He is touched and gratified on learning how much feeling was
manifested on the occasion. The incident is suggestive of one of the
beautiful customs once recognized in all the New England churches, in
town and country, where all the members of a congregation, knit together
by ties and sympathies of a common interest, had a share in each other's
private and domestic experiences of joy and sorrow."

Such customs added to the social solidarity of the people, and gave each
New England community a neighborliness not excelled in the far more
vari-colored life of the South. Fast days and days of prayer, observed
for thanks, for deliverance from some danger or affliction, petitions
for aid in an hour of impending disaster, or even simply as a means of
bringing the soul nearer to God, were also agencies in the social
welfare of the early colonists and did much to keep alive community
spirit and co-operation. Turning again to Sewall, we find him recording
a number of such special days:

"Wednesday, Oct. 3rd, 1688. Have a day of Prayer at our House;
One principal reason as to particular, about my going for
England. Mr. Willard pray'd and preach'd excellently....
Intermission. Mr. Allen pray'd, and then Mr. Moodey, both very
well, then 3d-7th verses of the 86th Ps., sung Cambridge Short
Tune, which I set...."[198]

"Febr. 12. I pray'd God to accept me in keeping a privat day of
Prayer with Fasting for That and other Important Matters: ...
Perfect what is lacking in my Faith, and in the faith of my dear
Yokefellow. Convert my children; especially Samuel and Hanah;
Provide Rest and Settlement for Hanah; Recover Mary, Save Judity,
Elisabeth and Joseph: Requite the Labour of Love of my Kinswoman,
Jane Tappin, Give her health, find out Rest for her. Make David a
man after thy own heart, Let Susan live and be baptised with the
Holy Ghost, and with fire...."[199]

"Third-day, Augt. 13, 1695. We have a Fast kept in our new
Chamber...."[200]

In New England Thanksgiving and Christmas were observed at first only to
a very slight extent, and not at all with the regularity and ceremony
common to-day. In the South, Christmas was celebrated without fail with
much the same customs as those known in "Merrie Old England"; but among
the earlier Puritans a large number frowned upon such special days as
inclining toward Episcopal and Popish ceremonials, and many