In 1647 Nathaniel Ward, who had been educated for the law, but who
afterward became a clergyman, published a strange work known as _The Simple
Cobbler of Agawam, in America_ "willing," as the sub-title continues, "to
help mend his native country, lamentably tattered, both in the upper
leather and sole, with all the honest stitches he can take." He had been
assistant pastor at Agawam (Ipswich) until ill health caused him to resign.
He then busied himself in compiling a code of laws and in other writing
before he returned to England in 1647. The following two sentences from his
unique book show two points of the religious faith of the Puritans: (1) the
belief in a personal devil always actively seeking the destruction of
mankind, and (2) the assumption that the vitals of the "elect" are safe
from the mortal sting of sin.

"Satan is now in his passions, he feels his passion approaching, he loves
to fish in roiled waters. Though that dragon cannot sting the vitals of
the elect mortally, yet that Beelzebub can fly-blow their intellectuals
miserably."

He is often a bitter satirist, a sort of colonial Carlyle, as this attack
on woman shows:--

"I honor the woman that can honor herself with her attire; a good text
always deserves a fair margent; I am not much offended if I see a trim
far trimmer than she that wears it. In a word, whatever Christianity or
civility will allow, I can afford with London measure: but when I hear a
nugiperous gentledame inquire what dress the Queen is in this week: what
the nudiustertian fashion of the Court; I mean the very newest; with egg
to be in it in all haste, whatever it be; I look at her as the very
gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter of a cipher, the epitome of