Peter Sproul Packer was a Puritan. As that term usually implied, he was a Calvinist of searing faith nurtured in terror of sin, in awe of man's predestination at birth to be saved or damned, and in mortal dread of the size of his penis.
Peter Packer was a pastor, too, his flock in northern Connecticut fashioning themselves of "the Reformed Faith." And the pastor, for much of his young life, until one fateful All Hallow's Eve, prayed to be "reformed" in a most unusual sense. A strapping young man, early in life destined to be taller than most mortals, and with a lean, muscular build and rugged, handsome face, he also observed to his mounting horror that his parts were a snare and temptation from Satan.
Not surprisingly, for the era, no one had need to see Peter's nakedness since his mother had bathed him Saturday nights in the cast-iron tub in front of the fire. He had noticed nothing then, of course, but by 18 years, locked in the bathroom, standing nude before the mirror, he saw rising from the robust swelling of his big testicles a full seven inches of thick flesh topped by a jumbo raspberry-red head.
He knew that this was trouble, for, even as he stared at it, it gave a throb of pleasure—and grew. For all their piety, the young men of his town would flock to the far end of the local pond, well-concealed from town by the good oak woods, and strip naked to rush yelling and laughing into the water. Peter went only once. He did so innocently, without self-consciousness; after all, he never had seen another naked man. But, in very short order, he was frantically dressing, his face bright red, his breath short with panic, ramming the stubborn flesh down into his trousers.
Not only had he seen a dozen other boys, all at once, quite naked, with their penises jauntily flapping as they ran. But, unaware of the danger, he had become fascinated by their nudity—indeed, quite excited. His own penis almost before he knew it was more than half-erect, extended eight or more inches from its thick bed of jet-black hair. Fortunately, it was an era when a certain restraint prevailed among young men; there was much staring, some poking of one another with elbows, giggling. But none dared refer, then or later-except in secret whispers-to what he had seen.
Stumbling along the rocky rut of the woodland trail away from the pond, tears beginning to well up in his eyes, his face burning with mortification, his stiff dick insisted upon chafing against his pants most fiendishly as he ran, shooting jolts of excitement into his belly and down his legs. He clawed at the lump, as he ran, seeking to reduce the wicked friction of temptation. It only got worse. The more he chafed, the stiffer he got. He felt the exquisitely sensitive meat of his glans penis, thrusting out of his foreskin, rasping ecstatically against the rough cloth.
He stopped in the nick of time. Glancing back, then all around, he bounded into the woods beside the trail and pushed on till he was out of sight. Instantly, he dropped the satanic garments to the earth. The monster stood up there, almost against his belly, the back of the glans brushing his stomach above his navel. It was fiercely red and hideously throbbing, its blue veins thick, its length a smooth arc of muscle. He longed to touch it, but he dared not do so by his mortal soul.
Instead, he wrenched a black branch from a nearby birch, a tough stick 18-inches long, with many radiating twigs, each tipped with tough black buds. Tentatively, he slashed at the offending member. To his horror, at the first blows, the big red rod quivered deliciously, threatening some explosion of ecstasy that would pitch him over the rim of Hell. But as he lashed more fiercely, again and again, driving down the beast, a blessed pain took over. More feverish, merciless blows, and almost blackish welts striped the pale meat. And then flecks of blood. He did not stop till agony had replaced pleasure. By the final slash, his meat hung limp, where it belonged, and smarted almost unbearably. Peter was breathing hard, head hung, gazing dully at his victory.
We shall fast-forward, here, for the revelations of the soul come but slowly and it finds its way to faith by countless steps into the unknown. The day in the woods had much to do with Peter Packer's entering the college at New Haven determined to pursue the ministry. Until that time, and then during college itself, it goes without saying, he exposed himself to no one. Indeed, he managed, insofar as possible, never to touch the still-growing, still-lengthening instrument and keep it out of even his own sight. Girls, then young women, were out of the question.
To this, though, we are forced to add that there were occasions when he tumbled ignominiously from grace, pitching head over heels into the open arms and long-clawed fingers of the Tempter. Lying abed of a summer evening, the upper rooms of the house still sweltering, he would throw off the sheets. And then, helplessly, lift up his nightgown. Untouched, merely stroked by his fantasies, the thing would swell by inches, agonizingly, to its full length, stretching its head past his navel, an arching bridge of rigid, throbbing temptation.
