"
All this was in the church of Mr. Whiting, of Lynn, a somewhat jocose
Puritan,--if jocularity in a Puritan is not too anomalous an attribute
to have ever existed. We can be sure that there was neither sleeping nor
jesting allusion to such an irreverence in Mr. Mather's, Mr. Welde's, or
Mr. Cotton's meetings. In many rigidly severe towns, as in Portsmouth in
1662 and in Boston in 1667, it was ordered by the selectmen as a proper
means of punishment that a "cage be made or some other means invented for
such as sleepe on the Lord's Daie." Perhaps they woke the offender up and
rudely and summarily dragged him out and caged him at once and kept him
thus prisoned throughout the nooning,--a veritable jail-bird.
A rather unconventional and eccentric preacher in Newbury awoke one sleeper
in a most novel manner. The first name of the sleeping man was Mark, and
the preacher in his sermon made use of these Biblical words: "I say unto
you, mark the perfect man and behold the upright." But in the midst of his
low, monotonous sermon-voice he roared out the word "mark" in a loud shout
that brought the dozing Mark to his feet, bewildered but wide awake.
Mr. Moody, of York, Maine, employed a similar device to awaken and mortify
the sleepers in meeting. He shouted "Fire, fire, fire!" and when the
startled and blinking men jumped up, calling out "Where?" he roared back in
turn, "In hell, for sleeping sinners.
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