[Footnote 569: According to WORTHINGTON'S _History of Dedham_ (1827), 109--"a town only ten miles from Boston--I find that the Rev. Mr. Haven, the pastor of the church there, alarmed at the number of cases of unlawful cohabitation, preached at least as late as 1781 'a long and memorable discourse,' in which, with a courage deserving of unstinted praise, he dealt with 'the growing sin' publicly from his pulpit, attributing 'the frequent recurrence of the fault to the custom then prevalent of females admitting young men to their beds who sought their company with intentions of marriage.'"--ADAMS, _op. cit._, 35. STILES, _op. cit._, 75-77, note, gives a long extract from Worthington, who represents Haven's sermon as having had a powerful influence in setting aside the custom of bundling. But already before this Jonathan Edwards had raised his voice against it.] [Footnote 570: ADAMS, _op. cit._, 35; citing MRS. JOHN ADAMS'S _Letters_ (1848), 161.] [Footnote 571: STILES, _op. cit._, 110, note, where personal testimony is adduced.] [Footnote 572: See the Appendix to STILES, _op. cit._, 113-25, where an article from the _Yankee_, of Aug. 13, 1828, containing the letter mentioned, is quoted. A search in the manuscript court records reveals not a single clear case of bundling. On Jan. 30, 1709-10, Jane Lee, widow, was presented and acquitted in Charlestown for conduct resembling bundling: _MSS. Records of the Court of Gen. Sessions of Suffolk_, I, 202. There is a more probable example in the _MSS. Records of the Court of General Sessions of Middlesex_ (Dec. 15, 1702), I, 137.] According to the judgment of Stiles, bundling "came nearest to being a universal custom from 1750 to 1780." Contrary to the popular view,[573] it appears to have been confined to the more humble and less cultivated classes; "to those whose limited means compelled them to economize strictly in their expenditure of firewood and candle-light."[574] No evidence has yet been produced showing that it made its appearance in the main centers of New England civilization. [Footnote 573: Thus SHIRLEY, "Early Jurisprudence of New Hamp.," _Procds. New Hamp. Hist. Soc._ (1876-84), 308, declares that "the practice prevailed very largely in New England, among the rich and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, the cultivated and the uncultivated."] [Footnote 574: STILES, _op. cit._, 65, 106. ADAMS, _op. cit._, 31, 32, 36, reaches the same conclusion. "It was," he says, "a practice growing out of the social and industrial conditions of a primitive people, of simple, coarse manners and small means," and probably did not exist in Boston, Salem, or Plymouth.]