diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36989-8.txt | 2137 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36989-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 46106 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36989-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 48534 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36989-h/36989-h.htm | 2186 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36989.txt | 2137 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36989.zip | bin | 0 -> 46085 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
9 files changed, 6476 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/36989-8.txt b/36989-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5238999 --- /dev/null +++ b/36989-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2137 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Phases of Sexual Morality and Church +Discipline in Colonial New England, by Charles Francis Adams + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Some Phases of Sexual Morality and Church Discipline in Colonial New England + +Author: Charles Francis Adams + +Release Date: August 6, 2011 [EBook #36989] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME PHASES OF SEXUAL *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + SOME PHASES OF + SEXUAL MORALITY AND CHURCH DISCIPLINE + IN COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND. + + + BY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. + + + [REPRINTED FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS + HISTORICAL SOCIETY, JUNE, 1891.] + + + CAMBRIDGE: + JOHN WILSON AND SON. + University Press. + 1891. + + + + +SOME PHASES OF SEXUAL MORALITY IN COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND. + + +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 occasion to examine again +the material to which I have alluded; and I find that, though the topic to +which it relates in part is one which cannot be fully and freely treated +in a work intended for general reading, yet the material itself contains +much of value and interest. Neither is the topic I have referred to in +itself one which can be ignored in an historical view, though, as I have +reason to believe, there has been practised in New England an almost +systematic suppression of evidence in regard to it; for not only are we +disposed always to look upon the past as a somewhat Arcadian period,--a +period in which life and manners were simpler, better and more genuine +than they now are,--not only, I say, are we disposed to look upon the past +as a sort of golden era when compared with the present, but there is also +a sense of filial piety connected with it. Like Shem and Japhet, +approaching it with averted eyes we are disposed to cover up with a +garment the nakedness of the progenitors; and the severe looker after +truth, who wants to have things appear exactly as they were, and does not +believe in the suppression of evidence,--the investigator of this sort is +apt to be looked upon as a personage of no discretion and doubtful +utility,--as, in a word, a species of modern Ham, who, having +unfortunately seen what ought to have been covered up, is eager, out of +mere levity or prurience, to tell his "brethren without" all about it. + +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 identified with the Society that his +work may fairly be considered part of its record. Whether part of its +record or not, Mr. Savage and Mr. Deane,--than whom no higher authorities +are here recognized,--in the publications referred to, did settle the +principle that mawkishness is just as much out of place in scientific +historical research as prurience would be, or as sentiment, piety and +patriotism are. These last-named attributes of our nature, indeed,--most +noble, elevating and attractive in their proper spheres,--always have +been, now are, and I think I may safely say will long continue to be, the +bane of thorough historical research, and ubiquitous stumbling-blocks in +the way of scientific results. + +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 records then transferred from the town to the parish clerk went +no farther back than Jan. 17, 1708. + +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 from +some seven hundred souls in 1673, to about twenty-five hundred a century +later; the majority of whom during the first half of the eighteenth +century lived in the North Precinct of the original town, now Quincy. The +meeting-house, about which clustered the colonial village, stood on the +old Plymouth road, between the tenth and the eleventh mile-posts south of +Boston. The people were chiefly agriculturists, living on holdings +somewhat widely scattered; the place had no especial trade or leading +industry, and no commerce; so that, when describing the country a few +years before, in 1660,--and since then the conditions had not greatly +changed,--Samuel Maverick said of Braintree,--"It subsists by raising +provisions, and furnishing Boston with wood."[3] In reading the following +extracts from the records, it is also necessary to bear in mind that +during the eighteenth century the whole social and intellectual as well as +religious life of the Massachusetts towns not only centred about the +church, but was concentrated in it. The church was practically a club as +well as a religious organization. An inhabitant of the town excluded from +it or under its ban became an outcast and a pariah. + +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 11{th} 1698." + +The next entry of a case of church discipline is of a wholly different +character. The individual subjected to it bore the same family name as +the earliest minister of the town, the Rev. William Tompson, who was the +first to subscribe the original covenant of Sept. 16, 1639, but was not +descended from him. Neither must this Samuel Tomson, or Tompson, be +confounded with Deacon Samuel Tompson, who, born in 1630, lived in +Braintree, and whose name is met with on nearly every page of the earlier +records. The Samuel Tompson referred to in the following entry seems to +have been the son of the deacon, and was born Nov. 6, 1662. His name +frequently appears in the town records, and usually (pp. 29, 35, 39, 40), +as dissenting from some vote providing for the minister's salary or the +maintenance of the town school. He was, though the son of a deacon, +evidently a man otherwise-minded. This entry, like the previous one, is in +the handwriting of Mr. Fiske. + + "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 for that his pretended offence was originally against myself, + and [he] had said I would take all advantages against him, I deferred + the same, and because 4 or 5 of the brethren did desire that he might + be called before the church to see if he would own what they asserted: + and having ________ the church, 1 April, 98, he came, brought an + additional acknowledgment. Of 15 about 9 or 10 voted to accept of it, + &c." + +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 church, to bring [him] to a thorough sight and free and ingenuous + confession of his sin; as also for his abominably lying, changing his + name, &c., was called forth in public, moved pathetically to + acknowledge his sin and publish his repentance, who came down and + stood against the lower end of the foreseat after he had been + prevented (by our shutting the east door) from going out; stood + impudently, and said indeed he owned his sin of stealing, was heartily + sorry for it, begged pardon of God and men, and hoped he should do so + no more, which was all he could be brought unto, saying his sin was + already known, and that there was no need to mention it in particular, + all with a remisse voice, so that but few could hear him. The Church + at length gave their judgment against him, that he was a notorious, + scandalous sinner, and obstinately impenitent. And when I was + proceeding to spread before him his sin and wickedness, he (as 'tis + probable), guessing what was like to follow, turned about to goe out, + and being desired and charged to tarry and hear what the church had to + say to him, he flung out of doors, with an insolent manner, though + silent. Therefore the Pastor applied himself to the congregation, and + having spread before them his sin, partly to vindicate the church's + proceeding against him, and partly to warn others; sentence was + declared against him according to Matthew 18, 17." + +The next also is a case of excommunication. It appears from the records +(p. 658) that "Upon the 9{th} 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 her ________ their + 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, to hear what should be + spoken to him, but he boldly replied he should not come. And being + after treated by D. Tompson and his father to come, and taking his + opportunity to carry her away the last weeke, after a solemn sermon + preached on 1 Cor. 5. 3, 4 and 5,[5] and prayers added, an account was + given to the church and congregation of him, the Brethren voting him + to be an impenitent, scandalous, wicked, incestuous sinner, and giving + their consent that the sentence of excommunication should be passed + upon and declared against him, which was solemnly performed by the + Pastor of the Church according to the direction of the Apostle in the + above mentioned text: this 17 of January, 1691/2." + +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 were his + unchristian carriage towards his wife, and frequent excessive + drinking. He behaved himself very insolently before the church when + allowed to speak in vindication of himself, and was far from + discovering any signs of true repentance. He was unanimously voted + guilty and laid under solemn admonition by the Church." + +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 + he presented a confession, which was read before the Congregation, and + prayed that they would wait upon him awhile longer, which the Church + consented to, and he was again publicly admonished, and warned against + persisting in the neglect of Public Worship, against Idleness, + Drunkenness and Lying; and he gave some slender hopes of Reformation, + seemed to be considerably affected, and behaved himself tolerably + well." + +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 3{d}, 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, + Drunkenness, and in a neglect of the Public Worship, &c. had the + fearfull sentence of excommunication pronounced upon him. + + "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 29{th} 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. + + "November 17, 1728. Mehetabel the wife of John B---- Jun{r} made a + confession before the Church and Congregation for the sin of + fornication, which was well accepted. + + "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 8{th} 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 30{th} 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 + Jun{r} and Mr. Joseph Neal, Tert. were chose for the committee. + + "Then the meeting was adjourned to the 29{th} 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. + + "[Oct. 22, 1735.] At a meeting of the 1{st} Church in Braintree at the + house of the Pastor, Oct. 22, 1735--after prayer, Benj. Owen offered + to the brethren a confession of his late offensive behavior which was + not accepted. + + "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. + + "Memorandum. At the adjournment of the Church meeting Sept. the 29{th} + 1735, Mr. Moses Belcher and Mr. Joseph Neal, two of the committee + chosen Sept. the 8{th}, made report to the brethren, that they had + been with Eliz. Morse, and that she owned to them she had been + delivered of two bastard children since she had made confession to the + church of the sin of fornication, and she promised them to come and + make the Church satisfaction for her great offence the latter end of + October. + + "[Nov. 10, 1735.] At a church meeting, Nov. 10{th}, 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 20{th}, 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." + +The Hancock pastorate lasted eighteen years, ending with Mr. Hancock's +death on the 7th of May, 1744; and no record of cases of church discipline +seems to have been kept by any of his successors in the pulpit of the +North Precinct church. In the year 1750 Braintree probably contained some +eighteen hundred or two thousand inhabitants, and during the half-century +between 1725 and 1775 there is no reason to suppose that any considerable +change took place in their condition, whether social, material or +religious. It was a period of slow maturing. The absence of a record, +therefore, in no way implies change; if it indicates anything at all in +this case, it indicates merely that the successors to Mr. Hancock, either +because they were indolent or because they saw no advantage in so doing, +made no written mention of anything relating to the church's life or +action beyond what was contained in the book regularly kept by the +precinct clerk. There are but two exceptions to this, both consisting of +brief entries made, the one by the Rev. Lemuel Bryant, the immediate +successor of Mr. Hancock, the other by the Rev. Anthony Wibird, who in +1755 followed Mr. Bryant. Both entries are to be found on the second page +of the volume from which all the extracts relating to church discipline +have been taken. Mr. Bryant was for his time an advanced religious +thinker, and, as is invariably the case with such, he failed to carry the +whole of his flock along with him. Owing to declining health he resigned +his pastorate in October, 1753, having exactly two months before recorded +the following case of discipline:-- + + "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 successive precinct clerks, which +has often been consulted, but never copied. None of the entries in it +relate to cases of discipline or to matters spiritual, they being almost +exclusively prudential in character. No record is made of births, +baptisms, deaths or marriages, which were still for several years to come +noted in the small volume from which I have quoted. Accordingly the +Braintree North Precinct records after Mr. Hancock's ministry are of far +inferior interest, though as the volume containing them from 1709 to 1766 +distinctly belongs to what are known as "ancient records," and as such is +liable at any time to be lost or destroyed, I have caused a copy of it to +be made, and have deposited it for safe keeping in the library of this +Society. An examination of this volume only very occasionally brings to +light anything which is of more than local interest, or which has a +bearing on the social or religious conditions of the last century, though +here and there something is found which constitutes an exception to this +rule. Such, for instance, is the following entry in the record of the +proceedings of a Precinct meeting held on the 19th of July, 1731, to take +measures for properly noticing the completion of the new meeting-house +then being built:-- + + "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 1_s._, +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 experience of Braintree in this respect +was in no way peculiar among the Massachusetts towns of the last century. +While examining the Braintree records I incidentally came across a +singular and conclusive bit of unpublished documentary evidence on this +point in the records of the church of Groton; for, casually mentioning one +day in the rooms of the Society the Braintree records to our librarian, +Dr. S. A. Green, he informed me that the similar records of the Groton +church were in his possession, and he kindly put them at my disposal. +Though