He refused to touch it, but quite on its own it quivered and even jerked with a life of its own. And then, Peter had a choice. He could lie for literally hours, his mind wholly engulfed in images sent by Satan, unsleeping, while the hot, pulsing dick yielded a few agonizing drips on his fevered skin. Or, driven beyond endurance, he would seize a leather riding crop he had obtained for the purpose, and lash himself again and again. He had learned much about taming the monster. Now, his blows fell first on the outlandishly large scrotum and its walnut-sized testicles. A few swishing blows in that place caused agony to drive away ecstasy. He did not stop. Scarcely able to keep from screaming aloud, he landed slap after slap on the big balls until his legs and hips twisted wildly to escape his own hand. And pain, unlike pleasure, permitted sleep.
Sent down from New Haven with highest honors, newly vested in the ministry, Pastor Peter easily found near the still-wild frontier of the state a flock who embraced him eagerly. He won, from older parishioners, praise and encouragement for his stern denunciations of the flesh. His sermons were quoted by parents to their sons and daughters, who acknowledged the severe goodness of Pastor Packer, but were harrowed, in imagination, by his vivid sermons on the theme of temptation of this world, pleasure, flesh, lust, the body—and by his equally vivid evocation of the reception that awaited them in Hell, where, it seemed, the spirit could experience tormenting pain every bit as acute as the body's pleasure—and for all eternity.
The young, mostly Dutch girls in the parish attended church quite willingly (although in fact they had no choice) and wore their Sunday best: their bodices full to bursting with ripe, healthy breasts, their hips broad, flaring from small waists, their legs strong and straight from women's endless work. They attended willingly because Pastor Peter had become tall, remarkably handsome, and broad-shouldered from hours of work with axe and saw—work intended to leave him exhausted by the time the ordeal of sleep arrived.
Now, lying abed, in his own handsome room, his own vestry cottage, little had changed. Except that his fantasies had become specific, thanks to the women and girls of his flock, who paid visits to the pastor's residence, sitting opposite him with pretty faces smiling, earnest blue eyes holding his gaze, blushing at times with pleasure or shame at his words.
By night, they came to him, incubi, envoys of the Devil, half-naked in his fantasies, all smiles and wiles. They came with big bare breasts and healthy red titties, with their loins bare but for the flourishing hair the covered their sex. They came into his very room, reaching toward his naked body with fresh, strong hands-and even with full pecking lips. As Peter learned more and more about the ways of God, predestination, salvation, and the certainty of God's wrath, he lost hope. He had been elected at birth for sin and Hell. Inescapably, wherever he might go, the full, ripe fruit of the tree of temptation hung and swung between his legs. Standing before his flock on Sunday mornings, he blessed the pulpit that concealed his body as his eyes strayed to gaze down on Mistress Virginia, Mistress Sally, Mistress Irene—or, at times, Goodwife Fletcher, with her handsome, beaming face, cascades of blond hair, and obscenely prominent breasts.
It was at this time, faintly, at first, a mere hinted odor on the wind, there came from Salem and Boston rumors of encroaching threats to pious New England. In towns north of Boston, an ancient evil, long-known in Europe—and certainly in the birthplace of Calvinism, Geneva—erupted with sudden ferocity. Hands and souls had been recruited to Satan's work and Satan's powers. It could not be denied: things not of this world were seen.
An eminent divine from New Haven traveled north to visit Peter. Not all had been told in the rumors, he said. Women, now, had been dragged before upright, god-fearing men in Salem, stripped naked despite their screams and pleas and cries, and there...
Peter listened, rapt, horrified, fascinated. Yes, naked they had stood before their judges and their bodies searched everywhere, nothing left to modesty. And things were seen, stigmata of the Devil. Unsightly great moles, scars, even nipples seeming discolored or bent by no natural force. The ordeals of interrogation had begun, the naked bodies piled high with stones until the women cried out. There had been confessions.
Had Pastor Peter anything to report? He did not think so, but the well-informed divine insisted. The signs were not obvious. A mysteriously sick animal or child. A woman absent from home at night. Women who whispered together, who disappeared into the woods with easy excuses such as berry picking. Still, Peter did not volunteer any testimony.
