epaire often unto him to
receive therein a greater measure of knowledge, if they shal refuse so
to repaire unto him, and he the Minister give notice thereof unto the
Governour, he shall cause the offender first time of refusall to be
whipt, for the second time to be whipt twice, and to acknowledge his
fault vpon the Saboth day, in the assembly, and for the third time to be
whipt every day vntil he hath made the same acknowledgement, and asked
forgivenesse for the same, and shall repaire vnto the Minister, to be
further instructed as aforesaid; and vpon the Saboth when the Minister
shall catechize and of him demaund any question concerning his faith and
knowledge, he shall not refuse to make answer vpon the same perill."

Those who were found to "calumniate, detract, slander, murmur, mutinie,
resist, disobey, or neglect" the officers' commands also were to be
whipped and ask forgiveness at the Sabbath service. The Puritans were
said dreadfully to seek God; far greater must have been the dread of
Virginia church folk; and in view of this severity it is not to be
wondered that this law had to be issued as a pendant:

"No man or woman, vpon paine of death, shall rune away from the Colonie,
to Powhathan or any savage Weroance else whatever."

Bishop Meade, in his history of the Virginia church, tells of offenders
who stood in church wrapped in white sheets with white wands in their
hands; and other examples of public penance in the Southern colonies are
known.

In 1639 Robert Sweet of Jamestown--"a gentleman"--appeared, wrapped in a
white sheet, and did penance in church. In Lower Norfolk County, a white
man and a black woman stood up together, dressed in white sheets and
holding white wands in their hands.

The custom of public confession of sin prevailed in the first Salem
church, and thereafter lasted in New England, in modified form for two
centuries. Biblical authority for this custom was claimed to rest in
certain verses of the eighteenth chapter of the gospel by St. Matthew.

Mr. Charles Francis Adams, in his paper entitled _Some Phases of
Morality and Church Discipline in New England_, gives many examples of
public confession of sin and public reprimand in the Braintree
meeting-house. Manuscript church records which I have examined afford
scores, almost hundreds of other examples.

In earliest times, in New England as in Virginia a white robe or white
sheet was worn by the offender.

In 1681 two Salem women,