Witchcraft in America. Charles Wentworth Upham

who have no firm belief in the providence or existence of a benevolent Divinity. Even among the Chinese—the least religious nation in the world, and whose trite formula of scepticism, 'Religions are many: Reason is one,' expresses their indifferentism to every form of religion—there exists a sort of demoniacal fear (Huc's Chinese Empire, xix.). The diabolic and magic superstitions of the Moslem are displayed in Sale's Korân and Lane's Modern Egyptians.

167. Essay concerning the Human Understanding, book iv. 18.

      Witchcraft in America

       Table of Contents

      The Wonders of the Invisible World

       by Cotton Mather and Increase Mather

       Table of Contents

       Introduction

       The Author's Defence

       Enchantments Encountered

       An Abstract of Mr. Perkins's Way for the Discovery of Witches

       A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World

       An Hortatory and Necessary Address, to a Country Now Extraordinarily Alarum'd by the Wrath of the Devil

       A Narrative of an Apparition which a Gentleman in Boston, had of His Brother, Just Then Murthered in London

       A Modern Instance of Witches, Discovered and Condemned in a Tryal, Before that Celebrated Judge, Sir Matthew Hale

       The Tryal of G. B. at a Court of Oyer and Terminer, Held in Salem, 1692

       The Tryal of Bridget Bishop, Alias Oliver, at the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Held at Salem, June 2. 1692

       The Tryal of Susanna Martin, at the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Held by Adjournment at Salem, June 29. 1692

       The Tryal of Elizabeth How, at the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Held by Adjournment at Salem, June 30. 1692

       The Trial of Martha Carrier, at the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Held by Adjournment at Salem, August 2. 1692

       Matter Omitted in the Trials

       The Devil Discovered

       A Further Account of the Tryals of the New-England Witches.

       A True Narrative of some Remarkable Passages relating to sundry Persons afflicted by Witchcraft at Salem Village in New-England, which happened from the 19th. of March to the 5th. of April, 1692.

       Remarks of things more than ordinary about the Afflicted Persons

       Remarks concerning the Accused

       A Further Account of the Tryals of the New-England Witches, Sent in a Letter from Thence, to a Gentleman in London

       Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits Personating Men; Witchcrafts, Infallible Proofs of Guilt in such as are Accused with that Crime

       Christian Reader

       Cases of Conscience Concerning Witchcrafts

       Postscript

      Introduction

       Table of Contents

      The two very rare works reprinted in the present volume, written by two of the most celebrated of the early American divines, relate to one of the most extraordinary cases of popular delusion that modern times have witnessed. It was a delusion, moreover, to which men of learning and piety lent themselves, and thus became the means of increasing it. The scene of this affair was the puritanical colony of New England, since better known as Massachusetts, the colonists of which appear to have carried with them, in an exaggerated form, the superstitious feelings with regard to witchcraft which then prevailed in the mother country. In the spring of 1692 an alarm of witchcraft was raised in the family of the minister of Salem, and some black servants were charged with the supposed crime. Once started, the alarm spread rapidly, and in a very short time a great number of people fell under suspicion, and many were thrown into prison on very frivolous grounds, supported, as such charges usually were, by very unworthy witnesses. The new governor of the colony, Sir William Phipps, arrived from England in the middle of May, and he seems to have been carried away by the excitement, and authorized judicial prosecutions. The trials began at the commencement of June; and the first victim, a woman named Bridget Bishop, was hanged. Governor Phipps, embarrassed by this extraordinary state of things, called in the assistance of the clergy of Boston.

      There was at this time in Boston a distinguished family of puritanical ministers of the name of Mather. Richard Mather, an English non-conformist divine, had emigrated to America in 1636, and settled at Dorchester, where, in 1639, he had a son born, who was named, in accordance with the peculiar nomenclature of the puritans, Increase Mather. This son distinguished himself much by his acquirements as a scholar and a theologian, became established as a minister in Boston, and in 1685 was elected president of Harvard College. His son, born at Boston in 1663, and called from the name of his mother's family, Cotton Mather, became more remarkable than his father for his scholarship, gained also a distinguished position in Harvard College, and was also, at the time of which we are speaking, a minister of the gospel in Boston. Cotton Mather had adopted all the most extreme notions of the puritanical party with regard to witchcraft, and he had recently had an opportunity of displaying them. In the summer of the year 1688, the children of a mason of Boston named John Goodwin were suddenly seized with fits and strange afflictions, which were at once ascribed to witchcraft, and an Irish washerwoman named Glover, employed by the family, was suspected of being the witch. Cotton Mather was called in to witness the sufferings of Goodwin's children; and he took home with him one of them, a little girl, who had first displayed these symptoms, in order to examine her with more care. The result was, that the Irish woman was