"
He acknowledged his wickedness and foolishness in using the "olde proverb,"
and penitently promised to curse no more.
Sad to tell, Puritan women sometimes lost their temper and their
good-breeding and their godliness. Two wicked Wells women were punished in
1669 "for using profane speeches in their common talk; as in making answer
to several questions their answer is, The Devil a bit." In 1640, in
Springfield, Goody Gregory, being grievously angered, profanely abused an
annoying neighbor, saying, "Before God I coulde breake thy heade!" But she
acknowledged her "great sine and faulte" like a woman, and paid her fine
and sat in the stocks like a man, since she swore like the members of that
profane sex.
Sometimes the sins of the fathers were visited on the children in a most
extraordinary manner. One man, "for abusing N. Parker at the tavern," was
deprived of the privilege of bringing his children to be baptized, and was
thus spiritually punished for a very worldly offence. For some offences,
such as "speaking deridingly of the minister's powers," as was done in
Plymouth, "casting uncharitable reflexions on the minister," as did an
Andover man; and also for absenting one's self from church services; for
"sloathefulness," for "walking prophanely," for spoiling hides when tanning
and refusing explanation thereof; for selling short weight in grain,
for being "given too much to Jearings," for "Slanndering," for being a
"Makebayte," for "ronging naibors," for "being too Proude," for "suspitions
of stealing pinnes," for "pnishouse Squerilouse Odyouse wordes," and for
"lyeing," church-members were not only fined and punished but were deprived
of partaking of the sacrament.
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