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Excerpts from the Diary of Ruth Pease

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Ruth Pease was twenty-three when she wrote this diary. She began it with a number of assertions to help her live a more moral life. She codified them into some thirty resolutions, adopted from the more extensive list of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). Edwards was one of the most important evangelical leaders of the 18th century, a key figure in the First Great Awakening. Edwards began his set of seventy resolutions in 1722 in his personal diary. Pease's resolutions are not copies of Edwards. She brought her own voice and ideals to her list, but she may have begun her diary with them as a way to express her admiration of Edwards. The resolutions are typical for a pious woman of New England. Pease married Orian Sage of Blandford in 1817. They lived there until 1848, when they moved to Ware, Massachusetts. Sage, a cheese merchant, served in town and state government. Ruth Pease died in 1858.

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