find, so far as Braintree is concerned, nothing to justify this statement of Lord Dartmouth’s in the manuscript record book of Col. John Quincy, which has been preserved, and is now in the possession of this Society. Colonel Quincy was a prominent man in his day and neighborhood; and the North Precinct of Braintree, in which he lived and was buried, when, nearly thirty years after his death, it was incorporated as a town, took its name from him. As a justice of the peace, Colonel Quincy kept a careful record of the cases, both civil and criminal, which came before him between 1716 and 1761, a period of forty-five years. These cases, a great part of them criminal, were over two hundred in number, and came not only from Braintree but from other parts of the old county of Suffolk. Under these circumstances, if the state of affairs indicated by Lord Dartmouth’s remark, and Governor Hutchinson’s apparent admission of its truth, did really prevail, many bastardy warrants would during those forty-five years naturally have come before so active a magistrate as John Quincy. Such does not seem to have been the case. Indeed I find during the whole period but four bastardy entries,—one in 1733, one in 1739, one in 1746, and one in 1761,—and, in 1720, one complaint against a woman to answer for fornication. Considering the length of time the record of Colonel Quincy covers, this is a remarkably small number of cases, and, taken by itself, would seem to indicate the exact opposite from the condition of affairs revealed in the church records of the same period, for it includes the whole Hancock pastorate. This record book of Colonel Quincy’s I will add is the only original legal material I have bearing on this subject. An examination of the files of the provincial courts would undoubtedly bring more material to light. I have only further to say, in passing, that some of the other cases mentioned in this John Quincy record are not without a Returning to the subject of church discipline and public confessions of incontinence, it will be observed that in the case of the North Precinct Church of Braintree the great body of these confessions are recorded as being made during the Hancock pastorate, or between the years 1726 and 1744. This also, it will be remembered, was the period of what is known in New England history as “The Great Awakening,” described in the first chapter of the recently published fifth volume of Dr. Palfrey’s work. Some writers, while referring to what they call “the tide of immorality” which then and afterward “rolled,” as they express it, over the land, so that “not even the bulwark of the church had been able to withstand” it,—these writers, themselves of course ministers of the church, have, for want of any more apparent cause, attributed the condition of affairs they deplored, but were compelled to admit, to the influence of the French wars, which, it will be remembered, broke out in 1744, and, with an intermission of six years (1749-1755), lasted until the conquest of Canada was completed in 1760. But it would be matter for curious inquiry whether both the condition of affairs referred to and the confessions made in public of sins privately committed I have neither the material at my disposal, nor the time and inclination to go into this study, both physiological and psychological, and shall therefore confine myself to a few suggestions only which have occurred to me in the course of the examination of the records I have been discussing. “The Great Awakening,” so called, occurred in 1740,—it was then that Whitefield preached on Boston Common to an audience about equal in number to three quarters of the entire population of the town.[12] Five years before, in 1735, had occurred the famous Northampton revival, engineered and presided over by Jonathan Edwards; and previous to that there had been a number of small local outbreaks of the same character, which his “venerable and honoured Grandfather Stoddard,” as Edwards describes his immediate predecessor in the Northampton pulpit, was accustomed to refer to as “Harvests,” in which there was “a considerable Ingathering of Souls.” A little later this spiritual condition became general and, so to speak, epidemic. There are few sadder or more suggestive forms of literature than that in which the religious contagion of 1735, for it was nothing else, is described; it reveals a state of affairs bordering close on universal insanity. Take for instance the following from Edwards’s “Narrative” of what took place at Northampton:— “Presently upon this, a great and earnest Concern about the great things of Religion, and the eternal World, became universal in all parts of the Town, and among Persons of all Degrees, and all Ages; the Noise amongst the Dry Bones waxed louder and louder: All other talk but about spiritual and eternal things, was soon thrown by.... There was scarcely a single Person in the Town, either old or young, that was left unconcerned about the great Things of the eternal World. Those that were wont to be the vainest, and loosest, and those that had been most disposed to think, and speak slightly of vital and experimental Religion, were now generally subject to great awakenings.... Souls did as it were come by Flocks to Jesus Christ. From Day to Day, for many Months together, might be seen evident Instances of Sinners brought out of Darkness into marvellous Light, and delivered out of an horrible Pit, and from the miry Clay, and set upon a Rock, with a new Song of Praise