C. on the head with it. After these postures were watched, if the

said C. did but stir her feet, they were afflicted in their feet, and .stamped fearfully. . . . They accused her of having familiarity with the devil in the time of examination, in the shape of a black man whispering in her ear."
Who can fail to perceive that in this scene at the meeting house, there was something extraordinary ? Mrs. Pope and the other afflicted ones were evidently acting from some strong, some overpowering mental impulse. And it is equally evident that the presence of the unfortunate Mrs. Cory excited them to an astonishing degree. Well, then, in this you have the operation of witchcraft — witchcraft, a creature of the mind. And in their dreadful mental excitement, while
*This was exceedingly cruel. A poor lonely woman dragged into an excited, an almost in- furiated assembly, charged with a most diabolic:;] crime, and adjudged beforehand, guilty co the last extremity, begging, while deserted by every earthly friend, the consolation of pouring out her heart's agony to him who is the friend and stay of the disconsolate, and asking of him. that measure of grace which she keenly felt would be required to sustain her in the fiery ordeal through -which she was about to pass— and being denied, even with a sneer !
17
Mrs. C. was not in their presence, we can well conceive they might fancy they saw her spectre. But of spectral appearances I shall have something to say hereafter. The power of Mrs. Cory seems to have been fully equal to that of the best mesmeriser of modern days. All these mental operations may be called imagination. But they cer- tainly brought about most terrible realities. Many people seem to think that there .cannot be any thing real, in extraordinary mental manifestations. Perhaps they would be profitably employed, for a time, in attempting to define imagination, and to stake out bounds for it. But when folks come to tell about the devil's going round with a memorandum book under his arm, to get people to sign off their claims to heaven, matters of the material world, which we can com- prehend, are brought in play, and we have a right to denounce them as delusion or something worse. And the sucking yellow bird, marks of teeth, &.c» were fancies, of course.
These transactions at the meeting house did not take place before a" congregation of infants. The aged, the grave, the pious, the learn- ed, were there. And with sorrow and alarm they felt the deplorable reality. The account itself is from one who filled the honorable sta- tion of president of Harvard college.
But let us turn our attention for a moment particularly to the chil- dren. Mrs. Cory said they were " poor distracted children ; " and no doubt she was right. And so were Mr. Noyes and Mr. Hathorne, when they said they were bewitched. Just look over the whole history of their affliction, from the beginning. It is extremely difficult for me to believe, with people much wiser than myself, that they were acting from mere caprice, from wantonness or waggery. It is not easy to reconcile the idea with their youth and the attendant circum- stances. It requires very elastic reasoning powers to account for such extraordinary ability for the arts of deception, so suddenly exhibited; and such conduct in hitherto dutiful and circumspect children, before weeping parents, grave magistrates and ministers; and a curious and scrutinizing populace. If they were all the time deceiving, they must have acted their part most excellently well, to have excited no suspi- cion. In casting about for means to account for such conduct, on the ground of deception, some have fixed upon the supposition that these girls had an antipathy against one or two old women and took these means for venting their malice. That is, they pretended to be bewitched for the purpose of having these old women punished as witches. This would answer some purpose were it not for the unfor- 3
18
tunate but stubborn fact that the children did not, in the beginning's, charge any one with having bewitched them ! They did not suggest such a thing as that they were bewitched, until the physicians had de- cided the matter for them. This is made certain by the record still open to observation on the church book, in Mr. Parris's own hand writing; and which is quoted at large in the note on page 13; a sen- tence of which it may be well here to repeat : " It is well known that when these calamities first began, which was in my own family, the affliction was several weeks' before such hellish operations as witch- craft was suspected" It is evident, let me repeat, that these children acted from some violent, uncontrollable mental impulse — an impulse which may have arisen from some slight cause. And when the idea of witchcraft was suggested, it became fixed and moulded into most terrific shapes. We have little space to allow for details. And as the safest way of conveying an idea of the occurrences, we will introduce a passage or two from Mather's Magnalia, a work of great value and evidencing the inexhaustible learning, and patient research of the author — his piety and penetration of mind, as well as his generous- share of conceit.