covering a later period (1765-1803) than the portion of the +Braintree church records from which the extracts contained in this paper +have been made, the Groton records supplement and explain the Braintree +records to a very remarkable degree. In the latter there is no vote or +other entry showing the church rule or usage which led to these +post-nuptial confessions of ante-marital relations; but in the Groton +records I find the following among the preliminary votes passed at the +time of signing the church covenant, regulating the admission of members +to full communion:-- + + "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 belief "that Millions of Infants are tortured in Hell to +all Eternity for a Sin that was committed thousands of Years before they +were born"--is matter of common knowledge. Not only did it compel young +married men and women to shameful public confessions of the kind which has +been described, but it was at times arbitrarily used by some ministers in +a way which is at once ludicrous and, now, hard to understand. Certain of +them, for instance, refused to baptize infants born on the Sabbath, there +being an ancient superstition to the effect that a child born on the +Sabbath was also conceived on the Sabbath; a superstition presumably the +basis on which was founded the provision of the apocryphal Blue Laws of +Connecticut,-- + + "Whose rule the nuptial kiss restrains + On Sabbath day, in legal chains";[8] + +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 sixteen couples were admitted to full communion; and of these nine +had the letters "C. F." inscribed after their names in the church records. + +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 the above, though the +Roxbury records contain a number of entries descriptive of interesting +cases of church discipline, besides many memoranda of "strange providences +of God" and "dreadful examples of Gods judgment." It would seem, however, +that the instances of church discipline publicly administered on the +ground of sexual immorality were infrequent in Roxbury, as in Dedham and +Braintree, prior to the year 1725. As will presently be seen, a change +either in morals or in discipline, but probably in the latter more than in +the former, apparently took place at about that time. + + * * * * * + +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 Hutchinson referred to the commonness of +illegitimate offspring "among the young people of New England"[11] as a +thing of accepted notoriety; nor did Hutchinson, than whom no one was +better informed on all matters relating to New England, controvert the +proposition. + +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 curious interest. +For instance, August 24, 1722, John Veasey, "husbandman," is put under +recognizance in the sum of £5 "for detaining his child from the public +worship of God, said child being about eleven years old." On the same day +John Belcher, "cordwainer," is put under a similar recognizance "for +absenting himself from the public worship of God the winter past." Eleazer +Veasey,--the Braintree Veaseys I will say in passing were members of the +Church of England in Braintree, and not members of the Braintree +church,--Eleazer Veasey is, on the 20th of September, 1717, fined five +shillings to the use of the town poor for "uttering a profane curse." So +also Christopher Dyer, "husbandman," "did utter one profane curse," to +which charge he pleaded guilty, and, on the 17th of May, 1747, was fined +four shillings for the use of the poor. In this case the costs were +assessed at six shillings, making ten shillings as the total cost of an +oath in Massachusetts at that time; but as Dyer was a "soldier of His +Majesty's service," the court added that if the fine was not paid +forthwith, he (Dyer) "be publickly set in the stocks or cage for the space +of three hours." + +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 were not traceable to the church +itself rather than to the army,--whether they were not rather due to the +spiritual than to the martial conditions of the time. + +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 to God in their mouths_ ... + in the Spring and Summer following, _Anno_ 1735 the Town seemed to be + full of the Presence of God. It never was so full of _Love_, nor so + full of _Joy_; and yet so full of Distress as it was then. There were + remarkable Tokens of God's Presence in almost every House.... Our + publick _Praises_ were then greatly enlivened.... In all _Companies_ + on _other_ Days, on whatever _Occasions_ Persons met together, + _Christ_ was to be heard of and seen in the midst of them. Our _young + People_, when they met, were wont to spend the time in talking of the + _Excellency_ and dying _Love_ of JESUS CHRIST, the Gloriousness of the + way of _Salvation_, the wonderful, free, and sovereign _Grace_ of God, + his glorious Work in the _Conversion_ of a Soul, the _Truth_ and + Certainty of the great Things of God's Word, the Sweetness of the + Views of his _Perfection &c._ And even at _Weddings_, which formerly + were meerly occasions of Mirth and Jollity, there was now no discourse + of any thing but the things of Religion, and no appearance of any, but + _spiritual Mirth_."[13] + +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 were not only usual in the +churches, but they were a regular feature in all cases of admission to +full communion. That this was the case in the Braintree church is evident +from the extract already quoted from the records, when in 1722 "some +persons of a sober life and good conversation signified their +unwillingness to join in full communion with the church unless they +[might] be admitted to it without making a Public relation of their +spiritual experiences." It was also everywhere noticed that the women, and +especially the young women, were peculiarly susceptible to attacks of the +spiritual epidemic. Jonathan Edwards for instance mentions, in the case of +Northampton, how the young men of that place had become "addicted to +night-walking and frequenting the tavern, and leud practices," and how +they would "get together in conventions of both sexes for mirth and +jollity, which they called frolicks; and they would spend the greater part +of the night in them"; and among the first indications of the approach of +the epidemic noticed by him was the case of a young woman who had been one +of the greatest "company keepers" in the whole town, who became "serious, +giving evidence of a heart truly broken and sanctified." + +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 matter of public +confession; it remains for others to consider how far a morbidly excited +spiritual condition may also have been responsible for the sin confessed. +The connection between the animal and the spiritual natures of human +beings taken in the aggregate, though subtile, is close; and while it is +well known that camp-meetings have never been looked upon as peculiar, or +even as conspicuous, for the continence supposed to prevail at them, there +is no doubt whatever that in England the license of the restoration +followed close on the rule of the saints. One of the authorities on New +England history, speaking of the outward manifestations of the "Great +Awakening," says that "the fervor of excitement showed itself in strong +men, as well as in women, by floods of tears, by outcries, by bodily +paroxysms, jumping, falling down and rolling on the ground, regardless of +spectators or their clothes." Then the same authority goes on to +add:--"But it was common that when the exciting preacher had departed, the +excitement also subsided, and men and women returned peaceably to their +daily duties."[16] This last may have been the case; but it is not +probable that men and women in the condition of mental and physical +excitement described could go about their daily duties without carrying +into them some trace of morbid reaction. It was a species of insanity; and +insanity invariably reveals itself in unexpected and contradictory forms. + +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 to in the +church records must be taken as conclusive evidence that a peculiarly lax +condition of affairs as respects the sexual relation did really prevail in +New England during the last century. This does not necessarily follow; +and, for reasons I shall presently give, I venture to doubt it. In the +first place it is to be remembered that the language used in those days +does not carry the same meaning that similar language would carry if used +now. For instance, when Jonathan Edwards talks of the youth of Northampton +being given to "Night-walking ... and leud practices," he does not at all +mean what we should mean by using the same expression; and the young woman +who was one of the greatest "company keepers" in the whole town, was +probably nothing worse than a lively village girl much addicted to walking +with her young admirers after public lecture on the Sabbath +afternoons,--"a disorder," by the way, which Jonathan Edwards says he made +"a thorough reformation of ... which has continued ever since."[17] + +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." + +I do not propose here to go into a description of "bundling,"[18] or to +attempt to trace its origin or the extent to which it prevailed in New +England during the last century. All this has been sufficiently done in +the little volume on the subject prepared by Dr. H. R. Stiles, and +published some twenty years ago. For my present purpose it is only +necessary for me to say that the practice of "bundling" has long been one +of the standing taunts or common-place indictments against New England, +and has been supposed to indicate almost the lowest conceivable state of +sexual immorality;[19] but, on the other hand, it may safely be asserted +that "bundling" was, as a custom, neither so vicious nor so immoral as is +usually supposed; nor did it originate in, nor was it peculiar to, New +England. It was a practice growing out of the social and industrial +conditions of a primitive people, of simple, coarse manners and small +means. Two young persons proposed to marry. They and their families were +poor; they lived far apart from each other; they were at work early and +late all the week. Under these circumstances Saturday evening and Sunday +were the recognized time for meeting. The young man came to the house of +the girl after Saturday's sun-down, and they could see each other until +Sunday afternoon, when he had to go back to his own home and work. The +houses were small, and every nook in them occupied; and in order that the +man might not be turned out of doors, or the two be compelled to sit up +all night at a great waste of lights and fuel, and that they might at the +same time be in each other's company, they were "bundled" up together on a +bed, in which they lay side by side and partially clothed. It goes without +saying that, however it originated, such a custom, if recognized and +continued, must degenerate into something coarse and immoral. The +inevitable would follow. The only good and redeeming feature about it was +the utter absence of concealment and secrecy. All was open and recognized. +The very "bundling" was done by the hands of mother and sisters. + +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 in this + state _queests_, or enjoys a harmless chit-chat with her, and then + retires. This custom meets with the perfect sanction of the most + circumspect parents, and the freedom is seldom abused. The author + traces its origin to the parsimony of the people, whose economy + considers fire and candles as superfluous luxuries in the long winter + evenings." + +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 no matter whence or how derived, it is obvious that the prevalence of +such a custom would open a ready and natural way for a vast increase of +sexual immorality at any time when surrounding conditions predisposed a +community in that direction. This is exactly what I cannot help surmising +occurred in New England at the time of "the Great Awakening" of the last +century, and immediately subsequent thereto. The movement was there, and +in obedience to the universal law it made its way on the lines of least +resistance. Hence the entries of public confession in the church records, +and the tide of immorality in presence of which the clergy stood aghast. + +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 again he later on (p. +864) alludes to it as "a curious custom which accorded little with the New +England character," and which "lingered among the lower orders of people +... prevailing in Western Massachusetts as late as 1777." I am led to +believe that the custom prevailed far more generally and to a much later +date than these statements of Mr. Weeden would seem to indicate; that, +indeed, it was continued even in eastern Massachusetts and the towns +immediately about Boston until after the close of the Revolutionary +troubles, and probably until the beginning of the present century. The +Braintree church records throw no light on this portion of the subject; +but the Groton church records show that not until 1803 was the practice +discontinued of compelling a public confession before the whole +congregation whenever a child was born in less than seven months after +marriage. Turning then to Worthington's "History of Dedham" (p. 109),--a +town only ten miles from Boston,--I find that the Rev. Mr. Haven, the +pastor of the church there, alarmed at the number of cases of unlawful +cohabitation, preached at least as late as 1781 "a long and memorable +discourse," in which, with a courage deserving of unstinted praise, he +dealt with "the growing sin" publicly from his pulpit, attributing "the +frequent recurrence of the fault to the custom then prevalent of females +admitting young men to their beds who sought their company with intentions +of marriage." Again, in a letter of Mrs. John Adams, written in 1784, in +which she gives a very graphic and lively account of a voyage across the +Atlantic in a sailing-vessel of that period, I find the following, in +which Mrs. Adams, describing how the passengers all lived in the common +cabin, adds:--"Necessity has no law; but what should I have thought on +shore to have laid myself down in common with half a dozen gentlemen? We +have curtains, it is true, and we only in part undress,--about as much as +the Yankee bundlers."[21] Mrs. Adams was then writing to her elder sister, +Mrs. Cranch; they were both women of exceptional +refinement,--granddaughters of Col. John Quincy, and daughters of the +pastor of the Weymouth church. Mrs. Adams while writing her letter knew +that it would be eagerly looked for at home, and that it would be read +aloud and passed from hand to hand through all her acquaintance, and this +was in fact the case; so it is evident, from this easy, passing allusion, +that the custom of "bundling" was then so common in the community in which +Mrs. Adams lived, that not only was written reference to it freely made, +but the reference conveyed to a large circle of friends a perfect idea of +what she meant to describe. At the same time the use of the phrase "the +Yankee bundlers" indicates the social class to which the custom was +confined. + +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 were to a limited extent gratified. It was in +their attempt wholly to ignore these natural appetites that Jonathan +Edwards and the clergy of the last century fell into their error. + +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 there +are some mysterious entries which I am led to believe relate to another +and similar case, but one in which the objectionable character was +otherwise dealt with. In the midst of the Revolutionary troubles the +following votes were passed at the annual town meeting held in the +meeting-house of the Middle Precinct, now Braintree, on the 15th of March, +1779:-- + + "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, Esq{r.