Jonathan Mitchel, one of the most famous of the earlier divines, thus describes his flock: “They were a gracious, savoury-spirited people, principled by Mr. Shepard, liking an humbling, mourning, heart-breaking ministry and spirit; living in religion, praying men and women.” And “he would speak with such a transcendent majesty and liveliness, that the people ... would often shake under his dispensations, as if they had heard the sound of the trumpets from the burning mountain, and yet they would mourn to think, that they were going presently to be dismissed from such an heaven upon earth.” ... “When a publick admonition was to be dispensed unto any one that had offended scandalously... the hearers would be all drowned in tears, as if the admonition had been, as indeed he would with much artifice make it be directed unto them all; but such would be the compassion, and yet the gravity, the majesty, the scriptural and awful pungency of these his dispensations, that the conscience of the offender himself, could make no resistance thereunto.” [Footnote: _Magnalia_, bk. 4, ch. iv. Sub-section 9, 10.] Their arrogance was fed by the submission of the people, and they would not tolerate the slightest opposition even from their most devoted retainers. The Reforming Synod was held in 1679. “When the report of a committee on ‘the evils that had provoked the Lord’ came up for consideration, ‘Mr. Wheelock declared that there was a cry of injustice in that magistrates and ministers were not rated’ (taxed), ‘which occasioned a very warm discourse. Mr. Stodder’ (minister of Northampton) ‘charged the deputy with saying what was not true, and the deputy governor’ (Danforth) ‘told him he deserved to be laid by the heels, etc.’ “‘After we broke up, the deputy and several others went home with Mr. Stodder, and the deputy asked forgiveness of him and told him he freely forgave him, but Mr. Stodder was high.’ The next day ‘the deputy owned his being in too great a heat, and desired the Lord to forgive it, and Mr. Stodder did something, though very little, by the deputy.’” [Footnote: Palfrey’s _History of New England_, in. 330, note 2. Extract from _Journal_ of Rev. Peter Thacher.] Wheelock was lucky in not having to smart more severely for his temerity, for the unfortunate Ursula Cole was sentenced to pay £5 [Footnote: Five pounds was equivalent to a sum between one hundred and twenty-five and one hundred and fifty dollars now. Ursula was of course poor, or she would not have been sentenced to be whipped. The fine was therefore extremely heavy.] or be whipped for the lighter crime of saying “she had as lief hear a cat mew” [Footnote: Frothingham, _History of Charlestown_, p. 208.] as Mr. Shepard preach. The daily services in the churches consumed so much time that they became a grievance with which the government was unable to cope.