COTTON MATHER

Cotton Mather's Encounter With Tibuta in the Salem Woods

In the previous post, we cited Cotton Mather's eminent work, Magnalia Christi Americana, in English usually given as The Ecclesiastical History of New England. It may be interesting too, to get a glimpse of what the man himself, who has been called the "keeper of the Puritan conscience", thought of the matter of drinking healths and more generally tavern culture at large. We won't get a full answer yet, but what small glimpse into his life we may will help set the stage for future exploration.

Barrett Wendell, in his biography of the aforementioned Puritan, published in 1891, Cotton Mather, the Puritan Priest, gives as an example of his good humor, the following anecdote in Mather's own words:

"a company of vain, wicked men, having inflamed their blood in a tavern at Boston, & seeing that reverend, meek, & holy minister of Christ... coming along the street, one of them tells his companion, `I'll go', saith he, `& put a trick on old Cotton.' Down he goes, & crossing his way, whispers these words into his ear: `Cotton,' said he, `thou art an old fool.' Mr. Cotton replied, `I confess I am so: the Lord make both me & thee wiser than we are, even wise unto salvation.'"

It's worth noting, perhaps, that when Cotton uses the word vain to describe these men, he likely does not mean they were having or showing undue or excessive pride in their appearance or achievements like some kind of colonial metrosexuals, but rather that they were irreverent and blasphemous and that they were living meaningless lives and that they likely were doomed to suffer in hell for all of eternity.

So these drunk troublemakers go a play a "trick" on old Cotton which culminates in telling him he is an "old fool". It's not clear if there was more to the trick than that. But as thoroughly humorous as the manner in which Cotton dealt with these men may have been, citing the Lord in the way that he did, it provides more a testament to Cotton's faith in his Calvinist way of living than it does illuminate his views on drinking culture. He may have found these men "wicked" and "vain", but that is well short of a complete denunciation of taverns or the tavern goers of the day.

We'll have to come back to Cotton Mather, perhaps after sketching in a little more detail some of the relevant contours of the time in which he lived.