Not only the richness, but the mode of dress, and cut
of the hair, were subject to regulations. Women were forbidden to expose
their _arms_ or _bosoms_ to view. It was ordered, that their sleeves
should reach down to their _wrists_, and their gowns to be closed round
the _neck_. Women _offending_ against these laws were _presentable_ by the
_grand jury_.
"The following were some of their favourite arguments in favour of
persecution. The celebrated Cotton, in a treatise published in 1647,
laboured to prove the lawfulness of the magistrate using the civil sword,
to extirpate _heretics_, from the command given to the jews, to put
to death _blasphemers_ and _idolaters!_
"After saying it was _toleration_, which made the world _antichristian_,
he concludes his work with this singular ejaculation: - 'The Lord keep us
from being bewitched with the whore's cup, lest while we seem to reject
her with our profession, we bring her in by a _back door_ of _toleration_,
and so drink deeply of the cup of the Lord's wrath, and be filled with her
plagues!'
"During a war with the eastern Indians, a council was called, and a
proposal made to draw upon them the _Mohawks_, their ancient enemy, though
then at peace: the lawfulness of this proceeding was doubted by some
_tender consciences_; but all their doubts vanished, when it was urged,
that _Abraham_ had entered into a confederacy with the _Amorites, among
whom he dwelt_, and made use of _their_ assistance in recovering his
kinsman _Lot_ from the hands of their _common enemy_."
* * * * *
"The quakers at first were banished; but this proving insufficient, a
succession of sanguinary laws were enacted against them; such as
imprisonment, whipping, cutting off the ears, boreing the tongue with a
red-hot iron, and banishment on pain of death.