And it was this pestiferous stuff,—for though it emanated from the pure heart and powerful brain of the greatest of American theologians, it is best to characterize it correctly,—it was this pestiferous stuff that Wesley read during a walk from London to Oxford in 1738, and wrote of it in his journal,—“Surely this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.” Such was the prevailing spiritual condition of the period in which the entries I have read were made in the Braintree church records. In the language of the text from which Dr. Colman preached on the occasion of the first stated evening lecture ever held in Boston, “Souls flying to Jesus Christ [were] pleasant and admirable to behold.” The brother clergyman[14] who prepared and delivered from the pulpit of the Braintree church a funeral sermon on Mr. Hancock referred to the religious excesses of the time, and described the dead pastor as a “wise and skilful pilot” who had steered “a right and safe course in the late troubled sea of ecclesiastical affairs,” so that his people had to a considerable degree “escaped the errors and enthusiasm ... in matters of religion which others had fallen into.”[15] Nevertheless it is almost impossible for any locality to escape wholly a general epidemic; and in those days public relations of experiences This same state of affairs doubtless then prevailed in Braintree, and indeed throughout New England. The whole community was in a sensitive condition morally and spiritually,—so sensitive that, as the Braintree records show, the contagion extended to all classes, and, among those bearing some of the oldest names in the history of the township, we find also negroes,—“Benjamin Sutton and Naomi his wife,” and “Jeffry, my servant, and Flora, his wife,”—grotesquely getting up before the congregation to make confession, like their betters, of the sin of fornication before marriage. It, of course, does not need to be said that such a state of morbid and spiritual excitement would necessarily lead to public confessions of an unusual character. Women, and young women in particular, would be inclined to brood over things unknown save to those who participated in them, and think to find in confession only a means of escape from the torment of that hereafter concerning which they entertained no doubts; hence perhaps many of these records which now seem both so uncalled for and so inexplicable. So far, however, what has been said relates only to the But it is for others, like my friend Dr. Green, both by education and professional experience more versed in these subjects than I, to say whether a period of sexual immorality should not be looked for as the natural concomitant and sequence of such a condition of moral and religious excitement as prevailed in New England between 1725 and 1745. I merely now call attention to the fact that in Braintree the Hancock pastorate began in 1726 and ended in 1743, and that it was during the Hancock pastorate, also the period of “the Great Awakening,” that public confessions of fornication were most frequently made in the Braintree church; further, and finally, it was during the years which immediately followed that the great “tide of immorality” which the clergy of the day so much deplored, “rolled over the land.” But it still remains to consider whether the entries referred So far the relations then prevailing between the young of the two sexes may have been, and probably were, innocent enough, and nothing more needs be said of them; but coming now to the facts revealed in the church records, I venture to doubt the correctness of the inference as to general laxity which would naturally be drawn from them. The situation as respects sexual morality which prevailed in New England during the eighteenth century seems to me to have been peculiar rather than bad. In other words, though there was much incontinence, that incontinence was not promiscuous; and this statement brings me at once to the necessary consideration of another recognized and well-established custom in the more ordinary and less refined New England life of the last century, which has been considered beneath what is known as the dignity of history to notice, and to which, accordingly, no reference is made by Palfrey or Barry, or, so far as I know, by any of the standard authorities: and yet, unless I am greatly mistaken, it is to this carefully ignored usage or custom that we must look for an explanation of the greater part of the confessions recorded in the annals of the churches. I refer, of course, to the practice known as “bundling.” As I have said, this custom neither originated in nor was it peculiar to New England, though in New England, as elsewhere, it did lead to the same natural results. And I find conclusive evidence of this statement in all its several parts in the following extract from a book published as late as 1804, descriptive of customs, etc., then prevailing in North Wales. For the extract I am indebted to Dr. Stiles:— “Saturday or Sunday nights are the principal time when this courtship takes place; and on these nights the men sometimes walk from a distance of ten miles or more to visit their favorite damsels. This strange custom seems to have originated in the scarcity of fuel and in the unpleasantness of sitting together in the colder part of the year without a fire. Much has been said of the innocence with which these meetings are conducted; but it is a very common thing for the consequence of the interview to make its