roof.

"Wished me joy of the house and desired our prayers," comments the Diary.

Picnics and weddings were favourite diversions with Sewall. The Diary records one festivity of the former class held Oct. 1, 1697, the refreshments for which consisted of "first, honey, butter curds and cream. For dinner very good roast lamb, turkey, fowls and apple pie. After dinner sung the 121 Psalm. A glass of spirits my wife sent stood upon a joint stool which Simon W. jogging it fell down and broke all to shivers. I said it was a lively emblem of our fragility and mortality."

Not long after this our Diarist attended the wedding of Atherton Haugh, his ward, and Mercy Winthrop, daughter of Deane Winthrop, at the latter's house which still stands in the town bearing his name. "Sang a Psalm together," writes Sewall in describing the occasion. "I set St. David's tune." None of the many duties which Sewall discharged was better done than that which had to do with settling his young people in life. On several occasions we find the Diary saying: "Prayed for good matches for my children as they grow up; that they may be equally yoked." It was the Puritan habit to marry, not once, but several times,

if death came to separate. Instances of old maids were very rare and those of old bachelors even more so. (Stoughton stands almost alone among Puritan worthies as a man who never took unto himself a wife.) The elders on the man's side seem to have had a custom of sending a suitable present to the lady's parent as a sign that Barkis was "willin'." If the match was to be refused the present was very likely returned. This custom may be held to explain the following rather blind letter of Sewall's:

"BOSTON, Jan. 13, 1701. "MADAM:-The inclosed piece of silver, by its bowing, humble form bespeaks your favour for a certain young man in town. The name (Real) the motto (plus ultra) seem to plead its suitableness for a present of this nature. Neither need you accept against the quantity; for you have the means in your own hands; and by your generous acceptance you may make both it and the giver great. Madam, I am "Your affect. friend,

66 8. S."

When the Puritans first came to New England they ordered (1646), in a reaction against