The tormentors tendered unto the afflicted a book requiring them to sign it, or to touch it at least, in token of their consenting to be listed in the service of the devil ; which they refusing to do, the spectres under the command of that black man, as they called him, would apply themselves to torture them with prodigious molestations.
The afflicted wretches were horribly distorted and convulsed ; they were pinched black and blue ; pins would be run every where in their flesh ; they would be scalded until they had blisters raised on them ; and a thousand other things, before hundreds of witnesses, were done unto them, evidently preter- natural ; for if it were perternatural to keep a rigid fast for nine, yea, for fifteen days together; or if it were preternatural to have one's hands tied close to- gether with a rope to be plainly seen, and then by unseen hands presently- pulled up a great way from the earth, before a crowd of people ; such preter- natural things were endured by them.
But of all the preternatural things which these people suffered, there were none more unaccountable than those wherein the prestigious demons would every now and then cover the most corporeal things in the world with a fascin- ating mist of invisibility. As now, a person was cruelly assaulted by a spectre, that she said came at her with a spindle, though nobody else in the room could see either the spectre or the spindle ; at last, in her agonies, giving a snatch at the spectre, she pulled the spindle away ; and it was no sooner got into her hand, but the other folks then present beheld that it was indeed a real, proper, iron spindle ; which when they locked up very safe, it was, neverthe- less, by the demons taken away to do farther mischief.
Again, a person was haunted by a most abusive spectre, which came to her, she said, with a sheet about her, though seen to none but herself. After she had undergone a deal of teaze from the annoyance of the spectre, she gave a violent snatch at the sheet that was upon it ; wherefrom she tore a corner, which in her hand immediately was beheld by all that were present, a palpa- ble corner of a sheet: and her father, which was of her, catched, that be
19
might see what his daughter had so strangely seized; but the spectre had like to have wrung his hand off, by endeavoring to wrest it from him ; how- ever he still held it; and several times this odd accident was renewed in the family. There wanted not the oaths of good creditable people to these par- ticulars.
Also it is known, that these wicked spectres did proceed so far as to steal several quantities of money from divers people, part of which individual money dropt sometimes out of the air, before sufficient spectators, into the hands of the afflicted, while the spectres were urging them to subscribe their covenant with death. Moreover, poisons to the standersby wholly invisible, were sometimes forced upon the afflicted; which, when they have with much reluctancy swallowed, they have swoln presently, so that the common medi- cines for poisons have been found necessary to relieve them ; yea, sometimes the spectres in the struggles have so dropt the poisons, that the standersby have smelt them and viewed them, and beheld the pillows of the miserable stained with them. Yet more, the miserable have complained bitterly of burn- ing rags run into their forcibly distended mouths ; and though nobody could see any such cloths, or indeed any fires in the chambers, yet presently the scalds were seen plainly by every body on the mouths of the complainers, and not only the smell, but the smoke of the burning sensibly filled the chambers.
Once more the miserable exclaimed extremely of branding irons, heating at the fire on the hearth to mark them ; now the standersby could see no irons, yet they could see distinctly the print of them in the ashes, and smell them too, as they were carried by the not-seen furies unto the poor creatures for whom they were intended ; and those poor creatures were thereupon so stigmatized with them, that they will bear the marks of them to their dying day. Nor are these the tenth part of the prodigies that fell out among the in- habitants of New England.
It was also found that the flesh of the afflicted was often bitten at such a rate, that not only the print of the teeth would be left on their flesh, but the very slaver of spittle too, even such as might be clearly distinguished from other people's. And usually the afflicted went through a terrible deal of seem- ing difficulties from the tormenting spectres, and must be long waited on, be- fore they could get a breathing space from their torments to give in their testimony.
