"She," as
he proudly stated, "became charmed with my person to such a degree that she
could not but break in upon me with her most importunate requests." And a
very handsome and thoroughly attractive person does his portrait show
even to modern eyes. Poor Cotton resisted the wiles of the devil in this
alluring form, though he had to fast and pray three consecutive nights ere
the strong Puritan spirit conquered the weak flesh, and he could consent
and resolve to give up the thought of marrying the siren. His self-denial
and firmness deserved a better reward than the very trying matrimonial
"venture" that he afterwards made.
Many another Puritan parson has left record of his wooings that are warm
to read. And well did the parsons' wives deserve their ardent wooings and
their tender love-letters. Hard as was the minister's life, over-filled as
was his time, highly taxed as were his resources, all these hardships were
felt in double proportion by the minister's wife. The old Hebrew standard
of praise quoted by Cotton Mather, "A woman worthy to be the wife of a
priest," was keenly epigrammatic; and ample proof of the wise insight
of the standard of comparison may be found in the lives of "the pious,
prudent, and prayerful" wives of New England ministers. What wonder that
their praises were sung in many loving though halting threnodies, in
long-winded but tender eulogies, in labored anagrams, in quaintly spelled
epitaphs?--for the ministers' wives were the saints of the Puritan
calendar.
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