appearance in the world within two or three months after the marriage ceremony has taken place.” And again, referring to the same practice as it prevailed in Holland, another of the authorities quoted by Dr. Stiles, relating his observations also during the present century, speaks of a— “courtship similar to bundling, carried on in ... Holland, under the name of queesting. At night the lover has access to his mistress after she is in bed; and upon application to be admitted upon the bed, which is of course granted, he raises the quilt or rug, and The most singular, and to me unaccountable, fact connected with the custom of “bundling” is that, though it unquestionably prevailed—and prevailed long, generally and from an early period—in New England, no trace has been reported of it in any localities of England itself, the mother country. There are well-authenticated records of its prevalence in parts at least of Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Holland; but it could hardly have found its way as a custom from any of those countries to New England. I well remember hearing the late Dr. John G. Palfrey remark—and the remark will, I think, very probably be found in some note to the text of his History of New England—that down to the beginning of the present century, or about the year 1825, there was a purer strain of English blood to be found in the inhabitants of Cape Cod than could be found in any county of England. The original settlers of that region were exclusively English, and for the first two centuries after the settlement there was absolutely no foreign admixture. Yet nowhere in New England does the custom of “bundling” seem to have prevailed more generally than on Cape Cod; and according to Dr. Stiles (p. 111) it was on Cape Cod that the practice held out longest against the advance of more refined manners. It is tolerably safe to say that in a time of constantly developing civilization such a custom would originate nowhere. It is obviously a development from something of a coarser and more promiscuous nature which preceded it,—some social condition such as has been often described in books relating to the more destitute portions of Ireland or the crowded districts in English cities, where, in the language of Tennyson,— “The poor are hovell’d and hustled together, each sex, like swine.” Such a custom as “bundling,” therefore, bears on its face the fact that it is an inheritance from a simple and comparatively primitive period. If, then, in the case of New England, it was not derived from the mother country, it becomes a curious question whence and how it was derived. But in order to substantiate this theory of an historical manifestation it remains to consider how generally the custom of “bundling” prevailed in New England, and to how late a day it continued. The accredited historians of New England, so far as I am acquainted with their writings, throw little light on this question. Mr. Elliott, for instance, in his chapter on the manners and customs of the New England people, contents himself with some pleasing generalities like the following, the correctness of which he would have found difficulty in maintaining:— “With this exalted, even exaggerated, value of the individual entertained in New England, it was not possible that men or women entertaining it should yield themselves to corrupt or debasing practices. Chastity was, therefore, a cardinal virtue, and the abuse of it a crying sin, to be punished by law, and by the severe reproof of all good citizens.”[20] According to this authority, therefore, as “bundling” was unquestionably both a “corrupt” and a “debasing practice,” “it was not possible that men or women” of New England “should yield themselves” to it; and that ends the matter. Passing on from Mr. Elliott to another authority: in his recently published and very valuable “Economic and Social History of New England,” Mr. Weeden has two references to “bundling.” In one of them (p. 739) he speaks of it as “certainly an unpuritan custom” which was “extensively practised in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts,” against which “Jonathan Edwards raised his powerful voice”; and The general prevalence of the practice of “bundling” throughout New England, and especially in southeastern Massachusetts, up to the close of the last century may therefore, I think, be assumed. I have already said that the origin of the custom was due to sparseness of settlement, the primitive and frugal habits of the people permitting the practice, and the absence of good means of communication. It becomes, therefore, a somewhat curious subject of inquiry whether traces of “bundling” can be found in the traditions and records of any of our large towns. That it existed and was commonly practised within a ten-mile radius of Boston I have shown; but I greatly doubt whether it ever obtained in Boston itself. Nevertheless, an examination of the church records of Boston, Salem, and more especially of Plymouth, would be interesting, with a view to ascertaining whether the spirit of sexual incontinence prevailed during the last century in the large towns of New England to the same extent to which it unquestionably prevailed in the rural districts. My own belief is that it did so prevail, though the practice of “bundling” was not in use; if I am correct in this surmise, it would follow that the evil was a general one, and that “bundling” was merely the custom through which it found vent. In such case the cause of the evil