New England

Religion played a vital role in the lives of our colonial ancestors. Massachusetts and Virginia began during an age when men were fighting religious wars in Europe. The Puritans came to America so that they could worship God in their own manner. Even the Virginians, who came for more worldly reasons, took their religion very seriously. Almost nowhere in the world in those days did people believe that religion was a private matter between man and God. The Puritans were extremely intolerant of other religions and persecuted Quakers, Catholics, and Jews alike. They even persecuted each other. Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island, was banished from Massachusetts for his opinions, and innocent women were hanged in Salem because they were thought to be witches. The intolerance 23 and persecution of the seventeenth century are well known, but one should not overlook the admirable piety and intense love of God that these people also had.

Edward Taylor 1645-1729

The following selections were written by Edward Taylor, the most important American poet of the Puritan period. He preached in a frontier town of western Massachusetts and wrote poetry privately to express his great love for God. Because his poems were so personal, he did not want them published, and they remained in manuscript for more than 200 years. Finally they were found in a dusty corner of the Yale University Library.

In the following poem, Taylor imagines himself in heaven looking down on his fellow New England Puritans, who are on their way to heaven in a horse-drawn coach—Christ’s coach—which, of course, means figuratively that they are going to heaven through believing in Christ. These New England saints are singing at the top of their lungs, happy that they are in Christ’s coach, but you will note that the harmony is not perfect. Man is a sinful creature and sometimes, says Taylor, the singers get out of tune. Also, he notes, there isn’t room in the coach for everyone, and some have to walk.

The Joy of Church Fellowship Rightly Attended

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Next, Taylor’s great love of God is expressed in a beautiful figure of speech in which the poet wants God to use him as a housewife uses wool to make yarn and yarn to make cloth. In the first stanza, he asks God to make him into a spinning wheel, of which the flyers, distaff, spool, and reel all are parts. In the second stanza, Taylor wants to be a loom on which God can weave holy robes. A fulling mill is a place where cloth is dyed. Finally, the poet wants God to clothe him in the holy robes made on this imaginary loom. This poem is a highly original way to ask God to give one faith, love, and understanding. You should consider it a prayer.

Housewifery

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The Salem Witch Trials

During the seventeenth century, the superstitions of the Middle Ages had not yet relaxed their hold on men’s minds. People still believed in witches, even such a prominent clergyman as Cotton Mather. Hence, the events of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, are understandable, though they are nonetheless tragic. Early that year Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, who were nine and eleven years old, began having strange fits. Soon the mysterious disease spread to other girls in the village. When the local doctor, with his primitive knowledge of medicine, could not diagnose the trouble, he concluded that the devil must have bewitched the girls.

This diagnosis did not surprise anyone. The New England Puritans believed that the devil was always at work trying to tempt them from the path of righteousness. The parents of the children set about to discover the identity of the devil’s agent who was tormenting their girls. They questioned the children at length until the children really began to believe they were bewitched. Betty and Abigail then accused three women in the community of practicing witchcraft: Tituba, an illiterate slave from Barbados; Sarah Good, a sharp-tongued woman whom many in the village thought a nuisance; and Sarah Osburne, a backslider who did not go to church. No one was surprised when these women were named as witches. The town proceeded to examine the three on charges of practicing witchcraft. John Hathorne, ancestor of the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, conducted the hearing in the village church.

The first of the accused to be questioned was Sarah Good, who denied the charges with vigor. Then came Sarah Osburne, who was dragged 26 out of a sickbed to testify. She, too, denied the charges. But, every time these women denied the charges the children became hysterical and went into their fits. Finally, the old slave Tituba was questioned. She apparently decided that she should tell her accusers what they wanted to hear, and she concocted a wild tale of witchcraft out of her rich imagination. The selections that follow are actual transcripts of the testimony taken down that infamous day, March 1, 1692, in Salem by the village clerk. The proceedings have been edited just enough to make them readable.

HATHORNE: Sarah Good, what evil spirit have you familiarity with?

GOOD: None.

