"Thier Temper far from Injucundity, Thier tongues and pens from Infecundity."
Many other fulsome, turgid, and even whimsical expressious of praise might be named, for the Puritans were rich in classic sesquipedalian adjectives, and their active linguistic consciences made them equally fertile in producing new ones.
Ready and unexpected were the solemn Puritans in repartee. A party of gay young sparks, meeting austere old John Cotton, determined to guy him. One of the young reprobates sent up to him and whispered in his ear, "Cotton, thou art an old fool." "I am, I am," was the unexpected answer; "the Lord make both thee and me wiser than we are." Two young men of like intent met Mr. Haynes, of Vermont, and said with mock sad faces, "Have you heard the news? the Devil is dead." Quick came the answer, "Oh, poor, fatherless children! what will become of you?"
Gloomy and depressed of spirits they were often. The good Warham, who could take faithful and brave charge of his flock in the uncivilized wilds of Connecticut among ferocious savages, was tortured by doubts and "blasphemous suggestions," and overwhelmed by unbelief, enduring specially agonizing scruples about administering and partaking of the Lord's Supper, and was thus perplexed and buffeted until the hour of his sad death. The ministers went through various stages of uncertainty and gloom, from the physical terror of Dr. Cogswell in a thunderstorm, through vacillating and harassing convictions about the Half Way Covenant, through doubt of God, of salvation, of heaven, of eternite, particularly distressing suspicions about the reality of hell and the personality of the Devil, to the stage of deep melancholy which was shown in its highest type in "Handkerchief Moody," who preached and prayed and always appeared in public with a handkerchief over his face, and gave to Hawthorne the inspiration for his story of "The Black Veil." Rev. Mr. Bradstreet, of the First Church of Charlestown, was so hypochondriacal that he was afraid to preach in the pulpit, feeling sure that he would die if he entered therein; so he always delivered his sermons to his patient congregation from the deacons' pew. Mr. Bradstreet was unconventional in many other respects, and was far from being a typical Puritan minister. He seldom wore a coat, but generally appeared in a plaid gown, and was always seen with a pipe in his mouth,--a most disreputable addition to the clerical toilet at that date, or, in truth, at any date. He was a learned and pious man, however, and was thus introduced to a fellow clergyman, "Here is a man who can whistle Greek."