themselves before the whole congregation or else expose their innocent child to the danger of eternal perdition.[592] Yet, in spite of the fact that the clergy had thus devised a punishment more terrible to bear than the fines or stripes imposed by the criminal law, during the very period under consideration the church records show a great increase in the number of confessions. Adams suggests that an explanation may be found in the religious excitement which generally prevailed during the second quarter of the eighteenth century, the period which includes the "Great Awakening" under Whitefield in 1740, the Northampton revival of 1735, "engineered and presided over by Jonathan Edwards," and earlier "harvests" of the same character.[593] At Braintree, for example, there was a vast increase in the number of church confessions during the pastorate of John Hancock, 1726-43. It was "everywhere noticed that the women, and especially the young women, were peculiarly susceptible to attacks of the spiritual epidemic. Jonathan Edwards for instance mentions, in the case of Northampton, how the young men of that place had become 'addicted to night-walking and frequenting the taverns, and leud practices,' and how they would 'get together in conventions of both sexes for mirth and jollity, which they called frolicks; and they would spend the greater part of the night in them;' and among the first indications of the approach of the epidemic noticed by him was the case of a young woman who had been one of the greatest 'company keepers' in the whole town, who became 'serious, giving evidence of a heart truly broken and sanctified.' This same state of affairs doubtless then prevailed in Braintree, and indeed throughout New England. The whole community was in a sensitive condition morally and physically."[594] The morbid quickening of the conscience would thus naturally result in a greater number of confessions rather than in an increase of sexual license; and this same cause seems adequate to explain the extraordinary number of confessions which we have found in the contemporary court records.[595] Besides, after the sin had been disclosed before the congregation, an acknowledgment in court would almost necessarily follow. It would be very strange, however, if there were not a considerable increase in immorality. The practice of bundling, as Adams believes,[596] may have afforded ready opportunity. Any violent or protracted disturbance of the mental or nervous equilibrium, often tending to produce sexual excesses, would be sure to find "vent" in so dangerous a custom, especially when sanctioned by the recognized doctrine of betrothal. [Footnote 591: During the period are also fifteen cases of putative fathers. Voluntary accusations of putative fathers were looked on with suspicion. In the fragments of later records of Suffolk it is not uncommon for the court to refuse to put the woman on her oath in such cases.]