trap-door, or go down the stairs, and so into the well in the
farther end of the cellar, the top of the well and the water being even
with the ground. But the father, freely in the open congregation, did
acknowledge it the righteous hand of God for his profaning his holy day
against the checks of his own conscience."

There was a certain amount of pitiable egotism in all this. Seemingly
God had very little to do except watch the Puritans. It reminds one of
the two resolutions tradition says that some Puritan leader suggested:
Resolved, firstly, that the saints shall inherit the earth; resolved,
secondly, that we are the saints. A supernatural or divine explanation
seems to have been sought for all events; natural causes were too
frequently ignored. The super-sensitive almost morbid nature resulting
from such an attitude caused far-fetched hypotheses; God was in every
incident and every act or accident. We may turn again to Winthrop's
_History_ for an illustration:

"1648. The synod met at Cambridge. Mr. Allen preached. It fell out,
about the midst of his sermon, there came a snake into the seat where
many elders sate behind the preacher. Divers elders shifted from it, but
Mr. Thomson, one of the elders of Braintree, (a man of much faith) trod
upon the head of it, until it was killed. This being so remarkable, and
nothing falling out but by divine providence, it is out of doubt, the
Lord discovered somewhat of his mind in it. The serpent is the devil;
the synod, the representative of the churches of Christ in New England.
The devil had formerly and lately attempted their disturbance and
dissolution; but their faith in the seed of the woman overcame him and
crushed his head."

There was a further belief that God in hasty anger often wreaked instant
vengeance upon those who displeased Him, and this doctrine doubtless
kept many a Puritan in constant dread lest the hour of retribution
should come upon him without warning. How often the mother of those days
must have admonished in all sincerity her child not to do this or that
lest God strike the sudden blow of death in retribution. Numerous indeed
are the examples presented of sinners who paid thus abruptly the penalty
for transgression. Let Increase Mather speak through his _Essay for the
Recording of Illustrious Providences_:

"The hand of God was very remarkable in that which came to pass in the
Narragansett country in New England, not many weeks since; for I have
goo