Note ° — VII

146. I have ... meet before him. The company keeping and worldly amusements of the young people were an old grievance with Edwards. Writing of the period before the revival of 1734-1735, he says, “It was their manner very frequently to get together in conventions of both sexes, for mirth and jollity, which they called frolicks; and they would often spend the greater part of the night in them, without any regard to order in the families they belong to.” How the young people amused themselves in these “conventions,” we can only conjecture; it is certain that some, at least, of the parents saw no harm in them. But Edwards’s idea of family government was very different. “He allowed not his children to be from home after nine o’clock at night, when they went abroad to see their friends and companions. Neither were they allowed to sit up much after that time, in his own house, when any came to make them a visit. If any gentleman desired acquaintance with his daughters, after handsomely introducing himself, by properly consulting the parents, he was allowed all proper opportunity for it: a room and fire, if needed; but must not intrude on the proper hours of rest and sleep, or the religion and order of the family.” (Hopkins, op. cit. p. 44.) We have reason to think that some of the “other liberties commonly taken by young people in the land” were calculated to favor anything rather than refinement and spirituality.