would have to be looked for in some other direction. It would then, paradoxical as such a statement may at first appear, probably be found in the superior general morality of the community and the strict oversight of a public opinion which, except in Boston,—a large commercial place, where there was always a considerable floating population of sailors and others,—prevented the recognized existence of any class of professional prostitutes. On the one hand, a certain form of incontinence was not associated either in the male or female mind with the presence of a degraded class, while, on the other hand, the natural appetites I have alluded to the early church records of Plymouth as probably offering a peculiarly interesting field of inquiry in this matter. I have never seen those records, and know nothing of them; but as long ago as the year 1642 Governor Bradford had occasion to bewail the condition of affairs then existing at Plymouth,—“not only,” he declared, “incontinencie betweene persons unmaried, for which many both men and women have been punished sharply enough, but some maried persons allso”; and he exclaimed, “Marvilous it may be to see and consider how some kind of wickednes did grow and breake forth here, in a land wher the same was so much witnesed against, and so narrowly looked unto, and severly punished when it was knowne!” But finally, with great shrewdness and an insight into human nature which might well have been commended to the prayerful consideration of Jonathan Edwards and the revivalists of exactly one century later, Governor Bradford goes on to conclude that— “It may be in this case as it is with waters when their streames are stopped or dammed up, when they gett passage they flow with more violence, and make more noys and disturbance, then when they are suffered to rune quietly in their owne chanels. So wikednes being here more stopped by strict laws, and the same more nerly looked unto, so as it cannot rune in a comone road of liberty as it would, and is inclined, it searches every wher, and at last breaks out wher it getts vente.”[22] There is one other episode I have come across in my local investigations, of the same general character as those I have referred to, which throws a curious gleam of light on the problems now under discussion. I have already mentioned the fact, quite significant, that during the very period when the church was most active in disciplining cases of fornication, the court record of John Quincy shows that but one case of fornication was brought before him in forty-five years. This was in 1720, and the woman was bound over in the sum of £5 to appear before the superior court. That woman I take to have been a prostitute. Her case was exceptional, so recognized, and summarily dealt with. In the Braintree town records “Voted That Doctor Baker be desired to leave this Town, also “Voted, that the eight men that Doctor Baker gott a warrant for go immediately and Deliver themselves up to Justice.” Fifteen days later, at another meeting held on the 30th of March, this matter again presented itself, and the following entry records the action taken:— “A motion was made to chuse a Committee to be Ready to appear and make a stand against any vexatious Law suit that may be brought against any of the Inhabitants of this Town by Doctor Moses Baker Then, “Voted, that Thomas Penniman, Esqr. Colo Edmund Billings, Mr. Azariah Faxon, Capt. John Vinton and Capt. Peter B. Adams be a Committee to use their Influence with proper authority to suppress, any vexatious Law suits that may be brought by Doctor Moses Baker against any of the Inhabitants of this Town and that said Committee shall be allowed by the Town for their time. “Messrs William Penniman and Joseph Spear entered their dissent to the Last Vote, as being Illegal and Improper, as there was no such article in the warrant only in General Terms.”[23] I have endeavored to learn something of the transaction to which these mysterious entries of over a century ago relate, and the result of my inquiries seems to indicate a state of affairs then existing in the neighborhood of Boston very suggestive of those “White-cap” and “Moonshiner” proceedings in the western and southern States, accounts of which from time to time appear in the telegraphic despatches to our papers. Dr. Moses Baker lived and practised medicine in what is now the town of Randolph, and in 1777 he was one of two physicians to whom the town voted permission to establish an inoculating hospital. In 1779 he was about forty years of age, and married. At the time there dwelt not far from where It is immaterial, so far as this paper is concerned, whether there was, or whether there was not, ground for the feeling against Baker. In the emergency he does not seem to have demeaned himself either as one guilty or afraid; and, as the action of the town meetings shows, he did not hesitate to bring the whole matter before the courts and into public notice. But for my present purposes this is of no consequence; the significance of the incident here lies in the confirmatory evidence which the extracts from the records afford of the inferences drawn from the facts set forth in the earlier part of this paper. The offending female in this case seems to have been what is known as a woman of bad or abandoned character; the man’s relations with her are assumed as notorious. Here was a state of things which public opinion would not tolerate. Probably more than half of those who took part in the proposed