And if further proof of the swiftness with which God may act is desired, Increase Mather’s Illustrious Providences may again be cited:  “A thing not unlike this happened (though not in New England yet) in America, about a year ago; for in September, 1682, a man at the Isle of Providence, belonging to a vessel, whereof one Wollery was master, being charged with some deceit in a matter that had been committed to him, in order to his own vindication, horridly wished ’that the devil might put out his eyes if he had done as was suspected concerning him.’  That very night a rheum fell into his eyes so that within a few days he became stark blind.  His company being astonished at the Divine hand which thus conspicuously and signally appeared, put him ashore at Providence, and left him there.  A physician being desired to undertake his cure, hearing how he came to lose his sight, refused to meddle with him.  This account I lately received from credible persons, who knew and have often seen the man whom the devil (according to his own wicked wish) made blind, through the dreadful and righteous judgment of God.”

III.  Inherited Nervousness

In all ages it would seem that woman has more readily accepted the teachings of her elders and has taken to heart more earnestly the doctrines of new religions, however strange or novel, than has man.  It was so in the days of Christ; it is true in our own era of Christian Science, Theosophy, and New Thought.  The message that fell from the lips of the fanatically zealous preachers of colonial times sank deep into the hearts of New England women.  Its impression was sharp and abiding, and the sensitive mother transmitted her fears and dread to her child.  Timid girls, inheriting a super-conscious realization of human defects, and hearing from babyhood the terrifying doctrines, grew also into a womanhood noticeable for overwrought nerves and depressed spirits.  Timid, shrinking Betty Sewall, daughter of Judge Sewall, was troubled all the days of her life with qualms about the state of her soul, was hysterical as a child, wretched in her mature years, and depressed in soul at the hour of her departure.  In his famous diary her father makes this note about her when she was about five years of age:  “It falls to my daughter Elizabeth’s Share to read the 24 of Isaiah which she doth with many Tears not being very well, and the Contents of the Chapter and Sympathy with her draw Tears from me also.”

A writer of our own day, Alice Morse Earle, has well expressed our opinion when she says in her Child Life in Colonial Days:  “The terrible verses telling of God’s judgment on the land, of fear of the pit, of the snare, of emptiness and waste, of destruction and desolation, must have sunk deep into the heart of the sick child, and produced the condition shown by this entry when she was a few years older:  ’When I came in, past 7 at night, my wife met me in the Entry and told me Betty