The New England Puritans only allowed themselves one full holiday in the course of the year and that was Thanksgiving Day, a time for feasting. To be sure, there was Fast Day, in the spring, which gave freedom from work; but that was a day for a sermon at the meetinghouse, for long faces and a supposed bit of self denial--somewhere. The celebration of Christmas was not observed by the true New England Puritan until the middle of the nineteenth century.
A number of sermons preached by Rev. Samuel Moodey, an eccentric minister at York, Maine, for nearly half a century, were printed and among them: "The Doleful State of the Damned, especially such as go to hell from under the Gospel." This sermon was followed by its antidote, entitled: "The Gospel Way of Escaping the Doleful State of the Damned." Another of his sermons was upon "Judas the Traitor, Hung up in Chains." Parson Moodey's son, Joseph, followed him in the pulpit at York. He was known as "Handkerchief Moodey," as he fell into a melancholy; thought he had sinned greatly; and after a time wore a handkerchief over his face whenever he appeared in public. In the pulpit he would turn his back to the congregation and read the sermon, but whenever he faced his people it would be with handkerchief-covered features. Think what must have been the influence of two such men on the life and opinions of a town covering a period of two generations!
During the late seventeenth century and well into the eighteenth, the books usually found in the average New England family were the Bible, the Psalm Book, an almanac, the New England Primer, a sermon or two and perhaps a copy of Michael Wigglesworth's terrific poem--"The Day of Doom." The latter was first printed in 1662 in an edition of 1800 copies not one of which has survived. Every copy was read and re-read until nothing remained but fragments of leaves. Seven editions of this poem were printed between 1662 and 1715 and few copies of any edition now exist. The book expressed the quintesscence of Calvinism. Here is stanza 205, expressing the terror of those doomed to hell:
"They wring their hands, their caitiff-hands, and gnash their teeth for terrour: They cry, they roar, for anguish sore and gnaw their tongues for horrour.