There were, it is true, some men of taJent, piety and learning, who during the darkest, hours of the excitement, continued to maintain that the whole was a delusion ; continued vehemently to inveigh against the sanguinary proceedings. Col. Saltonstall, one of the judges of the court, early withdrew, and always opposed the proceed- ings. But this did not prove him wiser than his neighbors. It only proved him more skeptical, less susceptible. If there were great men doubters, there were greater ones believers.
Nor must it be supposed that the trials were mere child's play ; or that the condemnations took place without what was deemed sufficient evidence. A uthors of that period speak particularly on this point, and assert that some of the most judicious and vehement opposers, publicly declared, that had they themselves been on the jury, they could not have acquitted the prisoners ! " Flashy people," quaintly observes Mather, " may burlesque these things, but when hundreds of the most jBober people, in a country where lhey have as much mother wit cer*
20
tainly as the rest of mankind, hiow them to be true, nothing but the absurd and froward spirit of saducism can question then)."
" There was one," says he, " whose magical images were found, and who confessing her deeds, (when a jury of doctors returned her com- pos mentis,) actually showed the whole court by what ceremonies used Unto them, she directed her familiar spirits how and where to cruciate the objects of her malice ; and the experiment being made over and over again before the whole court, the effect followed exactly in the hurts done to the people at a distance from her."
The seeing of spectres seems easily explained.* It originates in strong mental conceptions. At the time to which our narrative re- lates, it was firmly believed that people were vexed and tormented by spiritual visitants. The impression was so very strong as to render such visitants frequently visible, so to speak, to the mental eye — a mere result of that firm belief. I will state a little fact in illustration of the idea. A young female relative of mine, was betrothed to a youthful mariner. She was a girl of very suscepiible feelings ; her at- tachment was ardent, had been of long continuance, and was fondly reciprocated. During his last voyage, she had a singularly strong impression that he would never return. The presentiment weighed so heavily upon her spirits, as to excite the concern of her friends. One stormy night, while the family were absent, she was sitting alone in the parlor, listening to the howling of the winds and the beating of the rain ; and as may well be imagined, not unfrequently entertaining a thought of her far-off lover. She thus sat, in silence, till near mid- night. All of a sudden, on looking up, she beheld her affianced, standing beside her, with a countenance deadly pale, and with the water dripping from his cloihes. She was for a moment bewildered, though not frightened. She essayed to speak, but he vanished too suddenly. To this day, she insists that it was not a dream, that she was fully awake; but admits that she had been long and anxiously thinking of him. It is evident that the spectre originated in her ex- cited mind. He, however, did meet his death, by drowning, at the precise time of the appearance, as near as could be ascertained, on
*The lecturer, while attempting to explain the philosophy of spectral appearances, would not be understood to deny that miraculous agency has sometimes been employed to recall the dead. It is certainly a no greater exhibition of power to recall than to create. And that the power has been thus exercised, in past ages, at least, we must not doubt. The story of the Witch of Endor, spoken of in the note on page 8, is to the purpose. But the ghost-seeing me- dia of modern times, it is apprehended, may be explained on natural principles.
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the arrival of the ship. And though that was merely a coincidence, nothing could shake her belief that he came to the fond object of his affection, with the tidings of his own departure.
When the mind is thus prepared, very slight things will operate as powerful evidence. Prints of branding irons could easily be seen in ash- es, prints of teeth and blisters upon flesh, and all things of a like nature. But it is not so easy to account for iron spindles, ropes, pins or pieces of sheet, being actually retained in possession of those who seized them. We are justified in supposing that some roguery was carried on here. The minds of people were prepared to believe the most ab- surd things, and to be imposed upon with marvellous facility. Impo- sitions, indeed, were frequently detected and exposed. And this is further evidence that our ancestors were not so perfectly blind as some seem to think. The work to which such frequent reference has been made, has this passage : " In fine, the last courts that sate upon this thorny business, finding that it was impossible to penetrate into the whole meaning of the things that had happened, and that so many un- searchable cheats were interwoven into the conclusion of a mysterious business, which perhaps had not crept thereinto at the beginning of it, they cleared the accused as fast as they tried them."
