gained may run into licentiousness. Sabbath-breaking and blasphemy
have come in upon us like a flood, and the new and heinous sin of
card-playing hath contaminated our borders, as hath been of late
brought to light in the cases of Jerubbabel Galpin and Zedekiah
Armstrong, who were taken in the act, and are even now in the stocks.
And thereby am I reminded that I had purposed to improve this occasion
for the reproof and admonition of them that stand by."

And thereupon the parson saluted the gentlemen and sedately crossed
the green toward the stocks, around which was a noisy crowd of men and
boys. As the parson approached, however, a respectful silence fell
upon them. There was a general pulling off of hats and caps, and those
in his path stood obsequiously aside, while the little children,
slinking behind the grown folks, peeped around their legs at him. The
two hobbledehoys in the stocks, loutish farmer's boys, had been
already undergoing the punishment for about an hour. Their backs were
bent so that their bodies resembled the letter U laid on its side, and
their arms were strained as if they were pulling out of the sockets.
All attempted bravado, all affectation of stoical indifference, all
sense even of embarrassment, had evidently been merged in the
demoralization of intense physical discomfort, and the manner in which
they lolled their heads, first on one side and then on the other, was
eloquent of abject and shameless misery. Standing directly in front of
these hapless youths, and using them as his text, the parson began to
admonish the people in this wise:

"It would seem the will of God to permit the adversary to try the
people of Stockbridge with divers new and strange temptations, not
known to our fathers, doubtless to the end, that their graces may
shine forth the more clearly, even as gold tried in the fire hath a