danger from the lurking Indians, the long cold winters with their
certain harvest of death from diseases which could be ascribed only to
the will of God and met with resignation instead of skill, the
succession of funerals as depressing as they were public and
pervading--were well calculated to deepen the somber cast of the Puritan
temper and accentuate the critical and introspective tendency of his
mind. Inspection of one's own and one's neighbor's conduct was, indeed,
always a Puritan duty; shut within the restricted horizon of a New
England village, it became a necessity and almost a pleasure. When few
stirring events diverted thought from the petty and the personal, when
pent-up emotion found little outlet in the graces or amusements of
social intercourse, observation and introspection fastened upon the
minutiae of life and every eccentricity of speech and conduct was weighed
and assessed. Close espionage on conduct was matched by the careful
scrutiny accorded every novel opinion. When the weekly sermon was the
universal topic of conversation, the refinements of belief were more
discussed than essentials; often discussed, they were often
questioned--by strict Separatists like Roger Williams; by cavilers at
infant baptism like that "anciently religious woman," the Lady Deborah
Moodie; by fervid emotionalists, such as Anne Hutchinson or the Quaker
missionaries: and every discussion of the creed left it more precisely
defined, more narrow, and more official. Under the stress of conflicting
opinion and the attrition of acrid debate, the covenant of grace
steadily hardened into a covenant of barren works, in which an air of
sanctimony became an easy substitute for the sense of sanctification,
and the tithe of mint and cummin was allowed to overbalance the
weightier matters of the law.

While the covenant became more inelastic, and its rule of life more
strictly defined, the call of the world became more insidious and
alluring. As the colony became established beyond the fear of failure,
and life fell from an artificial and self-conscious venture to be but a
natural experience, as wealth increased and opportunities for relaxation
and idle amusement multiplied, the elemental instincts of human nature,
stronger than decrees of state, would not be denied. During the third
decade after the founding, the Christmas festival found its way into the
colony, and "dancing in ordinarys upon the marriage of some person" gave
occasio