Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

196 GENEALOGICAL NOTES OF BAENSTABLE FAMILIES.
time the doctrines of the Anabaptists were not tolerated in the
Massachusetts Colony. The most bitter words of denunciation
were applied to members of that sect, and many suffered imprisonment
and stripes. In the sister Colony a magistrate could
not have been persuaded to officiate at the marriage of Anabap-
tists, yet Gov. Hinckley, who has been stigmatized as an intolerant
man, did officiate, and Mr. Lothrop records the event without
comment.*
It is unnecessary to pursue this in giving farther. Mr.
Lothrop believed that sprinkling was the mode of baptism taught
in the Word ;
immersion.
but he did not condemn the brother who believed in
THE FIRST THANKSGIVING DAY.
Dec. 22, 1636, the first Thanksgiving day was celebrated.
The exercises at the Meeting House, and subsequently at the
homes of his people, are thus noted in the church records :
"Beginning some halfe an hour before nine, and continued
until after twelve a clocke, ye day being very cold, beginning
with a short prayer,—then a psalm sang,—then more large in
prayer,—after that another psalm, and the Word taught,—after
that prayer,—and then a psalm. Then making merry to the
creatures, the poorer sort being invited by the virtue."
The quaint expressions of this synopsis of the doings on their
first day of thanksgiving are suggestive of the habits, condition,
and feelings of the people. It has been fashionable to call our
Pilgrim ancestors a gloomy, austere race, who held that any and
all indulgence in "creature" comforts was sinful. It is pleasant
to note that Mr. Lothrop thought it no sin "to make merry."
"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose
under Heaven." "A timg to mourn, and a time to dance." The
God of nature has ordained that the young shall indulge in innocent
sports,—they are necessary to develop their physical powers
to make them healthy and strong, and to fit them for usefulness
in life. Thus Christianity gives a cheerful tone to the character,
and fits a man to enjoy temporal as well as spiritual blessings.
The bigot can draw no line of distinction between the use and the
abuse of a thing,—he cannot see that the one is virtue, the other
vice. Our ancestors were not bigots. They thought it no sin to
match their skill in athletic sports, or test their strength in wrestling.
Their children played at games which had come down from
a remote English ancestry, and which continue to delight the
young of the present generation.
Some of the second and third generations were bigoted and
"There is an old saying, "contraries meet," and it is founded on a deep knowledee of
the laws of the human mind. If the Baptist denomination be viewed from the stand point
of baptism, we call its members narrow, exclusiTe, intolerant; yet from other standpoints
the denomination holds to the broad and enlightened views of its mother church.