Long and tedious as the Sabbath day was made by the protracted public services and home catechisings, our Puritan ancestors deemed it necessary to set apart another day in the week for religious exercises, to secure a proper degree of public piety.

Thursday was the day chosen, and the weekly Lecture was the important event of that day. All work and amusement were prohibited, and attendance on the sanctuary was compulsory as on the Sabbath. Larger liberty of theme was permitted the minister, however, and many matters of public order were vigorously pressed.

The day was often utilized for special town-meetings or Selectmen's meetings, after the service. Advantage was taken of the gathering of the people for the public administration of justice, and many an offender expiated some misdoing by an oral confession of his sin to the congregation, or by a written apology, which was read from the desk. Joseph Muzzey was thus made conspicuous in 1651, and he was obliged to make such acknowledgment as the Court appointed.

Richard Smith had a difficulty with the officers of the Town in 1645 and was so indiscreet as to say, "Though Father, Son & Holy Ghost were against him, yet he had the victory" or to this purpose. For this, he was sentenced to "make acknowledgment of this blasphemy" or pay a fine in addition to the 40s already levied.

In 1667, John Andrews met the deserved frown of all good Christians, when he acknowledged his part in the indecent dishonor to the Sagamore's bones. Twenty years later, he became one of our town heroes when he joined with Pastor John Wise and his famous company in resisting the Andros tax, and suffered for his boldness. The summary rebuke of that scapegrace prank may have brought the youth to that better manhood. Ezekiel Woodward and Thomas Bishop, a well-known merchant and trader, made public apologies that year for affronting the magistrates.

Offences that were regarded as specially heinous were punished not merely by whipping, and sometimes with branding with hot irons, but with public exposure on the lecture day. Sarah Row, a woman of unchaste life and violent behavior, was sentenced in 1673 "to stand all the time of the meeting, from

the last bell-ringing, on a high place where the master of the House of Correction shall appoint in open view of the congregation with a faire white paper written in faire capitall letters," specifying her offence; and in 1674, Thomas Knowlton might have been seen standing openly with a paper on his breast inscribed, in capital letters, "for makeing disturbance in the meeting." Two sisters, guilty of an unnatural crime, were com pelled to face the pitiless scorn of the congregation, standing or sitting on a high stool, with the tale of their infamy written upon them, in 1681.

A touch of the grotesque is discerned in the case of Elizabeth Perkins, wife of Luke, who was presented by the Grand Jury in 1681 for many "most opprobious and scandalous words of an high nature agst Mr. Cobbitt and her husband's natural parents, and others of his relations, which was proved and in part owned."

"That a due testimony may be borne against such a virulent, reprochfull and wicked tongued woman, this Court doth sentence said Elizabeth to be severely whipped on her naked body, and to stand or sitt the next Lecture day in some open place in the public meeting house at Ipswich, and when the Court shall direct, the whole time of the service with a paper pinned on her head, written in capital letters 'for reproching ministers, parents & relations."" The corporal punishment was remitted for a 3£ fine, but the remainder of the sentence was no doubt executed.

"Reproaching ministers," was an offence that engaged the wisdom of the General Court as early as 1646, and it decreed that the offender should "pay a fine or stand two hours openly on a block four feet high on a lecture day, with a paper fixed on the breast with the inscription 'a wanton Gospeller.""

Presumptuous speeches were often made. John Cross slandered Mr. Rogers, and Thomas Cross dared to say of Rev. John Norton that he taught what was false. He also reproached the ordinance of baptism and said that if he had children, he would not have them play the fool. William Winter said that Mr. Cobbet in his teaching lied against his own Conscience, and one of his Lynn parishioners had suffered for declaring, "he had as lief hear a dog bark as Mr. Cobbett preach." For these affronts, due apologies were made.

Criminals under sentence of death, were brought to the public Lecture. Judge Sewall records: "Jan. 16: 1700-1. At Ipswich, Mr. Rogers preached the lecture from Luke 1:76, about ministerial preparation for Christ. Sung the nine first verses of the 132d Psalm. Mr. Rogers praie'd for the prisoner of death, the Newbury woman, who was there in her chains." This was the last sermon, he adds, that was preached in the old meeting house.

Evil doers met the public eye, without as well as within. Hard by the meeting house, were the whipping post and stocks, and prison, all on the level Green, on which the meeting house of the First Church stands today. The site of the last whipping post is marked by the elm tree nearest the meeting house on the east corner. It was frequently ordered that the punishment of the lash or the stocks should be inflicted on the lecture day, and the scene which Hawthorne depicts, when the Boston congregation issued from the meeting house, and was shocked by the sight of Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale acknowledging his sin on the scaffold, was enacted frequently, with humbler personages bearing their public shame.