} Col{o} 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 Dr. Baker lived a woman of bad reputation, with whom Dr. Baker +was, whether rightly or not, believed to have improper relations. Certain +men living in the neighborhood accordingly undertook to act as a local +committee to enforce good morals; and this committee decided to ride Dr. +Baker and the woman in question together on horseback to a convenient +locality near the meeting-house, and there tar and feather them. A +broken-down old hack, deemed meet and appropriate for use as a charger in +such case, was accordingly procured; and going to the woman's house, the +_vigilantes_ actually took her from her bed, and, without allowing her to +clothe herself, put her on the horse, and then proceeded to Baker's house. +He in the mean time had received notice of the proposed visit; and when +the party reached their destination they found him indignant, armed and +resolute. He threatened to shoot the first man who laid hands on him. This +was a turn in affairs which the self-constituted vindicators of public +morality had not contemplated, and accordingly they proceeded no further +in their purpose. Dr. Baker was not molested, and the woman was released. + +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 Mexicanized parlance of the +extreme Southwest. The distinction I have endeavored to draw between the +excusable, if not permissible, incontinence of the New England country +community of the last century, and the idea of promiscuous immorality as +we entertain it, is clearly seen in this Baker episode. + + * * * * * + +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 Lord +Colin Campbell or Sir Charles Dilke or Charles Stewart Parnell scandal are +paraded in the newspapers. + +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] + +Again, I recently came across the following, which illustrates somewhat +curiously what may be called the social street amenities which a sojourner +might expect to encounter in a large English town of a century ago. If +ever there was a charming, innocent little woman, who, as a wife and +mother, bore herself purely and courageously under circumstances of great +trial and anxiety,--a woman whose own simple record of the strange +experience through which she passed appeals to you so that you long to +step forward and give her your arm and protect her,--if there ever was, I +say, a woman who impresses one in this way more than Mrs. General +Riedesel, I have not met her. Mrs. Riedesel, as the members of this +Society probably all know, followed her husband, who was in command of the +German auxiliary troops in Burgoyne's army, to America in 1777, and in so +doing passed through England, accompanied by her young children. Here is +her own account of a slight experience she had in Bristol, where, the poor +little woman says, "I discovered soon how unpleasant it is to be in a city +where one does not understand the language, ... and wept for hours in my +chamber":-- + + "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." + +Street customs, manners and language are, to a very considerable extent, +outward exponents of the moral condition within. It would not be possible +to find any place in Europe now where women could be seen going about the +streets in the condition as respects raiment which Josselyn, Winslow and +Roger Williams seem to intimate was not unusual with the British females +of their time; nor would a strumpet even, much less any decent woman, from +a foreign land, be treated in the streets of any civilized city as Madame +Riedesel describes herself as having been treated in the streets of +Bristol in 1777. One cannot conceive of an adulterer or adulteress now +doing public penance in a white sheet before a whole congregation +assembled for the public worship of God, nor of a really respectable young +married couple standing up under the same circumstances and confessing to +the sin of fornication. Even if such a thing were done, it would be looked +upon as rather suggestive than edifying. All the evidence accordingly +indicates that, morally, the improvement made in the nineteenth century as +compared with those that preceded it has been more than superficial and in +externals only,--that it has been real, in essentials as well as in +language and manners. So, while it would not be safe to adopt Burke's +splendid generality, that vice has in our time lost half its evil in +losing all its grossness, yet it is not unfair to adopt the trope in a +modified form, and assert that, in the matter of sexual morality, vice in +the nineteenth century as compared with the seventeenth or the eighteenth +has lost some part of its evil in losing much of its grossness. + + + + +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. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. + +Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}. + +The original text includes several blank spaces. These are represented by +________ in this text version. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Phases of Sexual Morality and +Church Discipline in Colonial New England, by Charles Francis Adams + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME PHASES OF SEXUAL *** + +***** This file should be named 36989-8.txt or 36989-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/9/8/36989/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/36989-8.zip b/36989-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c3d7343 --- /dev/null +++ b/36989-8.zip diff --git a/36989-h.zip b/36989-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b05210 --- /dev/null +++ b/36989-h.zip diff --git a/36989-h/36989-h.htm b/36989-h/36989-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc0a1b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/36989-h/36989-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2186 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Some Phases of Sexual Morality and Church Discipline in Colonial New England, by Charles Francis Adams. + </title> + + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + body {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right; font-style: normal;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + + hr {width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + .huge {font-size: 150%} + .large {font-size: 125%} + + .blockquot {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .poem {margin-left:15%;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .smcaplc {text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;} + + a:link {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:#6633cc; text-decoration:none} + + .blank {padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 3em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Phases of Sexual Morality and Church +Discipline in Colonial New England, by Charles Francis Adams + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Some Phases of Sexual Morality and Church Discipline in Colonial New England + +Author: Charles Francis Adams + +Release Date: August 6, 2011 [EBook #36989] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME PHASES OF SEXUAL *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<p class="center"><span class="huge">SOME PHASES</span></p> +<p class="center"><small>OF</small></p> +<p class="center"><span class="huge"><span class="smcap">Sexual Morality and Church Discipline</span></span></p> +<p class="center"><small>IN</small></p> +<p class="center"><span class="huge">COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><small>BY</small><br /> +<span class="large">CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">[<span class="smcap">Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, June, 1891.</span>]</p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">CAMBRIDGE:<br /> +JOHN WILSON AND SON.<br /> +University Press.<br /> +1891.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h2>SOME PHASES OF SEXUAL MORALITY<br />IN COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND.</h2> + +<p><br />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:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”<a name='fna_1' id='fna_1' href='#f_1'><small>[1]</small></a></p> + +<p>Being now engaged in the work of revising and rewriting the sketch in +which this extract occurs, I have recently had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> occasion to examine again +the material to which I have alluded; and I find that, though the topic to +which it relates in part is one which cannot be fully and freely treated +in a work intended for general reading, yet the material itself contains +much of value and interest. Neither is the topic I have referred to in +itself one which can be ignored in an historical view, though, as I have +reason to believe, there has been practised in New England an almost +systematic suppression of evidence in regard to it; for not only are we +disposed always to look upon the past as a somewhat Arcadian period,—a +period in which life and manners were simpler, better and more genuine +than they now are,—not only, I say, are we disposed to look upon the past +as a sort of golden era when compared with the present, but there is also +a sense of filial piety connected with it. Like Shem and Japhet, +approaching it with averted eyes we are disposed to cover up with a +garment the nakedness of the progenitors; and the severe looker after +truth, who wants to have things appear exactly as they were, and does not +believe in the suppression of evidence,—the investigator of this sort is +apt to be looked upon as a personage of no discretion and doubtful +utility,—as, in a word, a species of modern Ham, who, having +unfortunately seen what ought to have been covered up, is eager, out of +mere levity or prurience, to tell his “brethren without” all about it.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> identified with the Society that his +work may fairly be considered part of its record. Whether part of its +record or not, Mr. Savage and Mr. Deane,—than whom no higher authorities +are here recognized,—in the publications referred to, did settle the +principle that mawkishness is just as much out of place in scientific +historical research as prurience would be, or as sentiment, piety and +patriotism are. These last-named attributes of our nature, indeed,—most +noble, elevating and attractive in their proper spheres,—always have +been, now are, and I think I may safely say will long continue to be, the +bane of thorough historical research, and ubiquitous stumbling-blocks in +the way of scientific results.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> records then transferred from the town to the parish clerk went +no farther back than Jan. 17, 1708.</p> + +<p>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 <i>hiatus valde deflendus</i>.<a name='fna_2' id='fna_2' href='#f_2'><small>[2]</small></a></p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> from +some seven hundred souls in 1673, to about twenty-five hundred a century +later; the majority of whom during the first half of the eighteenth +century lived in the North Precinct of the original town, now Quincy. The +meeting-house, about which clustered the colonial village, stood on the +old Plymouth road, between the tenth and the eleventh mile-posts south of +Boston. The people were chiefly agriculturists, living on holdings +somewhat widely scattered; the place had no especial trade or leading +industry, and no commerce; so that, when describing the country a few +years before, in 1660,—and since then the conditions had not greatly +changed,—Samuel Maverick said of Braintree,—“It subsists by raising +provisions, and furnishing Boston with wood.”<a name='fna_3' id='fna_3' href='#f_3'><small>[3]</small></a> In reading the following +extracts from the records, it is also necessary to bear in mind that +during the eighteenth century the whole social and intellectual as well as +religious life of the Massachusetts towns not only centred about the +church, but was concentrated in it. The church was practically a club as +well as a religious organization. An inhabitant of the town excluded from +it or under its ban became an outcast and a pariah.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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 11<sup>th</sup> 1698.”</p> + +<p>The next entry of a case of church discipline is of a wholly different +character. The individual subjected to it bore the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> same family name as +the earliest minister of the town, the Rev. William Tompson, who was the +first to subscribe the original covenant of Sept. 16, 1639, but was not +descended from him. Neither must this Samuel Tomson, or Tompson, be +confounded with Deacon Samuel Tompson, who, born in 1630, lived in +Braintree, and whose name is met with on nearly every page of the earlier +records. The Samuel Tompson referred to in the following entry seems to +have been the son of the deacon, and was born Nov. 6, 1662. His name +frequently appears in the town records, and usually (pp. 29, 35, 39, 40), +as dissenting from some vote providing for the minister’s salary or the +maintenance of the town school. He was, though the son of a deacon, +evidently a man otherwise-minded. This entry, like the previous one, is in +the handwriting of Mr. Fiske.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”</p> + +<p>Then, under date of August 27, 1697, a month later, Mr. Fiske proceeds:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”</p> + +<p>The next entry, also in the same handwriting, is dated Dec. 25, 1697:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> for that his pretended offence was originally against myself, +and [he] had said I would take all advantages against him, I deferred +the same, and because 4 or 5 of the brethren did desire that he might +be called before the church to see if he would own what they asserted: +and having <span class="blank"> </span> the church, 1 April, 98, he came, brought an +additional acknowledgment. Of 15 about 9 or 10 voted to accept of it, +&c.”</p> + +<p>This occurred on the 11th of April, 1698; and on the 17th Mr. Fiske +proceeds:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“After the end of the public worship his confession was read +publickly, and the major part of the Church voted his absolution.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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,<a name='fna_4' id='fna_4' href='#f_4'><small>[4]</small></a> and rejected.”</p> + +<p>The next entry also records a case of excommunication, under date of May +4, 1683:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> church, to bring [him] to a thorough sight and free and ingenuous +confession of his sin; as also for his abominably lying, changing his +name, &c., was called forth in public, moved pathetically to +acknowledge his sin and publish his repentance, who came down and +stood against the lower end of the foreseat after he had been +prevented (by our shutting the east door) from going out; stood +impudently, and said indeed he owned his sin of stealing, was heartily +sorry for it, begged pardon of God and men, and hoped he should do so +no more, which was all he could be brought unto, saying his sin was +already known, and that there was no need to mention it in particular, +all with a remisse voice, so that but few could hear him. The Church +at length gave their judgment against him, that he was a notorious, +scandalous sinner, and obstinately impenitent. And when I was +proceeding to spread before him his sin and wickedness, he (as ’tis +probable), guessing what was like to follow, turned about to goe out, +and being desired and charged to tarry and hear what the church had to +say to him, he flung out of doors, with an insolent manner, though +silent. Therefore the Pastor applied himself to the congregation, and +having spread before them his sin, partly to vindicate the church’s +proceeding against him, and partly to warn others; sentence was +declared against him according to Matthew 18, 17.”