Woman's Life in Colonial Days - Carl Holliday

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seen the man whom the devil (according to his own wicked wish) made blind, through the dreadful and righteous judgment of God."

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      In all ages it would seem that woman has more readily accepted the teachings of her elders and has taken to heart more earnestly the doctrines of new religions, however strange or novel, than has man. It was so in the days of Christ; it is true in our own era of Christian Science, Theosophy, and New Thought. The message that fell from the lips of the fanatically zealous preachers of colonial times sank deep into the hearts of New England women. Its impression was sharp and abiding, and the sensitive mother transmitted her fears and dread to her child. Timid girls, inheriting a super-conscious realization of human defects, and hearing from babyhood the terrifying doctrines, grew also into a womanhood noticeable for overwrought nerves and depressed spirits. Timid, shrinking Betty Sewall, daughter of Judge Sewall, was troubled all the days of her life with qualms about the state of her soul, was hysterical as a child, wretched in her mature years, and depressed in soul at the hour of her departure. In his famous diary her father makes this note about her when she was about five years of age: "It falls to my daughter Elizabeth's Share to read the 24 of Isaiah which she doth with many Tears not being very well, and the Contents of the Chapter and Sympathy with her draw Tears from me also."

      A writer of our own day, Alice Morse Earle, has well expressed our opinion when she says in her Child Life in Colonial Days: "The terrible verses telling of God's judgment on the land, of fear of the pit, of the snare, of emptiness and waste, of destruction and desolation, must have sunk deep into the heart of the sick child, and produced the condition shown by this entry when she was a few years older: 'When I came in, past 7 at night, my wife met me in the Entry and told me Betty had surprised them. I was surprised with the Abruptness of the Relation. It seems Betty Sewall had given some signs of dejection and sorrow; but a little while after dinner she burst into an amazing cry which caus'd all the family to cry too. Her mother ask'd the Reason, she gave none; at last said she was afraid she should go to Hell, her Sins were not pardon'd. She was first wounded by my reading a Sermon of Mr. Norton's; Text, Ye shall seek me and shall not find me. And these words in the Sermon, Ye shall seek me and die in your Sins, ran in her Mind and terrified her greatly. And staying at home, she read out of Mr. Cotton Mather—Why hath Satan filled thy Heart? which increas'd her Fear. Her Mother asked her whether she pray'd. She answered Yes, but fear'd her prayers were not heard, because her sins were not pardoned.'"[11]

      We may well imagine the anguish of Betty Sewall's mother. And yet neither that mother, whose life had been gloomy enough under the same religion, nor the father who had led his child into distress by holding before her her sinful condition, could offer any genuine comfort. Miss Earle has summarized with briefness and force the results of such training: "A frightened child, a retiring girl, a vacillating sweetheart, an unwilling bride, she became the mother of eight children; but always suffered from morbid introspection, and overwhelming fear of death and the future life, until at the age of thirty-five her father sadly wrote, 'God has delivered her now from all her fears.'"[12]

      According to our modern conception of what child life should consist of, the existence of the Puritan girl must have been darkened from early infancy by such a creed. Only the indomitable desire of the human being to survive, and the capacity of the human spirit under the pressure of daily duties to thrust back into the subconscious mind its dread or terror, could enable man or woman to withstand the physical and mental strain of the theories hurled down so sternly and so confidently from the colonial pulpit. Cotton Mather in his Diary records this incident when his daughter was but four years old: "I took my little daughter Katy into my Study and then I told my child I am to dye Shortly and she must, when I am Dead, remember Everything I now said unto her. I sett before her the sinful Condition of her Nature, and I charged her to pray in Secret Places every Day. That God for the sake of Jesus Christ would give her a New Heart. I gave her to understand that when I am taken from her she must look to meet with more humbling Afflictions than she does now she has a Tender Father to provide for her."

      Infinite pity we may well have for those stern parents who, faithful to what they considered their duty, missed so much of the sanity, sweetness and joy of life, and thrust upon their babes, whose days should have been filled with love and light and play, the dread of death and hell and eternal damnation. It is with a touch of irony that we read that Mather survived by thirty years this child whose infant mind was tortured with visions of the grave. Yet a strange sort of pride seems to have been taken in the capacity of children to imbibe such gloomy theological theories and in the ability to repeat, parrotlike, the oft-repeated doctrines of inherent sinfulness. One babe, two years old, was able "savingly to understand the Mysteries of Redemption"; another of the same age was "a dear lover of faithful ministers"; Anne Greenwich, who, we are not surprised to discover, died at the age of five, "discoursed most astonishingly of great mysteries"; Daniel Bradley, when three years old, had an "impression and inquisition of the state of souls after death"; Elizabeth Butcher, when only two and a half years old, would ask herself as she lay in her cradle, "What is my corrupt nature?" and would answer herself with the quotation, "It is empty of grace, bent unto sin, and only to sin, and that continually." With such spiritual food were our ancestors fed—sometimes to the eternal undoing of their posterity's physical and mental welfare.

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      It is possible that the Puritan woman gained one very material blessing from the religion of her day; she was relieved of practically all work on Sunday. The colonial Sabbath was indeed strictly observed; there was little visiting, no picnicking, no heavy meals, no week-end parties, none of the entertainments so prevalent in our own day. The wife and mother was therefore spared the heavy tasks of Sunday so commonly expected of the typical twentieth-century housewife. But it is doubtful whether the alternative—attendance at church almost the entire day—would appear one whit more desirable to the modern woman. The Sabbath of those times was verily a period of religious worship. No one must leave town, and no one must travel to town save for the church service. There must be no work on the farm or in the city. Boats must not be used except when necessary to transport people to divine service. Fishing, hunting, and dancing were absolutely forbidden. No one must use a horse, ox, or wagon if the church were within reasonable walking distance, and "reasonable" was a most expansive word. Tobacco was not to be smoked or chewed near any meeting-house. The odor of cooking food on Sunday was an abomination in the nostrils of the Most High. And we should bear in mind that these rules were enforced from sunset on Saturday to sunset on Sunday—the twenty-four hours of the Puritan Sabbath. The Holy Day, as spent by the preacher, John Cotton, may be taken as typical of the strenuous hours of the Sabbath as observed by many a New England pastor:

      "He began the Sabbath at evening, therefore then performed family duty after supper, being longer than ordinary in exposition. After which he catechized his children and servants, and then returned to his study. The morning following, family worship being ended, he retired into his study until the bell called him away. Upon his return from meeting (where he had preached and prayed some hours), he returned again into his study (the place of his labor and prayer), unto his favorite devotion; where having a small repast carried him up for his dinner, he continued until the tolling of the bell. The public service of the afternoon being over, he withdrew for a space to his pre-mentioned oratory for his sacred addresses to God, as in the forenoon, then came down, repeated the sermon in the family, prayed, after supper sang a Psalm, and toward bedtime betaking himself again to his study he closed the day with prayer."

      To many a modern reader such a method of spending Sunday for either preacher or laymen would seem not only irksome but positively detrimental to physical and mental health; but we should bear in mind that the opportunity

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