Samuel Sewall’s Confession of Error
Five years after the unhappy episode ended, one of the judges, Samuel Sewall, courageously made public confession of error. As the minister read aloud Sewall’s confession of shame, the judge stood in his pew with head bowed.
“Samuel Sewall, sensible of the reiterated strokes of God upon himself and family, and being sensible that as to the guilt contracted upon the opening of the late commission of Oyer and Terminer at Salem [the trials], to which the order for this Day relates, he is, upon many accounts, more concerned than any that he knows of, desires to take the blame and shame of it, asking pardon of men and especially desiring prayers that God, Who has an unlimited authority, would pardon that sin and all other his sins, personal and relative: and according to His infinite benignity and sovereignty not visit the sin of him or of any other upon himself or any of his, nor upon the land: but that He would powerfully defend him against all temptations to sin for the future and vouchsafe him the efficacious saving conduct of His word and spirit.”
Thereafter, for the rest of his life, Samuel Sewall observed one day of prayer and fasting each year as penance for his part in the Salem witch trials.