Author; place and date of birth uncertain; became a merchant in
Boston; and is noted for his controversy with Cotton
Mather concerning the witchcraft delusion in
New England.
Mather had published a work entitled
Wonders of the invisible world, and
Calef attacked the book, the author, and the subject in a publication entitled
More wonders of the invisible world.
Calef's book was published in
London in 1700, and in
Salem the same year.
About this time the people and magistrates had come to their senses, persecutions had ceased, and the folly of the belief in witchcraft was broadly apparent.
Mather, however, continued to write in favor of it, and to give instances of the doings of witches in their midst.
“Flashy people,” wrote
Mather, “may burlesque these things, but when hundreds of the most sober people, in a country where they have as much mother-wit certainly as the rest of mankind, know them to be true, nothing but the absurd and froward spirit of Sadducism [disbelief in spirits] can question
[
22]
them.”
Calef first attacked
Mather in a series of letters, which were subsequently published in book form, as above stated.
In these letters he exposed
Mather's credulity, and greatly irritated that really good man.
Mather retorted by calling
Calef a “weaver turned minister.”
Calef tormented
Mather more by other letters in the same vein, when the former, becoming wearied by the fight, called the latter “a coal from hell,” and prosecuted him for slander.
When these letters of
Calef were published in book form, Increase
Mather,
President of Harvard College, caused copies of the work to be publicly burned on the college green.
Calef died about 1723.
