ever have caused
such wide-spread terror, had not the women of the day given such active
aid. The feminine soul, with its long pent emotions, craved excitement,
and this was an opportunity eagerly seized upon. As Fisher says, "As
their religion taught them to see in human nature only depravity and
corruption, so in the outward nature by which they were surrounded, they
saw forewarnings and signs of doom and dread. Where the modern mind now
refreshes itself in New England with the beauties of the seashore, the
forest, and the sunset, the Puritan saw only threatenings of
terror."[33]

We cannot doubt in most instances the sincerity of these men and women,
and in later days, when confessions of rash and hasty charges of action
were made, their repentance was apparently just as sincere. Judge
Sewall, for instance, read before the assembled congregation his
petition to God for forgiveness. "In a short time all the people
recovered from their madness, [and] admitted their error.... In 1697 the
General Court ordered a day of fasting and prayer for what had been done
amiss in the 'late tragedy raised among us by Satan.' Satan was the
scapegoat, and nothing was said about the designs and motives of the
ministers."[34] Possibly it was just as well that Satan was blamed; for
the responsibility is thus shifted for one of the most hideous pages in
American history.

_IX. Religion Outside of New England_

Apparently it was only under Puritanism that the colonial woman really
suffered through the requirements of her religion. In other colonies
there may have been those who felt hampered and restrained; but
certainly in New York, Pennsylvania, and the Southern provinces, there
was no creed that made life an existence of dread and fear. In most
parts of the South the Established Church of England was the authorized,
or popular, religious institution, and it would seem that the women who
followed its teachings were as reverent and pious, if not so full of the
fear of judgment, as their sisters to the North. The earliest settlers
of Virginia dutifully observed the customs and ceremonies of the
established church, and it was the dominant form of religion in Virginia
and the Carolinas throughout the colonial era. John Smith has left the
record of the first place and manner of divine worship in Virginia: "Wee
did hang an awning, which is an old saile, to three or four trees to
shadow us from the Sunne; our walls were railes of Wood; our