The church-members
escaped somewhat from ecclesiastical power, and some of them found fault
with and openly disparaged their ministers in a way that would in early
days have caused them to be pilloried, whipped, caged, or fined; and often
the derogatory comments were elicited by the most trivial offences. One
parson was bitterly condemned because he managed to amass eight hundred
dollars by selling the produce of his farm. Another shocking and severely
criticised offence was a game of bowls which one minister played and
enjoyed. Still another minister, in Hanover, Massachusetts, was reproved
for his lack of dignity, which was shown in his wearing stockings "footed
up with another color;" that is, knit stockings in which the feet were
colored differently from the legs. He also was found guilty of having
jumped over the fence instead of decorously and clerically walking through
the gate when going to call on one of his parishioners. Rev. Joseph Metcalf
of the Old Colony was complained of in 1720 for wearing too worldly a wig.
He mildly reproved and shamed the meddlesome women of his church by asking
them to come to him and each cut off a lock of hair from the obnoxious
wig until all the complainers were satisfied that it had been rendered
sufficiently unworldly. Some Newbury church-members, in 1742, asserted that
their minister unclerically wore a colored kerchief instead of a band.
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