Thus in 1647, roystering Joseph Fowler, often at fault, was sentenced to pay a considerable fine or sit in the stocks some lecture day, for saying there were liars in the church and wondering they were not cast out, "and if one would lye soundly he was fit for the church," or Shoreborne Wilson, a man of frequent misdeeds, for some "rybaldry speech." There, in deserved disgrace, one lecture day in 1667, sat several giddy young men, Stephen Cross, Wm. Andrews and Joseph Giddings, for pulling up bridges and other misdemeanors at the windmill.

Thus religious and civil affairs were closely interlocked. Ministerial dignity was maintained by judicial enactment. Neglect or disorder in the meeting house was an offence against the civil statute. Breaking of the Sabbath was punished by the Law and taxes for ministerial support and all church expenses were collected by the constable under legal process. Religion was only requiting its debt to Law, when it made the solemn gathering for worship the occasion of terrible punishment of misdoers and branded the law breaker with open shame.

CHAPTER XVI.

WITCHCRAFT.

It was a matter of common belief in England as well as in the Colonies on this side of the Atlantic, that Satan and his angels. were actively engaged in assaulting the kingdom of the Lord. Jesus Christ, and disturbing the peace of mankind. To attain this end, the Devil made persuasive overtures to men and women, and those who listened to his beguilement were endued with supernatural powers of working mischief upon all, whom they wished to injure. It was an age of credulous belief in ghosts and spectres, supernatural manifestations and extraordinary events, and the actual existence of witches, who had familiarity with the Devil, and did his bidding, was not doubted in the least degree.

That the good people of Ipswich had conceived a strong suspicion of the evil character of one of their townsmen, John Broadstreet, as early as the year 1652, is made painfully evident by the entry in the Record of the Court, that was "held at Ipswich 28th (7) 1652.

"John Broadstreet upon his prsentmt of the last court for suspition of haveing familiarity wth the devill upon examynation of the case they found he had tould a lye: wch was a second & being convicted once before the Court setts a fine of 20 or else to be whipt. Edw. Coborne is surety for the payment of the fine and fees of court."

Happily for the accused, popular excitement had not been aroused, and the judicious moderation of the Judges saved him from a severe sentence. A more violent treatment of a suspected witch was manifested in Salisbury in 1656, when Goody Cole, of Hampton, whose name is preserved in Whittier's "The Changeling" was arraigned on suspicion of witchcraft. A witness testified, that thirteen years before she had bewitched Goodwife Masten's child, changing it into an ape.

The Constable of Salisbury, Richard Ormesby, made his deposition "that being aboute to stripp Eunice Cole to bee whipt looking uppon her brests under one of her brests . . . I saw a blew thing. . . hanging downwards about three quarters of an inch long not very thick."

This excrescence was proof positive of witchcraft, and the accused instantly pulled or scratched it off, incurring grave suspicion of Satanic power. She was probably whipped at that time, but she was not sentenced to Boston jail until 1673, when she was tried for having familiarity with the Devil. The story of her release from Ipswich jail may be an invention of the poet.

At the Court held at Ipswich, the 30th of March, 1680, Abel Powell was put on trial. Several neighbors bore witness of uncanny happenings in their households. The andirons leaped into the great kettle, the spinning wheel was turned upside down, strange and terrifying noises disturbed the quiet of the night, and many objects moved without hands, through closed doors.

A great variety of family mishaps were all laid to his charge, but he was acquitted of witchcraft. In the same year, Elizabeth Morse was found guilty of having familiarity with the Devil by the Court of Assistants in Boston, on May 20th, and on the 27th of May, "after ye lecture, the Governor pronounced sentence," of hanging. She was reprieved however, on June 1st until the October session, and allowed to return to her home in Newbury, "Provided she goe not above sixteen Rods from hir owne house, & land at any time except to the meeting house in Newbery nor remove from the place Appointed hir by the minister & selectmen to sitt in whilst there."2 General Denison sat as one of the Judges during her trial and reprieve.

Twelve years elapsed, and no record occurs of any such trials. Then the storm burst in awful violence. Some young girls of Salem Village, now Danvers, began to act in strange ways, creeping under chairs and stools, distorting their faces, and muttering unintelligible jargon. The physicians could not explain their behavior, and one of them, it is said, suggested that they