They quarrelled over the exercise of
power in the church; over the true meaning of the text Matthew xviii. 17;
whether the members of the congregation should be allowed to look on their
Bibles during the preaching or on their Psalm-books during the singing;
whether they should sing at all in their meetings; over the power of the
office of ruling elder (a fruitful source of dissension and disruption in
the New England congregations likewise) and above all, they quarrelled long
and bitterly over the unseemly and gay dress of the parson's wife, Madam
Johnson. These were the terrible accusations that were brought against that
bedizened Puritan: that she wore "her bodies tied to the petticote with
points as men do their doublets and hose; contrary to I Thess. v: 22,
conferred with Deut. xx: 11;" that she also wore "lawn coives," and
"busks," and "whalebones in the petticote bodies," and a "veluet hoode,"
and a "long white brest;" and that she "stood gazing bracing and vaunting
in the shop dores;" and that "men called her a bounceing girl" (as if
she could help that!). And one of her worst and most bitterly condemned
offences was that she wore "a topish hat." This her husband vehemently
denied; and long discussions and explanations followed on the hat's
topishness,--"Mr. Ainsworth dilating much upon a greeke worde" (as of
course so learned a man would).
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