In it he soberly
reproved the young church attendants for gazing so much at each other in
the meeting. This annual anti-amatory advice never failed to raise a smile
on the face of each father and son in the congregation as he listened to
the familiar and oft-repeated words.
The Puritan ministers gave advice in their sermons upon most personal and
worldly matters. Roger Williams instructed the women of his parish to wear
veils when they appeared in public; but John Cotton preached to them
one Sunday morning and proved to them that veils were a sign of undue
subjection to their husbands; and in the afternoon the fair Puritans
appeared with bare faces and showed that women had even at that early day
"rights."
How the varieties of headgear did torment the parsons! They denounced
from many a pulpit the wearing of wigs. Mr. Noyes preached long and often
against the fashion. Eliot, the noble preacher and missionary to the
Indians, found time even in the midst of his arduous and incessant duties
to deliver many a blast against "prolix locks,"--"with boiling zeal," as
Cotton Mather said,--and he labelled them a "luxurious feminine protexity;"
but lamented late in life that "the lust for wigs is become insuperable."
He thought the horrors in King Philip's War were a direct punishment from
God for wig-wearing. Increase Mather preached warmly against wigs, saying
that "such Apparel is contrary to the light of Nature and to express
Scripture," and that "Monstrous Perriwigs such as some of our church
members indulge in make them resemble ye locusts that came out of ye
Bottomless Pit.
Pages:
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314