again.
Let men of God in courts and churches watch
O'er such as do a toleration hatch;
Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice,
To prison all with heresy and vice.
If men be left, and other wise combine
My epitaph's, I dy'd no libertine.

NOTE 47.

Miss Polly Vans was Mary Vans, daughter of Hugh and Mary Pemberton
Vans, and aunt of Caty Vans. She was born in 1733. We have some
scattered glimpses of her life. She joined the Old South in 1755. In
the _Boston Gazette_, of April 9, 1770, we read, "Fan Mounts mounted
by Mary Vans at the house of Deacon Williams, in Cornhill." We hear
of her at Attleborough with Samuel Whitwell's wife when the gates of
Boston were closed, and we know she married Deacon Jonathan Mason on
Sunday evening, December 20, 1778. She was his second wife. His
first wife was Miriam Clark, and was probably the Mrs. Mason who was
present at Mrs. Whitwell's, and died June 5, 1774. Mary Vans Mason
lived till 1820, having witnessed the termination of eight of the
pastorates of the Old South Church. Well might Anna term her "a
Sister of the Old South." She was in 1817 the President of the Old
South Charity School, and is described as a "disinterested friend,
a judicious adviser, an affectionate counsellor, a mild but faithful
reprover, a humble, self-denying, fervent, active, cheerful
Christian." Jonathan Mason was not only a deacon, but a prosperous
merchant and citizen. He helped to found the first bank in New
England. His son was United States Senator. Two other daughters of
Hugh Vans were a Mrs. Langdon, of Wiscasset, Maine, and Mrs. John
Coburn.

NOTE 48.

St. Valentine's Day was one of the few English holidays observed in
New England. We find even Governor Winthrop writing to his wife
about "challenging a valentine." In England at that date, and for a
century previous, the first person of the opposite sex seen in the
morning was the observer's valentine. We find Madam Pepys lying in
bed for a long time one St. Valentine's morning with eyes tightly
closed, lest she see one of the painters who was gilding her new
mantelpiece, and be forced to have him for her valentine. Anna
means, doubtless, that the first person she chanced to see that
morning was "an old country plow-joger."

NOTE 49.

Boston was at that date pervaded by the spirit of Liberty. Sons of
Liberty held meetings every day and