"No. 17. No one shall _run_ of a Sabbath-day, or walk in his garden or elsewhere, except reverently to and from church.
"No. 18. No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep houses, cut hair or shave on Sabbath-day.
"No. 19. No husband shall kiss his wife, and no mother shall kiss her child upon the Sabbath day.
"No. 31. No one shall read Common Prayer, keep Christmas or saints'-day, make mince-pies, dance, or play on any instrument of music, except the drum, the trumpet, and the jews-harp."
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I do not know any thing that disgusts me so much as _cant_. Even now we continually hear, in the American public orations, about the _stern virtues_ of the pilgrim fathers. _Stern_, indeed! The fact is, that these pilgrim fathers were fanatics and bigots, without charity or mercy, wanting in the very _essence_ of Christianity. Witness their conduct to the Indians when they thirsted for their territory. After the death (murder, we may well call it) of Alexander, the brother of the celebrated Philip, the latter prepared for war. "And now," says a reverend historian of the times, "war was begun by a fierce nation of Indians upon an _honest, harmless_ Christian generation of English, who might very truly have said to the aggressors, as it was said of old unto the Ammonites, `I have not sinned against thee; but thou doest me wrong to war against me.'" Fanaticism alone--deep, incurable fanaticism-- could have induced such a remark. Well may it be said, "We deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."
And when the war was brought to a close by the death of the noble-minded, high-spirited Philip; when the _Christians_ had slaked their revenge in his blood, exposed his head in triumph on a pike, and captured his helpless innocent child of nine years old; would it be credited, that there was council held to put this child to death, and that the clergy were summoned to give their opinion? And the clergy _quoted Scripture_, that the _child must die_! Dr Increase Mather compared it with the child of Hadid, and recommended, with his brother apostles, that it be murdered. But these pious men were overruled; and, with many others, it was sent to the Bermudas, and sold as a slave. _Stern virtues_!! Call them rather diabolical vices. God of Heaven! when shall we learn to call things by their right names? The next time Governor Everett is called up for an oration at Bloody Brook, let him not talk quite so much of the virtues of the pilgrim fathers.