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He must visit families during several afternoons in every
week, sending previous notice, so that children and domestics might be
ready for catechizing. He was "much visited for counsel" in his own
home, and must set apart one day in the week for cases of conscience,
ranging from the most fine-drawn self-tormentings up to the most
unnatural secret crimes. He must often go to lectures in neighboring
towns, a kind of religious dissipation which increased so fast that the
Legislature at last interfered to restrict it. He must have five or six
separate seasons for private prayer daily, devoting each day in the week
to special meditations and intercessions,--as Monday to his family,
Tuesday to enemies, Wednesday to the churches, Thursday to other
societies, Friday to persons afflicted, and Saturday to his own soul. He
must have private fasts, spending whole days locked in his study and
whole nights prostrate on the floor. Cotton Mather "thought himself
starved," unless he fasted once a month at farthest, while he often did
it twice in a week.


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