ily. He would not say
much to them of the evil angels; because he would not have them
entertain any frightful fancies about the apparitions of devils. But yet
he would briefly let them know that there are devils to tempt to
wickedness."

Beside this tender picture we may place one of juvenile warfare in the
godly home of Judge Sewall, and of the effect such a rise of the Old
Adam had upon the soul of the conscientious magistrate: "Nov. 6, 1692.
Joseph threw a knob of Brass and hit his sister Betty on the forhead so
as to make it bleed and swell, upon which, and for his playing at
Prayer-time, and eating when Return Thanks, I whipd him pretty smartly.
When I first went in (call'd by his Grandmother) he sought to shadow and
hide himself from me behind the head of the Cradle: which gave me the
sorrowfull remembrance of Adam's carriage."[94]

Such turmoil was, of course, unusual in the Sewall or any other Puritan
home; but the spiritual paroxysms of his daughter Betty, as noted in
previous pages, were more characteristic, and probably not half so
alarming to the deeply religious father. There seems to be little
"sorrowfull remembrance" in the following note by the Judge; what would
have caused genuine alarm to a modern parent seemed to be almost a
source of secret satisfaction to him: "Sabbath, May 3, 1696. Betty can
hardly read her chapter for weeping; tells me she is afraid she is gone
back, does not taste that sweetness in reading the Word which once she
did; fears that what was once upon her is worn off. I said what I could
to her, and in the evening pray'd with her alone."[95]

Though more mention is made in the early records about the endeavors of
the father than of the efforts of the mother to lead the children
aright, we may, of course, take it for granted that the maternal care
and watchfulness were at least as strong as in our own day. Eliza
Pinckney, who had read widely and studied much, did not consider it
beneath her dignity to give her closest attention to the awakening
intellect of her babe. "Shall I give you the trouble, my dear madam,"
she wrote to a friend, "to buy my son a new toy (a description of which
I enclose) to teach him according to Mr. Locke's method (which I have
carefully studied) to play himself into learning. Mr. Pinckney, himself,
has been contriving a sett of toys to teach him his letters by the time
he can speak. You perceive we begin betimes, for he is not yet four
months old." Her con