Manners Maketh Men

Abstract Mistress Phillips did not intend to affront the young minister; she simply had a coughing spell. But Jeremiah Shepherd saw it as an insult. Her husband Samuel explained what happened: “In the time of my wife’s long and dangerous sickness he came below to look upon her and there took offense that she did not show him respect though my wife affirms that she bowed her head as well as she could being then entering into her ague fit, but he never would come see her though I wished him to do it.” Mistress Phillips was a respectable matron of the town of Rowley. Samuel Phillips was himself a minister, but the younger Shepherd was a candidate for the recently vacated position of pastor, that is, as Phillips’s superior. Mr. Phillips was supportive of Shepherd, but the latter’s inability to please the women of the parish ultimately did him in. Women like Mrs. Phillips could be quite influential, and ministers were wise to curry their favor. I Yet even such a matron tried to show deference to the younger minister.