The Progeny
Hols of the Day
I would just like to say from the outset that I hope anything presented here will be factually accurate. But let's face it...you get what you pay for.
Today is:
National Mole Day! Time to explore our chemical side.
You have until 6:02 this evening to celebrate.
This date in history:
--1679 Meal Tub Plot against James II of England (really confusing)
--1915 1st national horseshoe throwing championship, Kellerton, Iowa
(let's hear it for Iowa! We're SO much more than corn)
--1915 25,000 women march in NYC, demanding right to vote
--1941 Walt Disney's "Dumbo" released
--1944 Soviet army invades Hungary
--1981 US national debt hits $1 trillion
--2007 Ma Hoyt experiences deep regret for not making the Arby's manager fix another sub for her son. Another example of submission run amok.
Religious History-- 4004 (BC) According to the sacred time line worked out by Archbishop James Ussher, 73, "the heavens and the earth" were created on this date at 9:00 a.m. GMT.
I'm sorry..."the heavens and the earth" were created on this date at 9:00 a.m. GMT."...I just thought that worthy of an extreme giggle.
Ma's quote of the day:
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Today is:
National Mole Day! Time to explore our chemical side.
You have until 6:02 this evening to celebrate.
This date in history:
--1679 Meal Tub Plot against James II of England (really confusing)
--1915 1st national horseshoe throwing championship, Kellerton, Iowa
(let's hear it for Iowa! We're SO much more than corn)
--1915 25,000 women march in NYC, demanding right to vote
--1941 Walt Disney's "Dumbo" released
--1944 Soviet army invades Hungary
--1981 US national debt hits $1 trillion
--2007 Ma Hoyt experiences deep regret for not making the Arby's manager fix another sub for her son. Another example of submission run amok.
Religious History-- 4004 (BC) According to the sacred time line worked out by Archbishop James Ussher, 73, "the heavens and the earth" were created on this date at 9:00 a.m. GMT.
I'm sorry..."the heavens and the earth" were created on this date at 9:00 a.m. GMT."...I just thought that worthy of an extreme giggle.
Ma's quote of the day:
"Puritanism -- The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."-- H. L. Mencken
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posted by Ma Hoyt | 10:35 AM
3 Comments:
Is that quote supposed to be true? Or is it just someone's opinion? I think I saw the same quote in an American history book, and I didn't appreciate it very much.
-Anonymous
The quote is attributed to H.L. Mencken in so many different places that I think we can be reasonably certain that he said it. Whether he believed it himself, I could not say.
So if you're wondering that it is a true quote, it is.
And if you are wondering whether the quote holds truth, then one would have to study the lives, habits and beliefs of the Puritans.
While the term "Puritan" can refer to a variety of religious people--those who eventually became Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congregationalist churches--the group it most commonly is associated with was the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
There is a certain strictness assigned to most peoples' impression of these Puritans. They liked to refer to themselves as "the godly."
I could not say whether the strictness and soberness ascribed to them was always accurate. But if a religious group is willing to put a pregnant woman into stocks simply because she did not finish the buttonholes she was assigned to sew, that would sound a tad harsh to me.
I did not intend to offend anyone (whomever you are :-) but I honestly thought the quote quite funny, as well as an interesting commentary on how truly legalistic peoples can be viewed by others.
H. L. Mencken was no saint, but that doesn't prevent his words from being valuable for Christians to think about.
I wasn't necessarily offended by you for your putting the quote up. I do, though, dislike the idea many people seem to have about the Puritans. They seem to treat them as self-righteous people who would be quick blame the sin in anybody around them. And, maybe they were like that, I don't know.
But I do think they are over treated in this way by people, who live in a society nowadays where any sort of moral strictness is often not even considered.
As for pregnant women being put in the stocks for some paltry offense,
I thought that much of the early colonial life did involve fairly harsh punishments for crimes. I heard about that before I even knew of the Puritans as a seperate colonial group.
-Anonymous
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