</p> + +<p>The next also is a case of excommunication. It appears from the records +(p. 658) that “Upon the 9<sup>th</sup> 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:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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 her <span class="blank"> </span> their +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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> to hear what should be +spoken to him, but he boldly replied he should not come. And being +after treated by D. Tompson and his father to come, and taking his +opportunity to carry her away the last weeke, after a solemn sermon +preached on 1 Cor. 5. 3, 4 and 5,<a name='fna_5' id='fna_5' href='#f_5'><small>[5]</small></a> and prayers added, an account was +given to the church and congregation of him, the Brethren voting him +to be an impenitent, scandalous, wicked, incestuous sinner, and giving +their consent that the sentence of excommunication should be passed +upon and declared against him, which was solemnly performed by the +Pastor of the Church according to the direction of the Apostle in the +above mentioned text: this 17 of January, 1691/2.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> were his +unchristian carriage towards his wife, and frequent excessive +drinking. He behaved himself very insolently before the church when +allowed to speak in vindication of himself, and was far from +discovering any signs of true repentance. He was unanimously voted +guilty and laid under solemn admonition by the Church.”</p> + +<p>The next entry is one of eight years later, and reads as follows:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”</p> + +<p>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.<a name='fna_6' id='fna_6' href='#f_6'><small>[6]</small></a> The record, under date of +December 31, 1721, contains the following in relation to this:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Dr. Belcher’s son Joseph, junior Sophister, [admitted.] He made the +last Relation, before the brethren consented to lay aside Relations.</p> + +<p>“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?</p> + +<p>“It passed in the negative by a great majority.”</p></div> + +<p>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,—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“Sabbath day. It was proposed to the church last Sabbath to +excommunicate James Penniman for his contumacy in sin, but this day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +he presented a confession, which was read before the Congregation, and +prayed that they would wait upon him awhile longer, which the Church +consented to, and he was again publicly admonished, and warned against +persisting in the neglect of Public Worship, against Idleness, +Drunkenness and Lying; and he gave some slender hopes of Reformation, +seemed to be considerably affected, and behaved himself tolerably +well.”</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“September 9. Brother Joseph Parmenter made a public Confession, in +the presence of the Congregation for the sin of drunkenness.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“March 3<sup>d</sup>, 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, <i>nemine +contradicente</i>.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“January 26, 1723/4 Lord’s-day. In the afternoon, after a sermon on 1 +Cor. 5.5.<a name='fna_7' id='fna_7' href='#f_7'><small>[7]</small></a> James Penniman persisting in a course of Idleness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +Drunkenness, and in a neglect of the Public Worship, &c. had the +fearfull sentence of excommunication pronounced upon him.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p></div> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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 29<sup>th</sup> 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.</p> + +<p>“[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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>“November 17, 1728. Mehetabel the wife of John B—— Jun<sup>r</sup> made a +confession before the Church and Congregation for the sin of +fornication, which was well accepted.</p> + +<p>“September 28, 1729. Elizabeth M—— made a confession before the +whole congregation for the sin of fornication, which was accepted by +the Church.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“August 6, 1732. Ebenezer H—— and wife made their confession of the +sin of fornication.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“August 11, 1734. Nathan S—— and wife made their confession of the +sin of fornication which was well accepted by the church.</p> + +<p>“September 28, 1735. Elizabeth P——, widow, made her confession of +the sin of fornication and was accepted.</p> + +<p>“[Sept. 8, 1735.] At a meeting of the First Church of Christ in +Braintree at the house of the Pastor, September the 8<sup>th</sup> 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 30<sup>th</sup> 1735, whereby +God has been dishonored and religion reproached.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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 +Jun<sup>r</sup> and Mr. Joseph Neal, Tert. were chose for the committee.</p> + +<p>“Then the meeting was adjourned to the 29<sup>th</sup> Inst. at 2 oclock <span class="smcaplc">P. M.</span></p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>“[Oct. 22, 1735.] At a meeting of the 1<sup>st</sup> Church in Braintree at the +house of the Pastor, Oct. 22, 1735—after prayer, Benj. Owen offered +to the brethren a confession of his late offensive behavior which was +not accepted.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“To which he consented, as also to make it in public.</p> + +<p>“At the desire of the brethren the meeting was adjourned to Friday the +24 Inst. at 4 o’clock <span class="smcaplc">P. M.</span> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“October 26, 1735. Benj’n Owen made a public confession of his +offence, and was restored to the charity of the Church.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>“Memorandum. At the adjournment of the Church meeting Sept. the 29<sup>th</sup> +1735, Mr. Moses Belcher and Mr. Joseph Neal, two of the committee +chosen Sept. the 8<sup>th</sup>, made report to the brethren, that they had +been with Eliz. Morse, and that she owned to them she had been +delivered of two bastard children since she had made confession to the +church of the sin of fornication, and she promised them to come and +make the Church satisfaction for her great offence the latter end of +October.</p> + +<p>“[Nov. 10, 1735.] At a church meeting, Nov. 10<sup>th</sup>, 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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“December 7, 1735. Lieutenant Joseph Crosbey made confession of the +sin of fornication, and was restored to the charity of the church.</p> + +<p>“December 21, 1735. John Beale made confession of the sin of +fornication, and was restored to the charity of the brethren.</p> + +<p>“April 18, 1736. Susanna W—— made confession of the sin of +fornication, and was restored to the charity of the brethren.</p> + +<p>“May 1, 1737. Sam P—— and wife made public confession of the sin of +fornication. Accepted.</p> + +<p>“January 22, 1737/8. Charles S—— and wife made a public confession +of the sin of fornication.</p> + +<p>“June 11, 1738. Benj’n Sutton and Naomi his wife, free negroes, made +confession of fornication.</p> + +<p>“December 17, 1738. Jeffry, my servant, and Flora, his wife, servant +of Mr. Moses Belcher, negroes, made confession of the sin of +fornication.</p> + +<p>“May 20<sup>th</sup>, 1739. Benjamin C—— and wife, of Milton, made confession +of fornication.</p> + +<p>“Jan’y 20, 1739/40. Joseph W—— and wife confessed the sin of +fornication.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>The Hancock pastorate lasted eighteen years, ending with Mr. Hancock’s +death on the 7th of May, 1744; and no record of cases of church discipline +seems to have been kept by any of his successors in the pulpit of the +North Precinct church. In the year 1750 Braintree probably contained some +eighteen hundred or two thousand inhabitants, and during the half-century +between 1725 and 1775 there is no reason to suppose that any considerable +change took place in their condition, whether social, material or +religious. It was a period of slow maturing. The absence of a record, +therefore, in no way implies change; if it indicates anything at all in +this case, it indicates merely that the successors to Mr. Hancock, either +because they were indolent or because they saw no advantage in so doing, +made no written mention of anything relating to the church’s life or +action beyond what was contained in the book regularly kept by the +precinct clerk. There are but two exceptions to this, both consisting of +brief entries made, the one by the Rev. Lemuel Bryant, the immediate +successor of Mr. Hancock, the other by the Rev. Anthony Wibird, who in +1755 followed Mr. Bryant. Both entries are to be found on the second page +of the volume from which all the extracts relating to church discipline +have been taken. Mr. Bryant was for his time an advanced religious +thinker, and, as is invariably the case with such, he failed to carry the +whole of his flock along with him. Owing to declining health he resigned +his pastorate in October, 1753, having exactly two months before recorded +the following case of discipline:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”</p> + +<p>After 1741, therefore, the only records of the North Precinct church are +those contained in the book kept by the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>successive precinct clerks, which +has often been consulted, but never copied. None of the entries in it +relate to cases of discipline or to matters spiritual, they being almost +exclusively prudential in character. No record is made of births, +baptisms, deaths or marriages, which were still for several years to come +noted in the small volume from which I have quoted. Accordingly the +Braintree North Precinct records after Mr. Hancock’s ministry are of far +inferior interest, though as the volume containing them from 1709 to 1766 +distinctly belongs to what are known as “ancient records,” and as such is +liable at any time to be lost or destroyed, I have caused a copy of it to +be made, and have deposited it for safe keeping in the library of this +Society. An examination of this volume only very occasionally brings to +light anything which is of more than local interest, or which has a +bearing on the social or religious conditions of the last century, though +here and there something is found which constitutes an exception to this +rule. Such, for instance, is the following entry in the record of the +proceedings of a Precinct meeting held on the 19th of July, 1731, to take +measures for properly noticing the completion of the new meeting-house +then being built:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”</p> + +<p>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 1<i>s.</i>, +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> experience of Braintree in this respect +was in no way peculiar among the Massachusetts towns of the last century. +While examining the Braintree records I incidentally came across a +singular and conclusive bit of unpublished documentary evidence on this +point in the records of the church of Groton; for, casually mentioning one +day in the rooms of the Society the Braintree records to our librarian, +Dr. S. A. Green, he informed me that the similar records of the Groton +church were in his possession, and he kindly put them at my disposal. +Though covering a later period (1765-1803) than the portion of the +Braintree church records from which the extracts contained in this paper +have been made, the Groton records supplement and explain the Braintree +records to a very remarkable degree. In the latter there is no vote or +other entry showing the church rule or usage which led to these +post-nuptial confessions of ante-marital relations; but in the Groton +records I find the following among the preliminary votes passed at the +time of signing the church covenant, regulating the admission of members +to full communion:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> belief “that Millions of Infants are tortured in Hell to +all Eternity for a Sin that was committed thousands of Years before they +were born”—is matter of common knowledge. Not only did it compel young +married men and women to shameful public confessions of the kind which has +been described, but it was at times arbitrarily used by some ministers in +a way which is at once ludicrous and, now, hard to understand. Certain of +them, for instance, refused to baptize infants born on the Sabbath, there +being an ancient superstition to the effect that a child born on the +Sabbath was also conceived on the Sabbath; a superstition presumably the +basis on which was founded the provision of the apocryphal Blue Laws of +Connecticut,—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Whose rule the nuptial kiss restrains<br /> +On Sabbath day, in legal chains”;<a name='fna_8' id='fna_8' href='#f_8'><small>[8]</small></a></p> + +<p>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.<a name='fna_9' id='fna_9' href='#f_9'><small>[9]</small></a></p> + +<p>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.<a name='fna_10' id='fna_10' href='#f_10'><small>[10]</small></a> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> sixteen couples were admitted to full communion; and of these nine +had the letters “C. F.” inscribed after their names in the church records.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.)</p> + +<p>During the next eighteen years I find in these records only seven entries +of other cases generally similar in character to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> the above, though the +Roxbury records contain a number of entries descriptive of interesting +cases of church discipline, besides many memoranda of “strange providences +of God” and “dreadful examples of Gods judgment.” It would seem, however, +that the instances of church discipline publicly administered on the +ground of sexual immorality were infrequent in Roxbury, as in Dedham and +Braintree, prior to the year 1725. As will presently be seen, a change +either in morals or in discipline, but probably in the latter more than in +the former, apparently took place at about that time.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> Hutchinson referred to the commonness of +illegitimate offspring “among the young people of New England”<a name='fna_11' id='fna_11' href='#f_11'><small>[11]</small></a> as a +thing of accepted notoriety; nor did Hutchinson, than whom no one was +better informed on all matters relating to New England, controvert the +proposition.