"I
can compare with any man living for fears," said Hooker. "I have sinned
myself into darkness," said Bailey. "Many times have I been ready to lay
down my ministry, thinking God had forsaken me." "I was almost in the
suburbs of hell all day." Yet who can say that this habit of agonizing
introspection wholly shut out the trivial enjoyments of daily life? Who
drank, for instance, that twelve gallons of sack and that six gallons of
white wine which the General Court thought it convenient that the
Auditor should send, "as a small testimony of the Court's respect, to
the reverend assembly of Elders at Cambridge," in 1644? Did the famous
Cambridge Platform rest, like the earth in the Hebrew cosmology, upon
the waters,--strong waters? Was it only the Derry Presbyterians who
would never give up a p'int of doctrine, nor a pint of rum? It is
startling to remember that in 1685 it was voted, on occasion of a public
funeral, that "some person be appointed to look after the burning of the
wine and the heating of the cider," and to hear that on this occasion
there were thirty-two gallons of wine and still more of cider, with one
hundred and four pounds of that ensnaring accessory, sugar.
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