H: Have you made no contract with the devil?

G: No.

H: Why do you hurt these children?

G: I do not hurt them. I scorn it.

H: Who do you employ then to do it?

G: I employ nobody.

H: What creature do you employ then?

G: No creature; I am falsely accused.

H: Why did you go away muttering from Mr. Parris’ house?

G: I did not mutter, but I thanked him for what he gave my child.

H: Have you made no contract with the devil?

G: No.

Judge Hathorne desired the children, all of them, to look upon her and see if this were the person that had hurt them, and so they all did look upon her and said this was one of the persons that did torment them. Presently they were all tormented.

H: Sarah Good, do you not see now what you have done? Why do you not tell us the truth? Why do you thus torment these poor children?

G: I do not torment them.

H: Who do you employ then?

G: I employ nobody. I scorn it.

H: How came they thus tormented?

G: What do I know? You bring others here, and now you charge me with it.

H: Why who was it?

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G: I do not know, but it was someone you brought into the meeting house with you.

H: We brought you into the meeting house.

G: But you brought in two more.

H: Who was it then that tormented the children?

G: It was Osburne.

H: What is it you say when you go muttering away from persons’ houses?

G: If I must tell, I will tell.

H: Do tell us then.

G: It is the commandments. I may say my commandments, I hope.

The testimony went on for a while longer. Sarah Good continued to be a very uncooperative witness, but finally Judge Hathorne finished with her and called Sarah Osburne to the stand.

HATHORNE: What evil spirit have you familiarity with?

OSBURNE: None.

H: Have you made no contract with the devil?

O: No, I never saw the devil in my life.

H: Why do you hurt these children?

O: I do not hurt them.

H: Who do you employ then to hurt them?

O: I employ nobody.

H: What familiarity have you with Sarah Good?

O: None. I have not seen her these two years.

H: Where did you see her then?

O: One day a-going to town.

H: What communications had you with her?

O: I had none, only, how do you do or so. I did not know her name.

H: What did you call her then?

[At this point Sarah Osburne had to admit that she had called her Sarah.]

H: Sarah Good saith that it was you that hurt the children.

O: I do not know if the devil goes about in my likeness to do any hurt.

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Mr. Hathorne desired all the children to stand up and look upon her and see if they did know her, which they all did, and every one of them said that this was one of the women that did afflict them and that they had constantly seen her in the very habit that she was now in.

The evidence continued. In a feeble effort to gain sympathy, she said that she “was more like to be bewitched than that she was a witch.” Mr. Hathorne asked her what made her say this. She answered that she was frightened one time in her sleep and either saw or dreamed that she saw a thing “like an Indian all black which did prick her in the neck and pulled her by the back part of her head to the door of the house.” Mr. Hathorne asked her if she had seen anything else. She replied that she had not. At this point, however, some of the spectators said that Sarah Osburne also had heard the voice of a lying spirit.

H: Hath the devil ever deceived you and been false to you?

O: I do not know the devil. I never did see him.

H: What lying spirit was it then?

O: It was a voice that I thought I heard.

H: What did it propound to you?

O: That I should go no more to meeting, but I said I would and did go the next Sabbath day.

H: Were you never tempted further?

O: No.

H: Why did you yield thus far to the devil as never to go to meeting since?

O: Alas! I have been sick and not able to go.

Sarah Osburne was then dismissed from the stand, and Mr. Hathorne began to question Tituba, the slave, who told her questioners just what they wanted to hear.

HATHORNE: Did you never see the devil?

TITUBA: The devil came to me and bid me serve him....

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H: What service?

T: Hurt the children, and last night there was an appearance [apparition] that said to kill the children and if I would not go on hurting the children they would do worse to me.

H: What is this appearance you see?

T: Sometimes he is like a hog and sometimes like a great dog.

H: What did it say to you?

T: The black dog said, “Serve me,” but I said, “I am afraid.” He said if I did not he would do worse to me.

H: What did you say to it?