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I have only further to say, in passing, that some of the other cases +mentioned in this John Quincy record are not without a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> curious interest. +For instance, August 24, 1722, John Veasey, “husbandman,” is put under +recognizance in the sum of £5 “for detaining his child from the public +worship of God, said child being about eleven years old.” On the same day +John Belcher, “cordwainer,” is put under a similar recognizance “for +absenting himself from the public worship of God the winter past.” Eleazer +Veasey,—the Braintree Veaseys I will say in passing were members of the +Church of England in Braintree, and not members of the Braintree +church,—Eleazer Veasey is, on the 20th of September, 1717, fined five +shillings to the use of the town poor for “uttering a profane curse.” So +also Christopher Dyer, “husbandman,” “did utter one profane curse,” to +which charge he pleaded guilty, and, on the 17th of May, 1747, was fined +four shillings for the use of the poor. In this case the costs were +assessed at six shillings, making ten shillings as the total cost of an +oath in Massachusetts at that time; but as Dyer was a “soldier of His +Majesty’s service,” the court added that if the fine was not paid +forthwith, he (Dyer) “be publickly set in the stocks or cage for the space +of three hours.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> were not traceable to the church +itself rather than to the army,—whether they were not rather due to the +spiritual than to the martial conditions of the time.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.<a name='fna_12' id='fna_12' href='#f_12'><small>[12]</small></a> 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:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“Presently upon this, a great and earnest Concern about the great +things of Religion, and the eternal World, became <i>universal</i> in all +parts of the Town, and among Persons of all Degrees, and all Ages; the +Noise amongst the <i>Dry Bones</i> 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 <i>out of Darkness into marvellous Light</i>, +and delivered <i>out of an horrible Pit, and from the miry Clay, and set +upon a Rock</i>, with a <i>new Song of Praise <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>to God in their mouths</i> ... +in the Spring and Summer following, <i>Anno</i> 1735 the Town seemed to be +full of the Presence of God. It never was so full of <i>Love</i>, nor so +full of <i>Joy</i>; and yet so full of Distress as it was then. There were +remarkable Tokens of God’s Presence in almost every House.... Our +publick <i>Praises</i> were then greatly enlivened.... In all <i>Companies</i> +on <i>other</i> Days, on whatever <i>Occasions</i> Persons met together, +<i>Christ</i> was to be heard of and seen in the midst of them. Our <i>young +People</i>, when they met, were wont to spend the time in talking of the +<i>Excellency</i> and dying <i>Love</i> of JESUS CHRIST, the Gloriousness of the +way of <i>Salvation</i>, the wonderful, free, and sovereign <i>Grace</i> of God, +his glorious Work in the <i>Conversion</i> of a Soul, the <i>Truth</i> and +Certainty of the great Things of God’s Word, the Sweetness of the +Views of his <i>Perfection &c.</i> And even at <i>Weddings</i>, which formerly +were meerly occasions of Mirth and Jollity, there was now no discourse +of any thing but the things of Religion, and no appearance of any, but +<i>spiritual Mirth</i>.”<a name='fna_13' id='fna_13' href='#f_13'><small>[13]</small></a></p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>The brother clergyman<a name='fna_14' id='fna_14' href='#f_14'><small>[14]</small></a> 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.”<a name='fna_15' id='fna_15' href='#f_15'><small>[15]</small></a> Nevertheless it is almost +impossible for any locality to escape wholly a general epidemic; and in +those days public relations of experiences<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> were not only usual in the +churches, but they were a regular feature in all cases of admission to +full communion. That this was the case in the Braintree church is evident +from the extract already quoted from the records, when in 1722 “some +persons of a sober life and good conversation signified their +unwillingness to join in full communion with the church unless they +[might] be admitted to it without making a Public relation of their +spiritual experiences.” It was also everywhere noticed that the women, and +especially the young women, were peculiarly susceptible to attacks of the +spiritual epidemic. Jonathan Edwards for instance mentions, in the case of +Northampton, how the young men of that place had become “addicted to +night-walking and frequenting the tavern, and leud practices,” and how +they would “get together in conventions of both sexes for mirth and +jollity, which they called frolicks; and they would spend the greater part +of the night in them”; and among the first indications of the approach of +the epidemic noticed by him was the case of a young woman who had been one +of the greatest “company keepers” in the whole town, who became “serious, +giving evidence of a heart truly broken and sanctified.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>So far, however, what has been said relates only to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> matter of public +confession; it remains for others to consider how far a morbidly excited +spiritual condition may also have been responsible for the sin confessed. +The connection between the animal and the spiritual natures of human +beings taken in the aggregate, though subtile, is close; and while it is +well known that camp-meetings have never been looked upon as peculiar, or +even as conspicuous, for the continence supposed to prevail at them, there +is no doubt whatever that in England the license of the restoration +followed close on the rule of the saints. One of the authorities on New +England history, speaking of the outward manifestations of the “Great +Awakening,” says that “the fervor of excitement showed itself in strong +men, as well as in women, by floods of tears, by outcries, by bodily +paroxysms, jumping, falling down and rolling on the ground, regardless of +spectators or their clothes.” Then the same authority goes on to +add:—“But it was common that when the exciting preacher had departed, the +excitement also subsided, and men and women returned peaceably to their +daily duties.”<a name='fna_16' id='fna_16' href='#f_16'><small>[16]</small></a> This last may have been the case; but it is not +probable that men and women in the condition of mental and physical +excitement described could go about their daily duties without carrying +into them some trace of morbid reaction. It was a species of insanity; and +insanity invariably reveals itself in unexpected and contradictory forms.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>But it still remains to consider whether the entries referred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> to in the +church records must be taken as conclusive evidence that a peculiarly lax +condition of affairs as respects the sexual relation did really prevail in +New England during the last century. This does not necessarily follow; +and, for reasons I shall presently give, I venture to doubt it. In the +first place it is to be remembered that the language used in those days +does not carry the same meaning that similar language would carry if used +now. For instance, when Jonathan Edwards talks of the youth of Northampton +being given to “Night-walking ... and leud practices,” he does not at all +mean what we should mean by using the same expression; and the young woman +who was one of the greatest “company keepers” in the whole town, was +probably nothing worse than a lively village girl much addicted to walking +with her young admirers after public lecture on the Sabbath +afternoons,—“a disorder,” by the way, which Jonathan Edwards says he made +“a thorough reformation of ... which has continued ever since.”<a name='fna_17' id='fna_17' href='#f_17'><small>[17]</small></a></p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>I do not propose here to go into a description of “bundling,”<a name='fna_18' id='fna_18' href='#f_18'><small>[18]</small></a> or to +attempt to trace its origin or the extent to which it prevailed in New +England during the last century. All this has been sufficiently done in +the little volume on the subject prepared by Dr. H. R. Stiles, and +published some twenty years ago. For my present purpose it is only +necessary for me to say that the practice of “bundling” has long been one +of the standing taunts or common-place indictments against New England, +and has been supposed to indicate almost the lowest conceivable state of +sexual immorality;<a name='fna_19' id='fna_19' href='#f_19'><small>[19]</small></a> but, on the other hand, it may safely be asserted +that “bundling” was, as a custom, neither so vicious nor so immoral as is +usually supposed; nor did it originate in, nor was it peculiar to, New +England. It was a practice growing out of the social and industrial +conditions of a primitive people, of simple, coarse manners and small +means. Two young persons proposed to marry. They and their families were +poor; they lived far apart from each other; they were at work early and +late all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> the week. Under these circumstances Saturday evening and Sunday +were the recognized time for meeting. The young man came to the house of +the girl after Saturday’s sun-down, and they could see each other until +Sunday afternoon, when he had to go back to his own home and work. The +houses were small, and every nook in them occupied; and in order that the +man might not be turned out of doors, or the two be compelled to sit up +all night at a great waste of lights and fuel, and that they might at the +same time be in each other’s company, they were “bundled” up together on a +bed, in which they lay side by side and partially clothed. It goes without +saying that, however it originated, such a custom, if recognized and +continued, must degenerate into something coarse and immoral. The +inevitable would follow. The only good and redeeming feature about it was +the utter absence of concealment and secrecy. All was open and recognized. +The very “bundling” was done by the hands of mother and sisters.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“courtship similar to bundling, carried on in ... Holland, under the +name of <i>queesting</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>in this +state <i>queests</i>, or enjoys a harmless chit-chat with her, and then +retires. This custom meets with the perfect sanction of the most +circumspect parents, and the freedom is seldom abused. The author +traces its origin to the parsimony of the people, whose economy +considers fire and candles as superfluous luxuries in the long winter +evenings.”</p> + +<p>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,—</p> + +<p class="poem">“The poor are hovell’d and hustled together, each sex, like swine.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>But no matter whence or how derived, it is obvious that the prevalence of +such a custom would open a ready and natural way for a vast increase of +sexual immorality at any time when surrounding conditions predisposed a +community in that direction. This is exactly what I cannot help surmising +occurred in New England at the time of “the Great Awakening” of the last +century, and immediately subsequent thereto. The movement was there, and +in obedience to the universal law it made its way on the lines of least +resistance. Hence the entries of public confession in the church records, +and the tide of immorality in presence of which the clergy stood aghast.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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. <span class="smcap">Chastity</span> 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.”<a name='fna_20' id='fna_20' href='#f_20'><small>[20]</small></a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> again he later on (p. +864) alludes to it as “a curious custom which accorded little with the New +England character,” and which “lingered among the lower orders of people +... prevailing in Western Massachusetts as late as 1777.” I am led to +believe that the custom prevailed far more generally and to a much later +date than these statements of Mr. Weeden would seem to indicate; that, +indeed, it was continued even in eastern Massachusetts and the towns +immediately about Boston until after the close of the Revolutionary +troubles, and probably until the beginning of the present century. The +Braintree church records throw no light on this portion of the subject; +but the Groton church records show that not until 1803 was the practice +discontinued of compelling a public confession before the whole +congregation whenever a child was born in less than seven months after +marriage. Turning then to Worthington’s “History of Dedham” (p. 109),—a +town only ten miles from Boston,—I find that the Rev. Mr. Haven, the +pastor of the church there, alarmed at the number of cases of unlawful +cohabitation, preached at least as late as 1781 “a long and memorable +discourse,” in which, with a courage deserving of unstinted praise, he +dealt with “the growing sin” publicly from his pulpit, attributing “the +frequent recurrence of the fault to the custom then prevalent of females +admitting young men to their beds who sought their company with intentions +of marriage.” Again, in a letter of Mrs. John Adams, written in 1784, in +which she gives a very graphic and lively account of a voyage across the +Atlantic in a sailing-vessel of that period, I find the following, in +which Mrs. Adams, describing how the passengers all lived in the common +cabin, adds:—“Necessity has no law; but what should I have thought on +shore to have laid myself down in common with half a dozen gentlemen? We +have curtains, it is true, and we only in part undress,—about as much as +the Yankee bundlers.”<a name='fna_21' id='fna_21' href='#f_21'><small>[21]</small></a> Mrs. Adams was then writing to her elder sister, +Mrs. Cranch; they were both women of exceptional +refinement,—granddaughters of Col. John Quincy, and daughters of the +pastor of the Weymouth church. Mrs. Adams while writing her letter knew +that it would be eagerly looked for at home, and that it would be read +aloud and passed from hand to hand through all her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> acquaintance, and this +was in fact the case; so it is evident, from this easy, passing allusion, +that the custom of “bundling” was then so common in the community in which +Mrs. Adams lived, that not only was written reference to it freely made, +but the reference conveyed to a large circle of friends a perfect idea of +what she meant to describe. At the same time the use of the phrase “the +Yankee bundlers” indicates the social class to which the custom was +confined.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> were to a limited extent gratified. It was in +their attempt wholly to ignore these natural appetites that Jonathan +Edwards and the clergy of the last century fell into their error.</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”<a name='fna_22' id='fna_22' href='#f_22'><small>[22]</small></a></p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> there +are some mysterious entries which I am led to believe relate to another +and similar case, but one in which the objectionable character was +otherwise dealt with. In the midst of the Revolutionary troubles the +following votes were passed at the annual town meeting held in the +meeting-house of the Middle Precinct, now Braintree, on the 15th of March, +1779:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Voted That Doctor Baker be desired to leave this Town, also</p> + +<p>“Voted, that the eight men that Doctor Baker gott a warrant for go +immediately and Deliver themselves up to Justice.”