vindication of decency and morals looked with indifference on the custom of “bundling.” That was in anticipation of marriage, and in its natural results there was nothing which savored of promiscuous incontinence. The extraordinary entries in the records show how fully the town sympathized with and supported the vigilantes, as they would now be called in Having now made use of all the original material the possession of which led me into the preparation of the present paper, it might at this point properly be brought to a close; but I am tempted to go on and touch on one further point which has long been with me a matter of doubt, and in regard to which I have been disposed to reach opposite conclusions at different times,—I refer to the comparative morality of the last century and that which is now closing. Has there been during the nineteenth century, taken as a whole, a distinct advance in the matter of sexual morality as compared with the eighteenth? Or has the change, which it is admitted has taken place, been only in outward appearance, while beneath a surface of greater refinement human nature remains ever and always the same? It is unquestionably true that in a large and widely differentiated community like that in which we live the individual, no matter who he is, knows very little of what may be called the real “true inwardness” of his surroundings. Any one who wishes to satisfy himself on this point need only seek out some elderly and retired country doctor or lawyer of an observing turn of mind and retentive memory, and then, if the inquirer should be fortunate enough to lead such an one into a confidential mood, listen to his reminiscences. It has been my privilege to accomplish this result on several occasions; and I may freely say that I have always emerged from those interviews in a more or less morally dishevelled condition. After them I have for considerable periods entertained grave and abiding doubts whether, except in outward appearance and respect for conventionalities, the present could claim any superiority over the past. A cursory inspection of the criminal and immoral literature of the day, which the printing-press now empties out in a volume heretofore undreamed of, tends strongly to confirm this feeling of doubt,—which becomes almost a conviction when, from time to time, the realistic details of some Yet, such staggering evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, I find myself unable to get away from the record; and that record, so far as it has cursorily reached me in the course of my investigations, leads me to conclude that the real moral improvement of the year 1891, as compared with the conditions in that respect existing in the year 1691 or even 1791, is not less marked and encouraging than is the change of language and expression permissible in the days of Shakspeare and of Defoe and of Fielding to that to which we are accustomed in the pages of Scott, Thackeray and Hawthorne. For instance, again recurring to my own investigations, I have from time to time come across things which, as indicating a state of affairs prevailing in the olden time, have fairly taken away my breath. Here is a portion of a note from the edition of Thomas Morton’s “New English Canaan,” prepared by me some years ago as one of the publications of the Prince Society, which bears on this statement:— “Josselyn says of the ‘Indesses,’ as he calls them [Indian women] ‘All of them are of a modest demeanor, considering their savage breeding; and indeed do shame our English rusticks whose ludeness in many things exceedeth theirs.’ (Two Voyages, 12, 45.) When the Massachusetts Indian women, in September, 1621, sold the furs from their backs to the first party of explorers from Plymouth, Winslow, who wrote the account of that expedition, says that they ‘tied boughs about them, but with great shamefacedness, for indeed they are more modest than some of our English women are.’ (Mourt, p. 59.) See, also, to the same effect Wood’s Prospect, (p. 82). It suggests, indeed, a curious inquiry as to what were the customs among the ruder classes of the British females during the Elizabethan period, when all the writers agree in speaking of the Indian women [among whom chastity was unknown] in this way. Roger Williams, for instance [who tells us that ‘single fornications they count no sin’] also says, referring to their clothing,—‘Both men and women within doores, leave off their beasts skin, or English cloth, and so (excepting their little apron) are wholly naked; yet but few of the women but will keepe their skin or cloth (though loose) neare to them, ready to gather it up about them. Custome hath used their minds and bodies to it, and in such a freedom from any wantonnesse that I have never seen that wantonnesse amongst them as (with griefe) I have heard of in Europe’ (Key, 110-11).”[24] “During my sojourn in Bristol I had an unpleasant adventure. I wore a calico dress trimmed with green taffeta. This seemed particularly offensive to the Bristol people; for as I was one day out walking with Madame Foy more than a hundred sailors gathered round us and pointed at me with their fingers, at the same time crying out, ‘French whore!’ I took refuge as quickly as possible into the house of a merchant under pretense of buying something, and shortly after the crowd dispersed. But my dress became henceforth so disgusting to me, that as soon as I returned home I presented it to my cook, although it was yet entirely new.”