Children were always carried to the meeting-house for baptism the first
Sunday after birth, even in the most bitter weather. There are no entries
in Judge Sewall's diary which exhibit him in so lovable and gentle a light
as the records of the baptism of his fourteen children,--his pride when
the child did not cry out or shrink from the water in the freezing winter
weather, thus early showing true Puritan fortitude; and also his noble
resolves and hopes for their future. On this especially cold day when a
baby was baptized, the minister prayed for a mitigation of the weather,
and on the same day in another town "Rev. Mr. Wigglesworth preached on the
text, Who can stand before His Cold? Then by his own and people's sickness
three Sabbaths passed without public Worship." February 20 he preached from
these words: "He sends forth his word and thaws them." And the very next
day a thaw set in which was regarded as a direct answer to his prayer and
sermon. Sceptics now-a-days would suggest that he chose well the time to
pray for milder weather.
Many persons now living can remember the universal and noisy turning up
of great-coat collars, the swinging of arms, and knocking together of the
heavy-booted feet of the listeners towards the end of a long winter sermon.
Dr. Hopkins used to say, when the noisy tintamarre began, "My hearers, have
a little patience, and I will soon close.
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