</p></div> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“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,</p> + +<p>“Voted, that Thomas Penniman, Esq<sup>r.</sup> Col<sup>o</sup> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.”<a name='fna_23' id='fna_23' href='#f_23'><small>[23]</small></a></p></div> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> Dr. Baker lived a woman of bad reputation, with whom Dr. Baker +was, whether rightly or not, believed to have improper relations. Certain +men living in the neighborhood accordingly undertook to act as a local +committee to enforce good morals; and this committee decided to ride Dr. +Baker and the woman in question together on horseback to a convenient +locality near the meeting-house, and there tar and feather them. A +broken-down old hack, deemed meet and appropriate for use as a charger in +such case, was accordingly procured; and going to the woman’s house, the +<i>vigilantes</i> actually took her from her bed, and, without allowing her to +clothe herself, put her on the horse, and then proceeded to Baker’s house. +He in the mean time had received notice of the proposed visit; and when +the party reached their destination they found him indignant, armed and +resolute. He threatened to shoot the first man who laid hands on him. This +was a turn in affairs which the self-constituted vindicators of public +morality had not contemplated, and accordingly they proceeded no further +in their purpose. Dr. Baker was not molested, and the woman was released.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>vigilantes</i>, as they would now be called in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> Mexicanized parlance of the +extreme Southwest. The distinction I have endeavored to draw between the +excusable, if not permissible, incontinence of the New England country +community of the last century, and the idea of promiscuous immorality as +we entertain it, is clearly seen in this Baker episode.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> Lord +Colin Campbell or Sir Charles Dilke or Charles Stewart Parnell scandal are +paraded in the newspapers.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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 <i>English</i> rusticks whose ludeness in many +things exceedeth theirs.’ (<i>Two Voyages</i>, 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 <i>Prospect</i>, (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’ (<i>Key</i>, 110-11).”<a name='fna_24' id='fna_24' href='#f_24'><small>[24]</small></a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>Again, I recently came across the following, which illustrates somewhat +curiously what may be called the social street amenities which a sojourner +might expect to encounter in a large English town of a century ago. If +ever there was a charming, innocent little woman, who, as a wife and +mother, bore herself purely and courageously under circumstances of great +trial and anxiety,—a woman whose own simple record of the strange +experience through which she passed appeals to you so that you long to +step forward and give her your arm and protect her,—if there ever was, I +say, a woman who impresses one in this way more than Mrs. General +Riedesel, I have not met her. Mrs. Riedesel, as the members of this +Society probably all know, followed her husband, who was in command of the +German auxiliary troops in Burgoyne’s army, to America in 1777, and in so +doing passed through England, accompanied by her young children. Here is +her own account of a slight experience she had in Bristol, where, the poor +little woman says, “I discovered soon how unpleasant it is to be in a city +where one does not understand the language, ... and wept for hours in my +chamber”:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”<a name='fna_25' id='fna_25' href='#f_25'><small>[25]</small></a></p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>Street customs, manners and language are, to a very considerable extent, +outward exponents of the moral condition within. It would not be possible +to find any place in Europe now where women could be seen going about the +streets in the condition as respects raiment which Josselyn, Winslow and +Roger Williams seem to intimate was not unusual with the British females +of their time; nor would a strumpet even, much less any decent woman, from +a foreign land, be treated in the streets of any civilized city as Madame +Riedesel describes herself as having been treated in the streets of +Bristol in 1777. One cannot conceive of an adulterer or adulteress now +doing public penance in a white sheet before a whole congregation +assembled for the public worship of God, nor of a really respectable young +married couple standing up under the same circumstances and confessing to +the sin of fornication. Even if such a thing were done, it would be looked +upon as rather suggestive than edifying. All the evidence accordingly +indicates that, morally, the improvement made in the nineteenth century as +compared with those that preceded it has been more than superficial and in +externals only,—that it has been real, in essentials as well as in +language and manners. So, while it would not be safe to adopt Burke’s +splendid generality, that vice has in our time lost half its evil in +losing all its grossness, yet it is not unfair to adopt the trope in a +modified form, and assert that, in the matter of sexual morality, vice in +the nineteenth century as compared with the seventeenth or the eighteenth +has lost some part of its evil in losing much of its grossness.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><strong>Footnotes:</strong></p> + +<p><a name='f_1' id='f_1' href='#fna_1'>[1]</a> History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, p. 231.</p> + +<p><a name='f_2' id='f_2' href='#fna_2'>[2]</a> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a name='f_3' id='f_3' href='#fna_3'>[3]</a> Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., 2d series, vol. i. p. 239.</p> + +<p><a name='f_4' id='f_4' href='#fna_4'>[4]</a> “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.”</p> + +<p><a name='f_5' id='f_5' href='#fna_5'>[5]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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,</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p><a name='f_6' id='f_6' href='#fna_6'>[6]</a> Ellis, The Puritan Age in Massachusetts, 206-208.</p> + +<p><a name='f_7' id='f_7' href='#fna_7'>[7]</a> “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.”</p> + +<p><a name='f_8' id='f_8' href='#fna_8'>[8]</a> Trumbull’s Blue Laws, True and False, p. 37.</p> + +<p><a name='f_9' id='f_9' href='#fna_9'>[9]</a> Drake’s History of Middlesex County, vol. ii. p. 371.</p> + +<p><a name='f_10' id='f_10' href='#fna_10'>[10]</a> Butler’s History of Groton, pp. 174, 178, 181.</p> + +<p><a name='f_11' id='f_11' href='#fna_11'>[11]</a> Hutchinson’s Diary and Letters, vol. i. p. 232.</p> + +<p><a name='f_12' id='f_12' href='#fna_12'>[12]</a> Palfrey, vol. v. p. 9.</p> + +<p><a name='f_13' id='f_13' href='#fna_13'>[13]</a> A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion +of Many Hundred Souls, &c., 1738, pp. 8-10.</p> + +<p><a name='f_14' id='f_14' href='#fna_14'>[14]</a> The Rev. Ebenezer Gay, of Hingham.</p> + +<p><a name='f_15' id='f_15' href='#fna_15'>[15]</a> Lunt’s Two Discourses, 1840, p. 48.</p> + +<p><a name='f_16' id='f_16' href='#fna_16'>[16]</a> Elliott’s The New England History, vol. ii. p. 136.</p> + +<p><a name='f_17' id='f_17' href='#fna_17'>[17]</a> Narrative, pp. 4, 5.</p> + +<p><a name='f_18' id='f_18' href='#fna_18'>[18]</a> <span class="smcap">To Bundle.</span> 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 <i>bundle</i> with +their wives and daughters.” (<i>Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.</i>)</p> + +<p>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 <i>bundle</i>.” The learned and pious historian endeavors to prove that +<i>bundling</i> was not only a Christian custom, but a very polite and prudent +one.</p> + +<p>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.” (<i>Travels</i>, +p. 144.)</p> + +<p>Van Corlear stopped occasionally in the villages to eat pumpkin-pies, +dance at country frolics, and <i>bundle</i> with the Yankee lasses. +(<i>Knickerbocker, New York.</i>)</p> + +<p>Bundling is said to be practised in Wales. Whatever may have been the +custom in former times, I do not think <i>bundling</i> is now practised +anywhere in the United States.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>bundling-up</i>, and which they term <i>namzat bazé</i>. 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.” (<i>Journeys in Belochistan, +Afghanistan, &c.</i>, vol. iii. p. 287.)—<span class="smcap">Bartlett</span>, <i>Dictionary of +Americanisms</i>.</p> + +<p><a name='f_19' id='f_19' href='#fna_19'>[19]</a> Knickerbocker’s History of New York, book iii. chaps. vi., vii.</p> + +<p><a name='f_20' id='f_20' href='#fna_20'>[20]</a> Elliott’s The New England History, vol. i. p. 471.</p> + +<p><a name='f_21' id='f_21' href='#fna_21'>[21]</a> Letters of Mrs. Adams, (1848,) p. 161.</p> + +<p><a name='f_22' id='f_22' href='#fna_22'>[22]</a> History, pp. 384-386.</p> + +<p><a name='f_23' id='f_23' href='#fna_23'>[23]</a> Braintree Records, pp. 480, 499, 500, 523.</p> + +<p><a name='f_24' id='f_24' href='#fna_24'>[24]</a> See, also, Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., 2d series, vol. iv. p. 10.</p> + +<p><a name='f_25' id='f_25' href='#fna_25'>[25]</a> Letters and Journals, p. 48.</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Phases of Sexual Morality and +Church Discipline in Colonial New England, by Charles Francis Adams + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME PHASES OF SEXUAL *** + +***** This file should be named 36989-h.htm or 36989-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/9/8/36989/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/36989.txt b/36989.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dbb253d --- /dev/null +++ b/36989.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2137 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Phases of Sexual Morality and Church +Discipline in Colonial New England, by Charles Francis Adams + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Some Phases of Sexual Morality and Church Discipline in Colonial New England + +Author: Charles Francis Adams + +Release Date: August 6, 2011 [EBook #36989] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME PHASES OF SEXUAL *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + SOME PHASES OF + SEXUAL MORALITY AND CHURCH DISCIPLINE + IN COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND. + + + BY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. + + + [REPRINTED FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS + HISTORICAL SOCIETY, JUNE, 1891.] + + + CAMBRIDGE: + JOHN WILSON AND SON. + University Press. + 1891. + + + + +SOME PHASES OF SEXUAL MORALITY IN COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND. + + +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 occasion to examine again +the material to which I have alluded; and I find that, though the topic to +which it relates in part is one which cannot be fully and freely treated +in a work intended for general reading, yet the material itself contains +much of value and interest. Neither is the topic I have referred to in +itself one which can be ignored in an historical view, though, as I have +reason to believe, there has been practised in New England an almost +systematic suppression of evidence in regard to it; for not only are we +disposed always to look upon the past as a somewhat Arcadian period,--a +period in which life and manners were simpler, better and more genuine +than they now are,--not only, I say, are we disposed to look upon the past +as a sort of golden era when compared with the present, but there is also +a sense of filial piety connected with it. Like Shem and Japhet, +approaching it with averted eyes we are disposed to cover up with a +garment the nakedness of the progenitors; and the severe looker after +truth, who wants to have things appear exactly as they were, and does not +believe in the suppression of evidence,--the investigator of this sort is +apt to be looked upon as a personage of no discretion and doubtful +utility,--as, in a word, a species of modern Ham, who, having +unfortunately seen what ought to have been covered up, is eager, out of +mere levity or prurience, to tell his "brethren without" all about it. + +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 identified with the Society that his +work may fairly be considered part of its record. Whether part of its +record or not, Mr. Savage and Mr. Deane,--than whom no higher authorities +are here recognized,--in the publications referred to, did settle the +principle that mawkishness is just as much out of place in scientific +historical research as prurience would be, or as sentiment, piety and +patriotism are. These last-named attributes of our nature, indeed,--most +noble, elevating and attractive in their proper spheres,--always have +been, now are, and I think I may safely say will long continue to be, the +bane of thorough historical research, and ubiquitous stumbling-blocks in +the way of scientific results. + +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 records then transferred from the town to the parish clerk went +no farther back than Jan. 17, 1708. + +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 from +some seven hundred souls in 1673, to about twenty-five hundred a century +later; the majority of whom during the first half of the eighteenth +century lived in the North Precinct of the original town, now Quincy. The +meeting-house, about which clustered the colonial village, stood on the +old Plymouth road, between the tenth and the eleventh mile-posts south of +Boston. The people were chiefly agriculturists, living on holdings +somewhat widely scattered; the place had no especial trade or leading +industry, and no commerce; so that, when describing the country a few +years before, in 1660,--and since then the conditions had not greatly +changed,--Samuel Maverick said of Braintree,--"It subsists by raising +provisions, and furnishing Boston with wood."