We must confess to some relief at the inevitable conclusion that such study brings--namely, that the early settlers were not the unblemished prigs and paragons tradition has so fondly branded them. They seem to have been human enough--erring enough, if we take these records penned by themselves. However, for any such iconoclastic observation it is reassuring to have the judgment of so careful a historian as Charles Francis Adams. He says: "That the earlier generations of Massachusetts were either more law-abiding or more self-restrained than the later is a proposition which accords neither with tradition nor with the reason of things. The habits of those days were simpler than those of the present: they were also essentially grosser...." He then gives a dozen pages or so of hitherto unpublished church records, gathered from as many typical Massachusetts towns, which throw an undeniable and unflattering light on the social habits of that early period. As explicit and public confession before the church congregation was enforced, these church records contain startlingly graphic statements of drunkenness, blasphemy, stealing, and immorality in all its various phases. There are countless church records which duplicate this one of the ordination of a Massachusetts pastor in 1729: "6 Barrels and a half of Cyder, 28 gallons of wine, 2 gallons of Brandy, and 4 of rum, loaf sugar, lime juice and pipes," all, presumably, consumed at the time and on the spot of the ordination. Even the most pessimistic must admit that long before our prohibition era we had traveled far beyond such practices. The immorality seems to have been the natural reaction from morbid spiritual excitement induced by religious revivals. Poor Governor Bradford never grasped this, and we find him lamenting (1642): "Marvilous it may be to see and consider how some kind of wickedness did grow and break forth here in a land where the same was much witnessed against, and so narrowly looked on and severely punished when it was known." We hear the same plaint from Jonathan Edwards a century later. It is well to honor the Pilgrims for their many stanch and admirable qualities, but it is only fair to recall that the morbidity of their religion made them less healthy-minded than we, and that many of their practices, such as the well-recognized custom of "bundling," were indications of a people holding far lower moral standards than ours. The old sermons, diaries, biographies, and records lie on dusty shelves now, and few pause to read them, and in Kingston no one yet has gathered them into a local history. There are other records traced, not in sand, but on the soil that may also be read by any who pass. Some remnants of the trenches and terraces dug by the quota of Arcadian refugees who fell to Kingston's share after the pathetic flight from Nova Scotia may still be seen--claimed by some to be the first irrigation attempt in America.