VII.  Special “Social” Days

“Lecture Day,” generally on Thursday, was another means of breaking the monotony of New England colonial existence.  It resembled the Sabbath in that there was a meeting and a sermon at the church, and very little work done either on farm or in town.  Commonly banns were published then, and condemned prisoners preached to or at.  For instance, Sewall notes:  “Feb. 23, 1719-20.  Mr. Cooper comes in, and sits with me, and asks that he may be published; Next Thorsday was talk’d of, at last, the first Thorsday in March was consented to."[195] On Lecture Day, as well as on the Sabbath, the beautiful custom was followed of posting a note or bill in the house of God, requesting the prayers of friends for the sick or afflicted, and many a fervent petition arose to God on such occasions.  Several times Sewall refers to such requests, and frequently indeed he felt the need of such prayers for himself and his.

“Satterday, Augt. 15.  Hambleton and my Sister Watch (his eldest daughter was ill).  I get up before 2 in the Morning of the L(ecture) Day, and hearing an earnest expostulation of my daughter, I went down and finding her restless, call’d up my wife....  I put up this Note at the Old (First Church) and South, ’Prayers are desired for Hanah Sewall as drawing Near her end.’"[196]

And when his wife was ill, he wrote:  “Oct. 17, 1717.  Thursday, I asked my wife whether ’twere best for me to go to Lecture:  She said, I can’t tell:  so I staid at home.  Put up a Note....  It being my Son’s Lecture, and I absent, twas taken much notice of."[197]

As the editor of the famous Diary comments:  “Judge Sewall very seldom allowed any private trouble or sorrow, and he never allowed any matter of private business, to prevent his attendance upon ‘Meeting,’ either on the Lord’s Day, or the Thursday Lecture.  On this day, on account of the alarming illness of his wife—­which proved to be fatal—­he remains with her, furnishing his son, who was to preach, with a ‘Note’ to be ’put up,’ asking the sympathetic prayers of the congregation in behalf of the family.  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: