ost promising boys in all the town. Things
like this were from time to time reported to her by her neighbours. One
fine lady had been heard to say that she would never have for her
tradesman any man who frequented conventicles, who was not content with
the religion of his betters, and who must needs scorn the parish church
and do despite to the saints' days. Another gossip asked her what she
expected to make of her great family of boys when it was well known that
all the gentry in the neighbourhood but two or three had sworn that they
would never have a hulking Puritan to brush their boots or run their
errands. And it almost made her husband burn his book and swear that he
would never be seen at another prayer-meeting when his wife so often said
to him that he should never have had children, that he should never have
made her his wife, and that he was not like this when they were first man
and wife. And in her bitterness she would name this wife or that maid,
and would say, You should have married her. She would have gone to the
meeting-house with you as often as you wished. Her sons are far enough
from good service to please you. 'My wife,' he softly said, 'was afraid
of losing the world. And then, after that, my growing sons were soon
given over, all I could do, to the foolish delights of youth, so that,
what by one thing and what by another, they left me to wander in this
manner alone.' And I suppose there is scarcely a household among
ourselves where there have not been serious and damaging
misunderstandings between old-fashioned fathers and their young people
about what the old people called the 'foolish delights' of their sons and
daughters. And in thinking this matter over, I have often been struck
with how Job did when his sons and his daughters were bent upon feasting
and dancing in their eldest brother's house. The old man did not lay an
interdict upon the entertainment. He did not take part in it, but
neither did he absolutely forbid it. If it must be it must be, said the
wise patriarch. And since I do not know whom they may meet there, or
what they may be tempted to do, I will sanctify them all. I will not go
up into my bed till I have prayed for all my seven sons and three
daughters, each one of them by their names; and till they come home
safely I will rise every morning and offer burnt-offerings according to
the number of them all. And do you think that those burnt-offerings and
accompanyin