Note 550 — NEW ENGLISH CANAAN OR NEW CANAAN. (continued 3)

At the conference between the Bishops and the Puritans, held in presence of James I. at Hampton Court in January, 1603, one of the practices of the English Church especially excepted to as a “relique of popery” by Dr. John Reynolds, the spokesman of the Puritans, was the ring in marriage. (Neal’s Hist. of Puritans, vol. ii. p. 42.) Among the reasons urged against its use I have not elsewhere found the “diabolical circle” argument. It seems rather to have been associated in the Puritan mind with the Romish traditions. (Jones’s Finger-Ring Lore, pp. 288-90.) This count, in Morton’s indictment, was based on good grounds. “In the Weddings of [early] New England the ring makes none of the ceremonies.” (Mather’s Ratio Disciplinæ, p. 116.)