[3] In reading the following +extracts from the records, it is also necessary to bear in mind that +during the eighteenth century the whole social and intellectual as well as +religious life of the Massachusetts towns not only centred about the +church, but was concentrated in it. The church was practically a club as +well as a religious organization. An inhabitant of the town excluded from +it or under its ban became an outcast and a pariah. + +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 11{th} 1698." + +The next entry of a case of church discipline is of a wholly different +character. The individual subjected to it bore the same family name as +the earliest minister of the town, the Rev. William Tompson, who was the +first to subscribe the original covenant of Sept. 16, 1639, but was not +descended from him. Neither must this Samuel Tomson, or Tompson, be +confounded with Deacon Samuel Tompson, who, born in 1630, lived in +Braintree, and whose name is met with on nearly every page of the earlier +records. The Samuel Tompson referred to in the following entry seems to +have been the son of the deacon, and was born Nov. 6, 1662. His name +frequently appears in the town records, and usually (pp. 29, 35, 39, 40), +as dissenting from some vote providing for the minister's salary or the +maintenance of the town school. He was, though the son of a deacon, +evidently a man otherwise-minded. This entry, like the previous one, is in +the handwriting of Mr. Fiske. + + "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 for that his pretended offence was originally against myself, + and [he] had said I would take all advantages against him, I deferred + the same, and because 4 or 5 of the brethren did desire that he might + be called before the church to see if he would own what they asserted: + and having ________ the church, 1 April, 98, he came, brought an + additional acknowledgment. Of 15 about 9 or 10 voted to accept of it, + &c." + +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 church, to bring [him] to a thorough sight and free and ingenuous + confession of his sin; as also for his abominably lying, changing his + name, &c., was called forth in public, moved pathetically to + acknowledge his sin and publish his repentance, who came down and + stood against the lower end of the foreseat after he had been + prevented (by our shutting the east door) from going out; stood + impudently, and said indeed he owned his sin of stealing, was heartily + sorry for it, begged pardon of God and men, and hoped he should do so + no more, which was all he could be brought unto, saying his sin was + already known, and that there was no need to mention it in particular, + all with a remisse voice, so that but few could hear him. The Church + at length gave their judgment against him, that he was a notorious, + scandalous sinner, and obstinately impenitent. And when I was + proceeding to spread before him his sin and wickedness, he (as 'tis + probable), guessing what was like to follow, turned about to goe out, + and being desired and charged to tarry and hear what the church had to + say to him, he flung out of doors, with an insolent manner, though + silent. Therefore the Pastor applied himself to the congregation, and + having spread before them his sin, partly to vindicate the church's + proceeding against him, and partly to warn others; sentence was + declared against him according to Matthew 18, 17." + +The next also is a case of excommunication. It appears from the records +(p. 658) that "Upon the 9{th} 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 her ________ their + 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, to hear what should be + spoken to him, but he boldly replied he should not come. And being + after treated by D. Tompson and his father to come, and taking his + opportunity to carry her away the last weeke, after a solemn sermon + preached on 1 Cor. 5. 3, 4 and 5,[5] and prayers added, an account was + given to the church and congregation of him, the Brethren voting him + to be an impenitent, scandalous, wicked, incestuous sinner, and giving + their consent that the sentence of excommunication should be passed + upon and declared against him, which was solemnly performed by the + Pastor of the Church according to the direction of the Apostle in the + above mentioned text: this 17 of January, 1691/2." + +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 were his + unchristian carriage towards his wife, and frequent excessive + drinking. He behaved himself very insolently before the church when + allowed to speak in vindication of himself, and was far from + discovering any signs of true repentance. He was unanimously voted + guilty and laid under solemn admonition by the Church." + +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 + he presented a confession, which was read before the Congregation, and + prayed that they would wait upon him awhile longer, which the Church + consented to, and he was again publicly admonished, and warned against + persisting in the neglect of Public Worship, against Idleness, + Drunkenness and Lying; and he gave some slender hopes of Reformation, + seemed to be considerably affected, and behaved himself tolerably + well." + +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 3{d}, 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, + Drunkenness, and in a neglect of the Public Worship, &c. had the + fearfull sentence of excommunication pronounced upon him. + + "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 29{th} 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. + + "November 17, 1728. Mehetabel the wife of John B---- Jun{r} made a + confession before the Church and Congregation for the sin of + fornication, which was well accepted. + + "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 8{th} 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 30{th} 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 + Jun{r} and Mr. Joseph Neal, Tert. were chose for the committee. + + "Then the meeting was adjourned to the 29{th} 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. + + "[Oct. 22, 1735.] At a meeting of the 1{st} Church in Braintree at the + house of the Pastor, Oct. 22, 1735--after prayer, Benj. Owen offered + to the brethren a confession of his late offensive behavior which was + not accepted. + + "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. + + "Memorandum. At the adjournment of the Church meeting Sept. the 29{th} + 1735, Mr. Moses Belcher and Mr. Joseph Neal, two of the committee + chosen Sept. the 8{th}, made report to the brethren, that they had + been with Eliz. Morse, and that she owned to them she had been + delivered of two bastard children since she had made confession to the + church of the sin of fornication, and she promised them to come and + make the Church satisfaction for her great offence the latter end of + October. + + "[Nov. 10, 1735.] At a church meeting, Nov. 10{th}, 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 20{th}, 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." + +The Hancock pastorate lasted eighteen years, ending with Mr. Hancock's +death on the 7th of May, 1744; and no record of cases of church discipline +seems to have been kept by any of his successors in the pulpit of the +North Precinct church. In the year 1750 Braintree probably contained some +eighteen hundred or two thousand inhabitants, and during the half-century +between 1725 and 1775 there is no reason to suppose that any considerable +change took place in their condition, whether social, material or +religious. It was a period of slow maturing. The absence of a record, +therefore, in no way implies change; if it indicates anything at all in +this case, it indicates merely that the successors to Mr. Hancock, either +because they were indolent or because they saw no advantage in so doing, +made no written mention of anything relating to the church's life or +action beyond what was contained in the book regularly kept by the +precinct clerk. There are but two exceptions to this, both consisting of +brief entries made, the one by the Rev. Lemuel Bryant, the immediate +successor of Mr. Hancock, the other by the Rev. Anthony Wibird, who in +1755 followed Mr. Bryant. Both entries are to be found on the second page +of the volume from which all the extracts relating to church discipline +have been taken. Mr. Bryant was for his time an advanced religious +thinker, and, as is invariably the case with such, he failed to carry the +whole of his flock along with him. Owing to declining health he resigned +his pastorate in October, 1753, having exactly two months before recorded +the following case of discipline:-- + + "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 successive precinct clerks, which +has often been consulted, but never copied. None of the entries in it +relate to cases of discipline or to matters spiritual, they being almost +exclusively prudential in character. No record is made of births, +baptisms, deaths or marriages, which were still for several years to come +noted in the small volume from which I have quoted. Accordingly the +Braintree North Precinct records after Mr. Hancock's ministry are of far +inferior interest, though as the volume containing them from 1709 to 1766 +distinctly belongs to what are known as "ancient records," and as such is +liable at any time to be lost or destroyed, I have caused a copy of it to +be made, and have deposited it for safe keeping in the library of this +Society. An examination of this volume only very occasionally brings to +light anything which is of more than local interest, or which has a +bearing on the social or religious conditions of the last century, though +here and there something is found which constitutes an exception to this +rule. Such, for instance, is the following entry in the record of the +proceedings of a Precinct meeting held on the 19th of July, 1731, to take +measures for properly noticing the completion of the new meeting-house +then being built:-- + + "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 L23 1_s._, +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 experience of Braintree in this respect +was in no way peculiar among the Massachusetts towns of the last century. +While examining the Braintree records I incidentally came across a +singular and conclusive bit of unpublished documentary evidence on this +point in the records of the church of Groton; for, casually mentioning one +day in the rooms of the Society the Braintree records to our librarian, +Dr. S. A. Green, he informed me that the similar records of the Groton +church were in his possession, and he kindly put them at my disposal. +Though covering a later period (1765-1803) than the portion of the +Braintree church records from which the extracts contained in this paper +have been made, the Groton records supplement and explain the Braintree +records to a very remarkable degree. In the latter there is no vote or +other entry showing the church rule or usage which led to these +post-nuptial confessions of ante-marital relations; but in the Groton +records I find the following among the preliminary votes passed at the +time of signing the church covenant, regulating the admission of members +to full communion:-- + + "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 belief "that Millions of Infants are tortured in Hell to +all Eternity for a Sin that was committed thousands of Years before they +were born"--is matter of common knowledge. Not only did it compel young +married men and women to shameful public confessions of the kind which has +been described, but it was at times arbitrarily used by some ministers in +a way which is at once ludicrous and, now, hard to understand. Certain of +them, for instance, refused to baptize infants born on the Sabbath, there +being an ancient superstition to the effect that a child born on the +Sabbath was also conceived on the Sabbath; a superstition presumably the +basis on which was founded the provision of the apocryphal Blue Laws of +Connecticut,-- + + "Whose rule the nuptial kiss restrains + On Sabbath day, in legal chains";[8] + +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 sixteen couples were admitted to full communion; and of these nine +had the letters "C. F." inscribed after their names in the church records. + +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 the above, though the +Roxbury records contain a number of entries descriptive of interesting +cases of church discipline, besides many memoranda of "strange providences +of God" and "dreadful examples of Gods judgment." It would seem, however, +that the instances of church discipline publicly administered on the +ground of sexual immorality were infrequent in Roxbury, as in Dedham and +Braintree, prior to the year 1725. As will presently be seen, a change +either in morals or in discipline, but probably in the latter more than in +the former, apparently took place at about that time. + + * * * * * + +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 Hutchinson referred to the commonness of +illegitimate offspring "among the young people of New England"[11] as a +thing of accepted notoriety; nor did Hutchinson, than whom no one was +better informed on all matters relating to New England, controvert the +proposition. + +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 curious interest. +For instance, August 24, 1722, John Veasey, "husbandman," is put under +recognizance in the sum of L5 "for detaining his child from the public +worship of God, said child being about eleven years old." On the same day +John Belcher, "cordwainer," is put under a similar recognizance "for +absenting himself from the public worship of God the winter past." Eleazer +Veasey,--the Braintree Veaseys I will say in passing were members of the +Church of England in Braintree, and not members of the Braintree +church,--Eleazer Veasey is, on the 20th of September, 1717, fined five +shillings to the use of the town poor for "uttering a profane curse." So +also Christopher Dyer, "husbandman," "did utter one profane curse," to +which charge he pleaded guilty, and, on the 17th of May, 1747, was fined +four shillings for the use of the poor. In this case the costs were +assessed at six shillings, making ten shillings as the total cost of an +oath in Massachusetts at that time; but as Dyer was a "soldier of His +Majesty's service," the court added that if the fine was not paid +forthwith, he (Dyer) "be publickly set in the stocks or cage for the space +of three hours." + +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 were not traceable to the church +itself rather than to the army,--whether they were not rather due to the +spiritual than to the martial conditions of the time. + +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 to God in their mouths_ ... + in the Spring and Summer following, _Anno_ 1735 the Town seemed to be + full of the Presence of God. It never was so full of _Love_, nor so + full of _Joy_; and yet so full of Distress as it was then. There were + remarkable Tokens of God's Presence in almost every House.... Our + publick _Praises_ were then greatly enlivened.... In all _Companies_ + on _other_ Days, on whatever _Occasions_ Persons met together, + _Christ_ was to be heard of and seen in the midst of them. Our _young + People_, when they met, were wont to spend the time in talking of the + _Excellency_ and dying _Love_ of JESUS CHRIST, the Gloriousness of the + way of _Salvation_, the wonderful, free, and sovereign _Grace_ of God, + his glorious Work in the _Conversion_ of a Soul, the _Truth_ and + Certainty of the great Things of God's Word, the Sweetness of the + Views of his _Perfection &c._ And even at _Weddings_, which formerly + were meerly occasions of Mirth and Jollity, there was now no discourse + of any thing but the things of Religion, and no appearance of any, but + _spiritual Mirth_."