T: I will serve you no longer. Then he said he would hurt me, and then he looked like a man. This man had a yellow bird that he kept with him, and he told me he had more pretty things that he would give me if I would serve him....

H: Did you not pinch Elizabeth Hubbard this morning?

T: The man brought her to me and made me pinch her.

H: Why did you go to Thomas Putnam’s last night and hurt his child?

T: They pull and haul me and make me go....

H: How did you go?

T: We ride upon sticks and are there presently.

H: Why did you not tell your master?

T: I was afraid. They said they would cut off my head if I told....

H: Did not you hurt Mr. Corwin’s child?

T: Goody [Mrs.] Good and Goody Osburne told me that they did hurt Mr. Corwin’s child and would have had me hurt him too, but I did not....

H: Do you see who it is that torments these children now?

T: Yes, it is Goody Good. She hurts them now in her own shape.

And so the testimony went. Tituba’s story was even more sensational when she described the “tall man of Boston,” who was supposed to be a wizard in charge of all the local witches. The court adjourned for the day, convinced that the devil had chosen Salem as a special point of attack. Soon, other people in the village began imagining that they, too, were being pursued by witches. Neighbor began accusing neighbor until the whole community was swept up by the hysteria.

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Throughout the summer of 1692, Salem was gripped by the witch hunt. Twenty persons were executed for witchcraft; 55 were frightened or tortured into confessing their guilt; 150 were jailed; more than 200 were denounced by former friends and neighbors. For a time it looked as if Massachusetts had gone mad. But when the denunciations began to include some of the most prominent members of the community, such as the acting president of Harvard College, the authorities knew the hysteria had to stop or it would destroy the colony. In September the trials were halted and the jails emptied. In succeeding years many people repented their part in the tragic business, and the state even restored some of the property confiscated from the so-called witches.

Samuel Sewall’s Confession of Error

Five years after the unhappy episode ended, one of the judges, Samuel Sewall, courageously made public confession of error. As the minister read aloud Sewall’s confession of shame, the judge stood in his pew with head bowed.

“Samuel Sewall, sensible of the reiterated strokes of God upon himself and family, and being sensible that as to the guilt contracted upon the opening of the late commission of Oyer and Terminer at Salem [the trials], to which the order for this Day relates, he is, upon many accounts, more concerned than any that he knows of, desires to take the blame and shame of it, asking pardon of men and especially desiring prayers that God, Who has an unlimited authority, would pardon that sin and all other his sins, personal and relative: and according to His infinite benignity and sovereignty not visit the sin of him or of any other upon himself or any of his, nor upon the land: but that He would powerfully defend him against all temptations to sin for the future and vouchsafe him the efficacious saving conduct of His word and spirit.”

Thereafter, for the rest of his life, Samuel Sewall observed one day of prayer and fasting each year as penance for his part in the Salem witch trials.

The Great Awakening

Within a century after the Puritan migration to New England, life in the colonies was changing. New England Puritans were becoming Yankee 31 traders, and the religious fervor that brought Bradford and Winthrop and their followers to the New World was dying out. At this time there appeared upon the American scene a great preacher and theologian, Jonathan Edwards. After entering Yale College at the age of 13, he had gone on to study theology and then enter the ministry. By 1729 he had succeeded his grandfather as pastor of the village church in Northampton, Massachusetts. During his ministry in Northampton, Edwards led a great revival movement, which has come to be known as the Great Awakening. It was an effort to rekindle the dying sparks of Puritanism, and for a time it brought new religious vitality to New England. The movement also spread to other colonies.

During the Great Awakening Edwards made many converts. While he was doing this, he also was concerned with the psychology of religious enthusiasm. One of his most interesting books is called Narrative of Surprising Conversions. In it he records some of the more remarkable effects of the revival movement that he led. The account of four-year-old Phebe Bartlet’s conversion, which Edwards writes about in the following selection, is an astonishing story. Phebe certainly was not a typical child, but the fact that any child could undergo the religious experience Edwards describes reminds us again that religion played a central role in the lives of our colonial ancestors.

