d far beyond such
practices.

The immorality seems to have been the natural reaction from morbid
spiritual excitement induced by religious revivals. Poor Governor
Bradford never grasped this, and we find him lamenting (1642):
"Marvilous it may be to see and consider how some kind of wickedness did
grow and break forth here in a land where the same was much witnessed
against, and so narrowly looked on and severely punished when it was
known."

We hear the same plaint from Jonathan Edwards a century later.

It is well to honor the Pilgrims for their many stanch and admirable
qualities, but it is only fair to recall that the morbidity of their
religion made them less healthy-minded than we, and that many of their
practices, such as the well-recognized custom of "bundling," were
indications of a people holding far lower moral standards than ours.

The old sermons, diaries, biographies, and records lie on dusty shelves
now, and few pause to read them, and in Kingston no one yet has gathered
them into a local history. There are other records traced, not in sand,
but on the soil that may also be read by any who pass. Some remnants of
the trenches and terraces dug by the quota of Arcadian refugees who
fell to Kingston's share after the pathetic flight from Nova Scotia may
still be seen--claimed by some to be the first irrigation attempt in
America.

The old "Massachusetts Payth" which follows the road more or less
closely beyond Kingston is traced with difficulty and uncertainty in
Kingston itself, but there is another highway as clear to-day as it was
three hundred years ago. And this is the lovely tidal river, named after
the master of the Mayflower, up which used to come and go not only many
ships of commerce, but, in the evenings after life had become less
austere, boatloads of merry-makers from Plymouth and Duxbury to attend
the balls given at what was originally the King's Town.

It has carried much traffic in its day, that river which now winds so
gracefully down to the sea, and which we see so well from the yard of
the old Bradford house. Down it floated the vessels made by Kingston
men, and out of it was dug much bog iron for the use of Washington's
artillery.

Monk's Hill--which the old records call Mont's Hill Chase, a name
supposed to have been applied to a hunt in England--could tell a story
too, if one had ears to hear. The highest land in Kingston, during the
Revolution it was one of the points where a b