[13] + +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 were not only usual in the +churches, but they were a regular feature in all cases of admission to +full communion. That this was the case in the Braintree church is evident +from the extract already quoted from the records, when in 1722 "some +persons of a sober life and good conversation signified their +unwillingness to join in full communion with the church unless they +[might] be admitted to it without making a Public relation of their +spiritual experiences." It was also everywhere noticed that the women, and +especially the young women, were peculiarly susceptible to attacks of the +spiritual epidemic. Jonathan Edwards for instance mentions, in the case of +Northampton, how the young men of that place had become "addicted to +night-walking and frequenting the tavern, and leud practices," and how +they would "get together in conventions of both sexes for mirth and +jollity, which they called frolicks; and they would spend the greater part +of the night in them"; and among the first indications of the approach of +the epidemic noticed by him was the case of a young woman who had been one +of the greatest "company keepers" in the whole town, who became "serious, +giving evidence of a heart truly broken and sanctified." + +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 matter of public +confession; it remains for others to consider how far a morbidly excited +spiritual condition may also have been responsible for the sin confessed. +The connection between the animal and the spiritual natures of human +beings taken in the aggregate, though subtile, is close; and while it is +well known that camp-meetings have never been looked upon as peculiar, or +even as conspicuous, for the continence supposed to prevail at them, there +is no doubt whatever that in England the license of the restoration +followed close on the rule of the saints. One of the authorities on New +England history, speaking of the outward manifestations of the "Great +Awakening," says that "the fervor of excitement showed itself in strong +men, as well as in women, by floods of tears, by outcries, by bodily +paroxysms, jumping, falling down and rolling on the ground, regardless of +spectators or their clothes." Then the same authority goes on to +add:--"But it was common that when the exciting preacher had departed, the +excitement also subsided, and men and women returned peaceably to their +daily duties."[16] This last may have been the case; but it is not +probable that men and women in the condition of mental and physical +excitement described could go about their daily duties without carrying +into them some trace of morbid reaction. It was a species of insanity; and +insanity invariably reveals itself in unexpected and contradictory forms. + +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 to in the +church records must be taken as conclusive evidence that a peculiarly lax +condition of affairs as respects the sexual relation did really prevail in +New England during the last century. This does not necessarily follow; +and, for reasons I shall presently give, I venture to doubt it. In the +first place it is to be remembered that the language used in those days +does not carry the same meaning that similar language would carry if used +now. For instance, when Jonathan Edwards talks of the youth of Northampton +being given to "Night-walking ... and leud practices," he does not at all +mean what we should mean by using the same expression; and the young woman +who was one of the greatest "company keepers" in the whole town, was +probably nothing worse than a lively village girl much addicted to walking +with her young admirers after public lecture on the Sabbath +afternoons,--"a disorder," by the way, which Jonathan Edwards says he made +"a thorough reformation of ... which has continued ever since."[17] + +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." + +I do not propose here to go into a description of "bundling,"[18] or to +attempt to trace its origin or the extent to which it prevailed in New +England during the last century. All this has been sufficiently done in +the little volume on the subject prepared by Dr. H. R. Stiles, and +published some twenty years ago. For my present purpose it is only +necessary for me to say that the practice of "bundling" has long been one +of the standing taunts or common-place indictments against New England, +and has been supposed to indicate almost the lowest conceivable state of +sexual immorality;[19] but, on the other hand, it may safely be asserted +that "bundling" was, as a custom, neither so vicious nor so immoral as is +usually supposed; nor did it originate in, nor was it peculiar to, New +England. It was a practice growing out of the social and industrial +conditions of a primitive people, of simple, coarse manners and small +means. Two young persons proposed to marry. They and their families were +poor; they lived far apart from each other; they were at work early and +late all the week. Under these circumstances Saturday evening and Sunday +were the recognized time for meeting. The young man came to the house of +the girl after Saturday's sun-down, and they could see each other until +Sunday afternoon, when he had to go back to his own home and work. The +houses were small, and every nook in them occupied; and in order that the +man might not be turned out of doors, or the two be compelled to sit up +all night at a great waste of lights and fuel, and that they might at the +same time be in each other's company, they were "bundled" up together on a +bed, in which they lay side by side and partially clothed. It goes without +saying that, however it originated, such a custom, if recognized and +continued, must degenerate into something coarse and immoral. The +inevitable would follow. The only good and redeeming feature about it was +the utter absence of concealment and secrecy. All was open and recognized. +The very "bundling" was done by the hands of mother and sisters. + +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 in this + state _queests_, or enjoys a harmless chit-chat with her, and then + retires. This custom meets with the perfect sanction of the most + circumspect parents, and the freedom is seldom abused. The author + traces its origin to the parsimony of the people, whose economy + considers fire and candles as superfluous luxuries in the long winter + evenings." + +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 no matter whence or how derived, it is obvious that the prevalence of +such a custom would open a ready and natural way for a vast increase of +sexual immorality at any time when surrounding conditions predisposed a +community in that direction. This is exactly what I cannot help surmising +occurred in New England at the time of "the Great Awakening" of the last +century, and immediately subsequent thereto. The movement was there, and +in obedience to the universal law it made its way on the lines of least +resistance. Hence the entries of public confession in the church records, +and the tide of immorality in presence of which the clergy stood aghast. + +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 again he later on (p. +864) alludes to it as "a curious custom which accorded little with the New +England character," and which "lingered among the lower orders of people +... prevailing in Western Massachusetts as late as 1777." I am led to +believe that the custom prevailed far more generally and to a much later +date than these statements of Mr. Weeden would seem to indicate; that, +indeed, it was continued even in eastern Massachusetts and the towns +immediately about Boston until after the close of the Revolutionary +troubles, and probably until the beginning of the present century. The +Braintree church records throw no light on this portion of the subject; +but the Groton church records show that not until 1803 was the practice +discontinued of compelling a public confession before the whole +congregation whenever a child was born in less than seven months after +marriage. Turning then to Worthington's "History of Dedham" (p. 109),--a +town only ten miles from Boston,--I find that the Rev. Mr. Haven, the +pastor of the church there, alarmed at the number of cases of unlawful +cohabitation, preached at least as late as 1781 "a long and memorable +discourse," in which, with a courage deserving of unstinted praise, he +dealt with "the growing sin" publicly from his pulpit, attributing "the +frequent recurrence of the fault to the custom then prevalent of females +admitting young men to their beds who sought their company with intentions +of marriage." Again, in a letter of Mrs. John Adams, written in 1784, in +which she gives a very graphic and lively account of a voyage across the +Atlantic in a sailing-vessel of that period, I find the following, in +which Mrs. Adams, describing how the passengers all lived in the common +cabin, adds:--"Necessity has no law; but what should I have thought on +shore to have laid myself down in common with half a dozen gentlemen? We +have curtains, it is true, and we only in part undress,--about as much as +the Yankee bundlers."[21] Mrs. Adams was then writing to her elder sister, +Mrs. Cranch; they were both women of exceptional +refinement,--granddaughters of Col. John Quincy, and daughters of the +pastor of the Weymouth church. Mrs. Adams while writing her letter knew +that it would be eagerly looked for at home, and that it would be read +aloud and passed from hand to hand through all her acquaintance, and this +was in fact the case; so it is evident, from this easy, passing allusion, +that the custom of "bundling" was then so common in the community in which +Mrs. Adams lived, that not only was written reference to it freely made, +but the reference conveyed to a large circle of friends a perfect idea of +what she meant to describe. At the same time the use of the phrase "the +Yankee bundlers" indicates the social class to which the custom was +confined. + +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 were to a limited extent gratified. It was in +their attempt wholly to ignore these natural appetites that Jonathan +Edwards and the clergy of the last century fell into their error. + +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 L5 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 there +are some mysterious entries which I am led to believe relate to another +and similar case, but one in which the objectionable character was +otherwise dealt with. In the midst of the Revolutionary troubles the +following votes were passed at the annual town meeting held in the +meeting-house of the Middle Precinct, now Braintree, on the 15th of March, +1779:-- + + "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, Esq{r.} Col{o} 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 Dr. Baker lived a woman of bad reputation, with whom Dr. Baker +was, whether rightly or not, believed to have improper relations. Certain +men living in the neighborhood accordingly undertook to act as a local +committee to enforce good morals; and this committee decided to ride Dr. +Baker and the woman in question together on horseback to a convenient +locality near the meeting-house, and there tar and feather them. A +broken-down old hack, deemed meet and appropriate for use as a charger in +such case, was accordingly procured; and going to the woman's house, the +_vigilantes_ actually took her from her bed, and, without allowing her to +clothe herself, put her on the horse, and then proceeded to Baker's house. +He in the mean time had received notice of the proposed visit; and when +the party reached their destination they found him indignant, armed and +resolute. He threatened to shoot the first man who laid hands on him. This +was a turn in affairs which the self-constituted vindicators of public +morality had not contemplated, and accordingly they proceeded no further +in their purpose. Dr. Baker was not molested, and the woman was released. + +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 Mexicanized parlance of the +extreme Southwest. The distinction I have endeavored to draw between the +excusable, if not permissible, incontinence of the New England country +community of the last century, and the idea of promiscuous immorality as +we entertain it, is clearly seen in this Baker episode. + + * * * * * + +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 Lord +Colin Campbell or Sir Charles Dilke or Charles Stewart Parnell scandal are +paraded in the newspapers. + +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] + +Again, I recently came across the following, which illustrates somewhat +curiously what may be called the social street amenities which a sojourner +might expect to encounter in a large English town of a century ago. If +ever there was a charming, innocent little woman, who, as a wife and +mother, bore herself purely and courageously under circumstances of great +trial and anxiety,--a woman whose own simple record of the strange +experience through which she passed appeals to you so that you long to +step forward and give her your arm and protect her,--if there ever was, I +say, a woman who impresses one in this way more than Mrs. General +Riedesel, I have not met her. Mrs. Riedesel, as the members of this +Society probably all know, followed her husband, who was in command of the +German auxiliary troops in Burgoyne's army, to America in 1777, and in so +doing passed through England, accompanied by her young children. Here is +her own account of a slight experience she had in Bristol, where, the poor +little woman says, "I discovered soon how unpleasant it is to be in a city +where one does not understand the language, ... and wept for hours in my +chamber":-- + + "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." + +Street customs, manners and language are, to a very considerable extent, +outward exponents of the moral condition within. It would not be possible +to find any place in Europe now where women could be seen going about the +streets in the condition as respects raiment which Josselyn, Winslow and +Roger Williams seem to intimate was not unusual with the British females +of their time; nor would a strumpet even, much less any decent woman, from +a foreign land, be treated in the streets of any civilized city as Madame +Riedesel describes herself as having been treated in the streets of +Bristol in 1777. One cannot conceive of an adulterer or adulteress now +doing public penance in a white sheet before a whole congregation +assembled for the public worship of God, nor of a really respectable young +married couple standing up under the same circumstances and confessing to +the sin of fornication. Even if such a thing were done, it would be looked +upon as rather suggestive than edifying. All the evidence accordingly +indicates that, morally, the improvement made in the nineteenth century as +compared with those that preceded it has been more than superficial and in +externals only,--that it has been real, in essentials as well as in +language and manners. So, while it would not be safe to adopt Burke's +splendid generality, that vice has in our time lost half its evil in +losing all its grossness, yet it is not unfair to adopt the trope in a +modified form, and assert that, in the matter of sexual morality, vice in +the nineteenth century as compared with the seventeenth or the eighteenth +has lost some part of its evil in losing much of its grossness. + + + + +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 baze_. 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. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. + +Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}. + +The original text includes several blank spaces. These are represented by +________ in this text version. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Phases of Sexual Morality and +Church Discipline in Colonial New England, by Charles Francis Adams + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME PHASES OF SEXUAL *** + +***** This file should be named 36989.txt or 36989.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/9/8/36989/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/36989.zip b/36989.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..39891fc --- /dev/null +++ b/36989.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..71f4a97 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #36989 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36989) |