She was born in March, in the year 1731. About the latter end of April, or beginning of May, 1735, she was greatly affected by the talk of her brother, who had been hopefully converted a little before, at about eleven years of age, and then seriously talked to her about the great things of religion. Her parents did not know of it at that time, and were not wont, in the counsels they gave to their children, particularly to direct themselves to her, by reason of her being so young, and, as they supposed, not capable of understanding; but after her brother had talked to her, they observed her very earnestly to listen to the advice they gave to the other children, and she was observed very constantly to retire, several times in a day, as was concluded, for secret prayer, and grew more and more engaged in religion, and was more frequently in her closet, till at last she was wont to visit it five or six times in a day, and was so engaged in it, that nothing would, at any time, divert her from her stated closet exercises. 32 Her mother often observed and watched her, when such things occurred, as she thought most likely to divert her, either by putting it out of her thoughts, or otherwise engaging her inclinations, but never could observe her to fail. She mentioned some very remarkable instances.

She once, of her own accord, spake of her unsuccessfulness, in that she could not find God, or to that purpose. But on Thursday, the last of July, about the middle of the day, the child being in the closet, where it used to retire, its mother heard it speaking aloud, which was unusual, and never had been observed before; and her voice seemed to be as of one exceeding importunate and engaged, but her mother could distinctly hear only these words (spoken in her childish manner, but seemed to be spoken with extraordinary earnestness, and out of distress of soul), “Pray BLESSED LORD, give me salvation! I PRAY, BEG, pardon all my sins!” When the child had done prayer, she came out of the closet, and came and sat down by her mother, and cried out aloud. Her mother very earnestly asked her several times, what the matter was, before she would make any answer, but she continued exceedingly crying, and wreathing her body to and fro, like one in anguish of spirit. Her mother then asked her whether she was afraid that God would not give her salvation. She then answered, “Yes, I am afraid I shall go to hell!” Her mother then endeavored to quiet her, and told her she would not have her cry—she must be a good girl, and pray every day, and she hoped God would give her salvation. But this did not quiet her at all—but she continued thus earnestly crying and taking on for some time, till at length she suddenly ceased crying and began to smile, and presently said with a smiling countenance, “Mother, the kingdom of heaven is come to me!” Her mother was surprised at the sudden alteration, and at the speech, and knew not what to make of it, but at first said nothing to her....

The same day the elder children, when they came home from school, seemed much affected with the extraordinary change that seemed to be made in Phebe; and her sister Abigail standing by, her mother took occasion to counsel her, now to improve her time, to prepare for another world; on which Phebe burst out in tears, and cried out, “Poor Nabby!” Her mother told her she would not have her cry, she hoped that God would give Nabby salvation; but that 33 did not quiet her, but she continued earnestly crying for some time; and when she had in a measure ceased, her sister Eunice being by her, she burst out again, and cried, “Poor Eunice!” and cried exceedingly; and when she had almost done, she went into another room, and there looked upon her sister Naomi, and burst out again, crying, “Poor Amy!” Her mother was greatly affected at such behavior in the child, and knew not what to say to her. One of the neighbors coming in a little after, asked her what she had cried for. She seemed, at first, backward to tell the reason. Her mother told her she might tell that person, for he had given her an apple; upon which she said she cried because she was afraid they would go to hell....

From this time there has appeared a very remarkable abiding change in the child: she has been very strict upon the Sabbath, and seems to long for the Sabbath day before it comes, and will often in the week time be inquiring how long it is to the Sabbath day, and must have the days particularly counted over that are between, before she will be contented. And she seems to love God’s house—is very eager to go thither. Her mother once asked her why she had such a mind to go? Whether it was not to see the fine folks? She said no, it was to hear Mr. Edwards preach. When she is in the place of worship, she is very far from spending her time there as children at her age usually do, but appears with an attention that is very extraordinary for such a child. She also appears, very desirous at all opportunities, to go to private religious meetings, and is very still and attentive at home, in prayer time, and has appeared affected in time of family prayer.