The Child and Religion.
In the meeting-house in New England in colonial times the young men sat together on one side and the young women sat in a corresponding place on the other side. The little girls sat on stools or low seats in the pews with their mothers or, if too many of them for place in the pew, they would sit out in the aisle, and sometimes there would be a row of little girls on a row of little stools extending the full length of the aisle. In some of the meeting-houses the boys were seated together on the pulpit and gallery stairs, while in other houses a place was made for them in the gallery, but wherever the place they were all herded together.
The boys among the Puritans were as other boys in all times and among all peoples, and the huddling them together in meeting-houses only helped to bring out their growing physical activities, as the taking them away from the watchfulness of the parents gave them better opportunities for expression of their repressed powers. One way of doing this was by slamming the pew-seats at the close of prayer and sermon and the vigor with which they did this called for an order from one church at least that "The boys are not to wickedly noise down there pew-seats." Another pastime was the twisting of the balustrades of the gallery railing in order to make them squeak. Whittling and cutting the woodwork and benches where they sat gave opportunity to put in time and also to try out their jack-knives. They passed the time in other ways, for there are court records showing that youths were taken before magistrates and fined for playing and laughing in church and doing things to make others laugh and play.
The best evidence left us to show that boys kept themselves busy in the meeting-houses is that they kept other people busy attending to them. There are plenty of records left to show that the tithing-man was continually being ordered to look after the behavior of the boys and also of the appointing of extra men to look after these unruly beings, in one church as many as six men had to be appointed at one time to keep them in order. These men had power to inflict punishment on the boys, and they did not hesitate to rap them soundly with their sticks and, too, sometimes a boy was taken out of the meeting-house and given a severe whipping. The tithing-man also used other means, for sometimes he took a boy from his place with the other boys and paraded him across the house and put him by side his mother on the women's side. If a young man would not behave himself, sometimes he was taken away from his place among the men and led to where the boys sat and forced to sit with them. Even during the noon hour the boys were watched over. While in the noon-house they had to listen to Bible teachings and interpretations. This was done to keep them quiet during this time so they might not "sporte and playe."
It is not wondered at that under such training much early religion developed. The Bible was read through many times by the young and much precocity in religious things was developed. A father gives in his diary the following in reference to a little girl of eight: "A little while after dinner she burst out into an amazing cry, which caused all the family to cry, too. Her mother asked the reason; she gave none. At last said she was afraid she would goe to Hell; her sins were not pardoned. She was first wounded by my reading a sermon of Mr. Norton's, Text, ye shall seek me and shall not find me. And those words in the sermon, ye shall seek me and die in your sins ran in her mind and terrified her greatly ... told me she was afraid she should go to Hell, was like Spira not elected."[382]
Another father makes this entry in his diary about his four-year-old daughter: "I took my little daughter Katy into my study and then I told my child I am to dye shortly and shee must, when I am dead, remember Everything I now said to unto her. I sett before her the sinful Condition of her nature, and I charged her to pray in Secret Places every Day. That God for the sake of Jesus Christ would give her a New Heart. I gave her to understand that when I am taken from her she must look to meet with more humbling Afflictions than she does now she has a Tender Father to provide for her."[383]
These two quotations are from the diaries of educated men, the first being from Judge Sewall and the second from Cotton Mather. It is hard for us now to see any reason for such a talk as Cotton Mather gave a child of four, especially as he lived for thirty years afterward and died long after this little girl died.
The religious books of Puritan New England children were of a remarkable character. Mrs. Earle gives the following in reference to one of the most popular and widely read books:
"Young babes chide their parents for too infrequent praying, and have ecstacies of delight when they can pray ad infitum. One child two years old was able 'savingly to understand the mysteries of Redemption'; another of the same age was a 'dear lover of faithful ministers.' Anne Greenwich, who died when five years old, 'discoursed most astonishingly of great mysteries'; Daniel Bradley, who had an 'Impression and inquisitiveness of the State of Souls after Death,' when three years old; Elizabeth Butcher, who, 'when two and a half years old, as she lay in the Cradle would ask herself the Question What is my corrupt Nature: and would answer herself It is empty of Grace, bent unto Sin, and only to Sin, and that Continually,' were among the distressing examples."[384]
The following is an extract from a letter written about 1638 by a Puritan boy of twelve years of age and well displays the tendency toward religious fears as found in the young people of that period:
"Though I am thus well in body yet I question whether my soul doth prosper as my body doth, for I perceive yet to this very day, little growth in grace; and this makes me question whether grace be in my heart or no. I feel also daily great unwillingness to good duties, and the great ruling of sin in my heart; and that God is angry with me and gives me no answers to my prayers; but many times he even throws them down as dust in my face; and he does not grant my continued request for the spiritual blessing of the softening of my hard heart. And in all this I could yet take some comfort but that it makes me to wonder what God's secret decree concerning me may be: for I doubt whether even God is wont to deny grace and mercy to his chosen (though uncalled) when they seek unto him by prayer for it; and, therefore, seeing he doth thus deny it to me, I think that the reason of it is most like to be because I belong not unto the election of grace. I desire that you would let me have your prayers as I doubt not but I have them, and rest
"Your Son, Samuel Mather."[385]
As was given under the discussion of infancy, the Puritan babe had to be taken to the meeting-house on the Sunday following its birth to be baptized, even in the most bitter weather. One record is given of the baptism of an infant but four days old and this during the first part of February. In one diary there is given about a day in January so bad that but few women could get out to meeting, and yet a babe was taken to the meeting-house and baptized. It must be considered, too, that this occurred in a building that never had had a fire in it nor was there fire on that day. It is difficult for us at this day to hold even in imagination the carrying of the young babe by the midwife through the snow and the wind, and the cold of a New England January, the taking him to the altar and placing him in the arms of his father, the throwing the icy cold water over the child, and the shuddering of the child; yet worse, for this baptism might have been an immersion in the cold water after the ice had been broken, for at least one minister did practice infant immersion.