Roses Would Have Been Better
Samuel Sewall, whose diary is a wonderful window into Puritan life, tried to woo a second wife by giving her an election sermon.
Election Sermons have unquestionably been instrumental for good in various ways: they have fired patriotic zeal, strengthened resolution, perhaps consoled the sick or needy, or converted the backslider: but I do not conceive that any mortal but Samuel Sewall would ever have thought of using an Election Sermon as a philtere to excite the tender emotions of love. In his famous but unsuccessful suit to Mrs. Ruggles, after the death of his first wife, on one occasion he “went in the coach and visited Mrs. Ruggles after Lecture. . . . Made some Difficulty to accept an Election Sermon, lest it should be an obligation on her.” Later, he says, “I gave her [the same lady] Mr. Moodey’s Election Sermon [for 1721] Marbled, with her name written in it.”
Lindsay Swift, “The Massachusetts Election Sermons,” 1 Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts Collection (1894), 415.
A charming gift and a lasting one. Roses cannot be marbled.
Youtube of Government Printing Office’s marbling:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiDPY3wprkQ
You can tell a lot about a man by the gifts he gives you. I always figured roses and candy givers were trying to hide behind conventionality, and dumped ‘em like hot potatoes.
I would have been intrigued by a book of sermons.
One wonders whether Mr. Sewell perhaps had young children from his first marriage who needed a mother–that was often the impetus for second marriages–and perhaps the sermons were designed to spiritually fortify Mrs. Ruggles for the work Mr. Sewell had planned for her future.
Clearly, it wasn’t enough of an enticement. Did she give the book back or keep it?
I think she took it reluctantly, and then turned him down.
An election sermon wasn’t a book of regular sermons. Every year, at the beginning of the legislative term, a prominent preacher gave a political-religious sermon to the lawmakers in Mass. Often a fair amount of fire and brimstone–and laments over the sad declension from the ancestors.
So, Gerelyn’s on track. . . it’s kind of like he presented her with a bound copy of the State of the Union Address.
According to Wikipedia, she was a candidate for wife number 3, not wife number 2..
“Sewall married three times. His first wife was Hannah Hull, daughter of John Hull, mint-master of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, whom he married on 28 February 1676 in Boston. She was mother of all fourteen of his children.[3] She died in 1717; two years later, in 1719, Sewall married Abigail (Melyen) Woodmansey Tilley, who died seven months later. In 1722, Sewall married Mary (Shrimpton) Gibbs, who survived him. [4][5]“
You mean he gave her a transcript of a speech, AND the chance to be the mom of fourteen(!) children, and she STILL turned him down?! What was she thinking? :-)
Abebooks has some election sermons. #10 has marbled boards.
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?kn=election+sermon&sortby=1&x=46&y=11
For all things romantic, I recommend “The Massachusetts Election Results.” Any year will do, but be forewarned: Take proper precautions before reading the Taunton results aloud.
Yeah–I know about Taunton! My dad was a principal in Seekonk!
Who said that romance was dead in those days!