[25] It was at Bristol also that the little German woman, hardly more than a girl, describes how, the very day after her arrival there, her landlady called her attention to what the landlady in question termed “a most charming sight.” Stepping hastily to the window, Mrs. Riedesel says, “I beheld two naked men boxing with the greatest fury. I saw their blood flowing and the rage that was painted in their eyes. Little accustomed to such a hateful spectacle, I quickly retreated into the innermost corner of the house to avoid hearing the shouts set up by the spectators whenever a blow was given or received.” Footnotes: [1] History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, p. 231. [2] In 1839 the Rev. William P. Lunt prepared and delivered before the First Congregational Church of Quincy two most scholarly and admirable historical discourses on the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the gathering of the society. In the appendix to these discourses (p. 93) Dr. Lunt states that the earlier records of the church had never been in the possession of either of its then ministers, the Rev. Peter Whitney or himself; and he adds: “In a conversation with Dr. Harris, formerly the respected pastor of Dorchester First Congregational Church, I understood him to say that Mr. Welde, formerly pastor of what is now Braintree Church, had these records in his possession; but when he obtained them, and for what purpose, was not explained. They are probably now irrecoverably lost. As curious and interesting relics of old times, their loss must be regretted.” The extent of this loss is here stated by Dr. Lunt with great moderation. The records in question cover the history of the Braintree church during the whole of the theocratic period in Massachusetts; and, for reasons which will appear in my forthcoming history of Quincy, the loss of these records causes not only an irreparable but a most serious break, so far as Braintree is concerned, in the discussion of one of the most interesting of all the problems connected with the origin and development of the New England town, and system of town-government. There is room for hope that the missing volume may yet come to light. [3] Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., 2d series, vol. i. p. 239. [4] “And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.” [5] 3. “For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed. 4. “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 5. “To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” [6] Ellis, The Puritan Age in Massachusetts, 206-208. [7] “5. To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” [8] Trumbull’s Blue Laws, True and False, p. 37. [9] Drake’s History of Middlesex County, vol. ii. p. 371. [10] Butler’s History of Groton, pp. 174, 178, 181. [11] Hutchinson’s Diary and Letters, vol. i. p. 232. [12] Palfrey, vol. v. p. 9. [13] A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls, &c., 1738, pp. 8-10. [14] The Rev. Ebenezer Gay, of Hingham. [15] Lunt’s Two Discourses, 1840, p. 48. [16] Elliott’s The New England History, vol. ii. p. 136. [17] Narrative, pp. 4, 5. [18] To Bundle. Mr. Grose thus describes this custom: “A man and woman lying on the same bed with their clothes on; an expedient practised in America, on account of a scarcity of beds, where, on such occasions, husbands and parents frequently permitted travellers to bundle with their wives and daughters.” (Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.) The Rev. Samuel Peters, in his “General History of Connecticut” (London, 1781), enters largely into the custom of bundling as practised there. He says: “Notwithstanding the great modesty of the females is such, that it would be accounted the greatest rudeness for a gentleman to speak before a lady of a garter or leg, yet it is thought but a piece of civility to ask her to bundle.” The learned and pious historian endeavors to prove that bundling was not only a Christian custom, but a very polite and prudent one. The Rev. Andrew Barnaby, who travelled in New England in 1759-60, notices this custom, which then prevailed. He thinks that though it may at first “appear to be the effects of grossness of character, it will, upon deeper research, be found to proceed from simplicity and innocence.” (Travels, p. 144.) Van Corlear stopped occasionally in the villages to eat pumpkin-pies, dance at country frolics, and bundle with the Yankee lasses. (Knickerbocker, New York.) Bundling is said to be practised in Wales. Whatever may have been the custom in former times, I do not think bundling is now practised anywhere in the United States. Mr. Masson describes a similar custom in Central Asia: “Many of the Afghan tribes have a custom in wooing similar to what in Wales is known as bundling-up, and which they term namzat bazÉ. The lover presents himself at the house of his betrothed, with a suitable gift, and in return is allowed to pass the night with her, on the understanding that innocent endearments are not to be exceeded.” (Journeys in Belochistan, Afghanistan, &c., vol. iii. p. 287.)—Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms. [19] Knickerbocker’s History of New York, book iii. chaps. vi., vii. [20] Elliott’s The New England History, vol. i. p. 471. [21] Letters of Mrs. Adams, (1848,) p. 161. [22] History, pp. 384-386. [23] Braintree Records, pp. 480, 499, 500, 523. [24] See, also, Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., 2d series, vol. iv. p. 10. [25] Letters and Journals, p. 48. |