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wicked rulers, my father-in-law, with several related
to me, and several brethren of my own church, are among the council.
The governor of the province is not my enemy, but one whom I baptized, and one of
my own flock, and one of my dearest friends.’
And, uttering a midnight cry, he wrestled with God to awaken the churches to some remarkable thing.
A religions excitement was resolved on. ‘I obtained of the
Lord that he would use me,’ says the infatuated man, ‘to be a herald of his kingdom now approach-
ing;’ and, in the gloom of winter, among a people
desponding at the loss of their old liberties, and their ill success against
Quebec, the wildest imaginations might prevail.
It must be remarked that, in modern times, the cry of witchcraft had been raised by the priesthood rarely, I think never, except when free inquiry was advancing.
Many a commission was empowered to punish alike heresy and witchcraft.
The bold inquirer was sometimes burned as a wizard, and sometimes as an insurgent against the established faith.
In
France, where there were most heretics, there were most condemnations for witchcraft.
Rebellion, it was said, is as the sin of witchcraft; and Cotton
Mather, in his Discourse, did but repeat the old tale: ‘Rebellion is the Achan,
C. M.'s Discourse, p. 13. |
course, the trouble of us all.’
In
Salem village, now
Danvers, there had been, between
Samuel Parris, the minister, and a part of his people, a strife so bitter, that it had even attracted the attention of the general court.
The delusion of witch-
craft would give opportunities of terrible vengeance.
In the family of
Samuel Parris, his daughter, a child of nine years, and his niece, a girl of less than twelve, began to have strange caprices.
‘He that will read ’