These strong impressions may sometimes seize upon the mind at the suggestion of some most natural appearance, and as instantly be dis- pelled, at the suggestion of reason. One very dark night, at about twelve o'clock, a friend of mine was walking along a desolate road, through a swampy piece of woods, and all at once observed, gliding close by his side, apparently a person about his own size, clothed in shiny white. Though the object kept pace, and performed the usual motions of a person walking, it was noiseless. Although a little startled at first, his better judgment immediately suggested that it was not a real exist- ence. With his walking stick he struck at it, but only beat the air. He paused, and that likewise paused. Taking two or three steps in a sideling direction, he found himself on the brink of a gully, and at once discovered the cause of the illusion. The heavy clouds were just lifting in the western horizon, and a faint light fell upon the water in the gully — just enough to give it a silvery tinge. On this mirror his dark shadow fell, though the impression on his mind was as if the shadow were of a silvery hue, moving on a dark ground. Such was the spectre ; and as real a one probably as any person living has seen. But these impressions may obtain such an ascendancy, under some circumstances, over the judgment of an individual or a community, as
22
even to make natural phenomena and fact yield to them — be seconda- ry and subservient. Such precisely was the case in the memorable year 1G92. The received impression was that legions of emissaries of the evil one had been let loose upon ihis devoted community, and that in many cases the people "had their eyes so refined" that they could perceive these at times invisible tormentors. And every thing was bent and twisted till it supported that belief. Whatever fact was too inflexible to be perverted, was at once denounced as unscriptural, saducean. Just as one among us would argue: The Bible teaches this or that doctrine. The Bible is true. Hence, if any thing is ad- vanced contrary to this or that doctrine, it cannot be true, however plausible it may seem.
One beautiful spring morning, T was walking in an orchard, with a gentleman from one of the remote Swiss cantons, where a belief in fairy visitations still prevails. He was much less delighted at the prospect of a profusion of fruit, than at the presence of the gay com- pany of fairies. And he became quite angry on my insisting that I could not see the lovely creatures which to him were so perceptible, sporting among the blossoms. He saw them clearly through his men- tal vision.
It is really amusing to see how the mind, under these impressions, will sometimes grapple with physical impossibilities.
How is it about those devils which visited you the other day? said I to a neighbor.
I don't want to say any thing about them. People don't believe me; and the truth is good for nothing if it isn't believed, he replied.
What did they resemble?
They were as large as gray squirrels; striped with yellow and red; and had white wings.
How many were there?
About two dozen.
Where did they come from?
They jumped out of the coffee pot, while my wife and myself were sitting at breakfast.
How much will your coffee pot hold?
About two quarts.
Now, Mr. S., do you not perceive the utter impossibility in the way of the truth of your story? How could two dozens of gray squirrels get into a two quart coffee pot ?
That is the very thing that J told my wife, at the time, puzzled me
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most. And what was most remarkable, they came out of the nose. But I'm ready to take my oath that it is true. It 's of no use to reason against the senses.
The fact was, the man had the delirium tremens. And in reading over the recorded evidence on some of the witch trials, I am strongly inclined to the belief that some of the witnesses had been familiar with strong water bottles.*
Natural phenomena, were always regarded in the light of super- natural signs. The story of the Phantom Ship is familiar to every one.f The nightly howlings of the wild beasts in the woods, were unceremoniously charged upon his satanic mnjesty. And every de- partment of nature was forced to furnish evidence in support of the one dreadful idea.
