The veil of obscurity which hangs over the unmarried life of Mary Ball will never be lifted. The evidence is all in, the testimony all taken. It is certain that she could hardly escape the social round in the gay society of Westmoreland, and quite as certain that she was not a prominent part of it. When the gardener desires the perfecting of some flower, to bloom but once in a twelve-month, he keeps it secluded in some cool, dark spot--only when well rooted bringing it forth into the sunlight. Thus the mind and character grow best in quiet and seclusion, becoming serene, strong, and superior to petty passions. When Mary Ball's hour was come, when her high vocation was pressed upon her, she was rooted and grounded in all things requisite for her exalted but difficult lot. The years of which we have no record included the formative period of her life. They were dark years in the religious history of the colony. She could have small help from the clerical guides of the day. Even at the best, a church service was mainly a social function,--prayers hurriedly read, perfunctory sermon of short duration, followed by a social half-hour for the purpose of giving and accepting invitations to dinner. The dinner ended with the inevitable punch bowl, over which the clergyman was often the first to become incapable of pursuing his journey home. It had not been so very long since a rector of the Wicomoco church had reached the limit of irreverence. While administering the Communion of the Lord's Supper, upon tasting the bread, he had cried out to the church warden, "George, this bread is not fit for a dog."[4] [4] Foote's "Sketches of Virginia." A more unwilling witness against the clergy than good Bishop Meade can hardly be imagined. He tells of one who was for years the president of a jockey club; of another who was an habitué of the bar of a country tavern, often seen reeling to and fro with a bowl of "toddy" in his hands, challenging the passers-by to "come in and have a drink"; of still another who indulged in a fisticuff with some of his vestrymen, floored them, and next Sunday preached a sermon from Nehemiah, "And I contended with them and cursed them and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair!" (Let us hope they were "Gentlemen" and therefore wore the wigs fashionable in their day. "Plucked off" seems to imply as much.) One of these recreant rectors fought a duel within the grounds of his own church; all of them, according to a report made to the Bishop of London, were either "slothful and negligent" or "debauched and bent on all manner of vices."