stimuli the oratory of the clergy, stern as it may have been, was
possibly an equal relief. Especially were such "recreations" welcomed by
the women; for their toil was as arduous as that of the men; while their
round of life and their means of receiving the stimulus of public
movements were even more restricted.


_V. Religion and Woman's Foibles_

The repressive characteristics of the creed of the hour were felt more
keenly by those women than probably any man of the period ever dreamed.
For woman seems to possess an innate love of the dainty and the
beautiful, and beauty was the work of Satan. Nothing was too small or
insignificant for this religion to examine and control. It even
regulated that most difficult of all matters to govern--feminine dress.
As Fisher says in his _Men, Women and Manners in Colonial Times_:

"At every opportunity they raised some question of religion and
discussed it threadbare, and the more fine-spun and subtle it was
the more it delighted them. Governor Winthrop's Journal is full
of such questions as whether there could be an indwelling of the
Holy Ghost in a believer without a personal union; whether it was
lawful even to associate or have dealings with idolaters like the
French; whether women should wear veils. On the question of
veils, Roger Williams was in favor of them; but John Cotton one
morning argued so powerfully on the other side that in the
afternoon the women all came to church without them."

"There were orders of the General Court forbidding 'short sleeves
whereby the nakedness of the arms may be discovered.' Women's