*One oftlie persons executed at Salem was Susanna Martin, of Amesbury. And it is really sad to see what evidence was received against her. The poor woman had become vexed atone Kembel, on account of his having purchased a puppy of some one else, after having agreed to purchase of her, and declared that if she lived, she would give him puppies enough. The wit- ness thus testifies : " Within a few days after this, Kembel coming out of the woods, there arose a little black cloud in the northwest, and Kembel immediately felt a force upon him, which made him not able to avoid running upon the stumps of trees that were before hirn, al- though he had a broad plain cartway before him ; but though he had his axe on his shoulder to endanger him in his falls, he could not forbear going out of his way to tumble over them. When he came below the meeting house, there appeared to him a little thing like a puppy of a darkish color, and it shot backwards and forwards between his legs. He had the courage to use all possible endeavors to cut it with his axe, but he could not hit it; the puppy gave a jump from him, and went, as to him it seemed, into the ground," &c. &.c.
■{•The appearance of the Phantom Ship, at New Haven, in 1647, occasioned a great sensation, throughout New England. Probably some vessel was passing up Long Island Sound, and the phantom arose from atmospheric refraction. This kind of mirage is thus accurately illustrated by Alonzo Lewis, in his excellent history of Lynn :
Mr. Lewis remarks : "Ona pleasant Sunday afternoon, in the summer of 1843, I saw several vessels sailing off Nahant, reflected in the manner represented above. The atmosphere was dense, yet transparent, and there were several strata of thin vapory clouds lightly suspended over the water, on which the vessels were brightly mirrored. The refracted images were as clearly portrayed as the real Vessels beneath ; and a drawing can but imperfectly represent the exceeding beauty of the mirage."
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It is melancholy, it is horrible, to see how evidence was sometimes distorted to prove the guilt of the accused. In some cases the testi- mony was such as a jury might convict upon ; but in others, it was so palpably absurd, or bore such evident marks of malevolence or wag- gery, that we may well be astonished that it was for a moment listened to by those claiming to possess common sense.
Another fact must not be lost sight of. Those charged — or cried out against — as the phrase was, not unfrequently confessed themselves guilty. The very first person charged did this. And well might such confessions aid the progress of the whirlwind. How do we account for this ? Some tell us that the confessions were wrung from them by threatened torture, or elicited by promises of release or pardon. But it is not true that this was always the case. No less than fifty- five persons, some of them having through life sustained good charac- ters, confessed themselves guilty of this most diabolical crime. The reason is as clear as daylight. They were laboring under the same impressions that weighed upon ail the rest of the community. They did not trust at all to their own judgment ; but gave credence to the evidence that was adduced against them. Their case may be illustra- ted by that of the artless countryman, who, after listening to the law- yer who was vehemently pleading against him, rushed before the court with the most inexpressible horror depicted on his countenance, ex- claiming in frenzy, "Take me off, take me off to prison ; 1 find I de- serve it, though I thought till now, that I was innocent as a child ! " *
And we must not neglect to refer to the recantations. Many of the most zealous prosecutors and persecutors, afterwards— when the spell was broken — recanted, and in dust and tears mourned over their er-
* Confessions are, in courts of justice, received with caution. And, when possible, the state of mind under which the person confessing acts, is accurately ascertained. Men's hopes of fears are sometimes so wrought upon that they may easily be led to declare themselves guilty of crimes which they never committed. And the actual belief of guilt is often engendered and firmly fixed. Yet, frank, free, and unbiased confessions should be considered strong evidence} for it is not to be presumed that a man will sacrifice his safety or reputation, by denouncing himself as a criminal, while he is innocent. It is also sometimes found that a limid, apprehen- sive, and injudicious person will resort to such means to show himself innocent as prove strong evidence of his guilt. Lord Hale mentions a sad instance. A young woman was heard to cry out, " Good uncle, do not kill me ! " The next day, she was not to be found. She was wealthy, and her uncle was naturally suspected of having made way with her. To prove his innocence, he was required to produce her. This he could not do, for she had absconded. He knew a girl, very much resembling his niece, and strange as it may seem, hoped to remove suspicion by producing her. The cheat was detected, and of course taken as all but positive evidence of his guilt, lie was executed for the supposed murder. But his niece was afterward found to be living.
