'" [Footnote: Sewel, p. 279.] Thereafter Wharton
invoked the wrath of God against the theocracy.
To none of the enormities committed, during these years are the divines
more keenly alive than to the crime of disturbing what they call "public
Sabbath worship;" [Footnote: _As to Roger Williams_, p. 139.] and since
their language conveys the impression that such acts were not only very
common, but also unprovoked, whereas the truth is that they were rare, it
cannot fail to be instructive to relate the causes which led to the
interruption of the ordination of that Mr. Higginson, who called the
"inner light" "a stinking vapour from hell." [Footnote: Ordained July 8,
1660. _Annals of Salem_.]
John and Margaret Smith were members of the Salem church, and John was a
freeman. In 1658, Margaret became a Quaker, and though in feeble health,
she was cast into prison, and endured the extremities of privation; her
sufferings and her patience so wrought upon her husband that he too became
a convert, and a few weeks before the ceremony wrote to Endicott:
"O governour, governour, do not think that my love to my wife is at all
abated, because I sit still silent, and do not seek her ... freedom, which
if I did would not avail.... Upon examination of her, there being nothing
justly laid to her charge, yet to fulfil your wills, it was determined,
that she must have ten stripes in the open market place, it being very
cold, the snow lying by the walls, and the wind blowing cold.
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