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irors. But on examination it will be found that they, in their deepest sorrow, assert that they were sincere— that they verily thought they were doing God service. Mr. Parris himself, made a sort of half- way recantation. The jury who sat on the cases at Salem Village, put forth a recantation, in which they most touchingly refer to their acts; most humbly asking forgiveness of all those living, whom they had by their decisions injured, and expressing a.hope and confidence that Heaven would forgive them, as they acted, as they fully believed, in the way of duty. Nobody doubts their sincerity. But those same minds might have run into some other extreme, on some other occa- sion. Mather, however, who was one of the most zealous of the zeal- ots, disposes of the matter easily. He thought it did much to advance the cause of religion. After speaking of various ways in which it promoted the cause of holiness, he continues: "Some scores of other younjr people, who were strangers to real piety, were now struck with the lively demonstrations of hell evidently set forth before their eyes, when they saw persons cruelly frightened, wounded, and starved, by devils, and scalded by burning brimstone; and yet so preserved in this tortured state, as that, at the end of one month's wretchedness, they were as able still to undergo another. In the whole the devil got just nothing; but God got praises, Christ got subjects, the Holy Spirit got temples, the church got additions, and the souls of men got everlasting benefits." This view was certainly conscience-easing.
But to return, for a moment, to the dreadful scenes of 1692. It would be difficult for us to conceive of the horrors of that period. Every one stood aghast. It was the general belief that our heavenly father had given up this devoted community to the ravages of the arch enemy. The accusations did not rest upon the miserable and decrepit outcasts alone ; but some of the worthiest and wisest were charged with the fell crime. The demon entered the domestic circle. Drops of blood stained the hearth stone. The eye balls of fiends glared upon the sleeping infant. The distressed parent was dragged to prison on the accusation of the afflicted child. And the child was led from the play ground to the stern bar of justice, on the fearful ac- cusation of the parent. The whole community was in mourning. It was truly the reign of terror. No one was safe from the presenta- tion of a warrant of arrest. And such evidence was received, and all so distorted to work conviction, that an arrest was almost equiva- lent to a death warrant. The number of persons hung at Salem, was nineteen. One aged man was pressed to death. Eight or nine were 4
26'
Condemned to death, but not executed. A hundred and fifty were* imprisoned, and two hundred others accused. And poor Salem lost about a third part of her population, by removal and otherwise.
My own humble opinion of the matter, has probably been made sufficiently clear. In common speech we say witchcraft was a delusion ; but yet there was a reality in the mental action from which the wild proceedings arose. What is the mesmerism of modern days? Is there no reality in the manifestations which many wise ones now admit take place through that agency ? Indeed 1 have heard advo- cates of this system assert that the power of those deemed witches consisted in mesmeric influence.*
But the dreadful spell was broken. The minds of the people un- derwent a reaction — took a new course. Then were lamentations heard in the streets, for errors committed. And penitential teurs gushed forth. It is a sad subject, but discloses an important phase of human nature. In almost every age there is an eruption from the same
* Our friends, the advocates of mesmerism, will not allow us to doubt that things of as won- derful a nature as aught that appears in the whole history of witchcraft, may take place any day. How much truth there is in mesmerism, who is able to decide ? I apprehend, its phe- nomena may be accounted for in the same manner that the developments of witchcraft may be explained. The reality consists in strong, overpowering, mental conceptions. I very Well remember hearing the pioneer of mesmerism in this country, declare that if one could not be made to believe in the science, he could not be made to feel its effects. There is the whole secret. Just induce one firmly to believe that you have power to put him into that pesu liar state, and he straightway passes into it, a* the mere result of that firm belief. Just make one firmly believe that you can bewitch him, and he is in your power, for that purpose. These things show the ruling power which the mind has, over the body. It indeed shows the op- eration of failh. And the bold figurative assertion of scripture, that faith can remove moun- tains, is fully sustained. The fact is, there are marvellous truths, both in the world of mind, and the world of matter, and the wholesale rejection of the one class or the other, without ex- amination, does not, certainly, evince the highest attainment in wisdom. Matters pertaining to the immaterial world, however, in this utilitarian age, are generally subjected to the rough- est treatment. How often do we hear this or that proposition denounced as not being in ac- cordance with the laws of mind. He must be wise indeed who is sufficiently conversant with those laws, to be always correct in such denunciations. It may, in truth be absurd, in his beg- garly conception. No created existence has power to comprehend itself. Matter cannot com- prehendmatter, nor mind, mind. The latter, however, can* comprehend the former, for it is superior to it; and conclusive evidence of that superiority is exhibited in this fact itself. And then, as mind is the highest of all created existences, it follows that it can be comprehended only by Deity. We are therefore totally incompetent to set bounds for its powers and mani- festations. Then there is the matter of spiritual intercourse. They who reject the idea of an intercourse between spirit, even while it exists in the body, and spirit which has no bodily form, reject the plainly revealed word of God. The laws which regulate that intercourse may never be defined ; but this is no proof of their non-existence. Why are we commanded to pray? A man who disbelieves in all connection between ourselves and the spiritual world, does not certainly act with the most perfect consistency, to offer up prayer. Indeed, what is argument, or persuasion, but the attempt of one mind to induce sympathetic action in another mind?
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crater, though perhaps the hot lava is of different consistency. It is often profitable to trace the progress of these eruptions in the body politic. Sometimes it is slow, almost imperceptible; and sometimes it is like the raging of the prairie fire. Glance, for instance, at the infidelity of France ; watch the workings of the sweet poison thrown into the body politic in the first half of the eighteenth century; see how like a subtle disease it fixed upon the vitals ; how, by cunning and varied appliances, it ultimately reached every class, circulated in every vein ; and how, finally, urged on by calm, inflexible energy like that of a Buffon or a Condillac ; by ail. ements like those of a Voltaire or a Rosseau ; by daring, ferocious impiety, like that of a Diderot, it burst fortfa in such a whirlwind as overwhelmed with fierce destruc- tion, peace on earth, trust and hope in heaven. Then were the lovely banks of the Loire made pestilent by the dissolving remains, and the waters made red and warm by the gushing blood of innocence. Then the ghosts of the betrayed and sacrificed wandered among the smoul- dering ruins of fallen temples and altars, and wept for desecrated household fanes. ■ And this was just one century after the distractions in New England. But people do not think witchcraft had any thing to do with thus tearing out the very bowels of France; yet, was there not something quite as dreadful and quite as unaccountable?
The days of witchcraft, we trust, have passed. Our progress in re- finement, in the arts of life, in scienoe, has opened new regions into which the mind may soar for exercise and profit. But yet, if that be- lief is the legitimate offspring of a principle of our nature, the root from which it sprang remains. And what can assure us that in some age to come it may not again spread aloft its baleful shadow? There is, however, no danger of a return of the murky cloud upon New England, while the views of the people remain as they are. But are there no views now prevalent as strange, and as much to be dreaded, in their full development, as those of 1692 ?
A Witch of the 15th Century.— Spencer.
There in a gloomy hollow glen she found A little cottage built of sticks and weedes, In homely wise, and wald with sods around Jn which a witch did dwell, in loathly weedes ; And wilful want, all careless of her needes ; So choosing solitarie to abide Far from all neighbors, that her devilish deedes And hellish arts from people she might hide, And hurt far oft' unknown whomever she en- vide.
A Witch of the 19th Century.— Whittier.
Our witches are no longer old,
And wrinkled beldames, satan-sold ;
But young, and gay, and laughing creatures.
With the heart's sunshine on their features —
Their sorcery — the light which dances
When the raised lid unveils its glances ;
And the low breafhed and gentle tone
Faintly responding unto ours, Soft, dream-like as a fairy's moan,
Above its nightly closing flowers.