As it was a part of the policy of the managers of the business to utterly overwhelm the influence of all natural sentiment in the community, they coupled with this proceeding against a venerable and infirm great-grandmother, another of the same kind against a little child. Immediately after the examination of Rebecca Nurse was concluded, Dorcas, a daughter of Sarah Good, was brought before the magistrates. She was between four and five years old. Lawson says, "The child looked hale and well as other children." A warrant had been issued for her apprehension, the day before, on complaint of Edward and Jonathan Putnam. Herrick the marshal, who was a man that magnified his office, and of much personal pride, did not, perhaps, fancy the idea of bringing up such a little prisoner; and he deputized the operation to Samuel Braybrook, who, the next morning, made return, in due form, that "he had taken the body of Dorcas Good," and sent her to the house of Nathaniel Ingersoll, where she was in custody. It seems that Braybrook did not like the job, and passed the handling of the child over to still another. Whoever performed the service probably brought her in his arms, or on a pillion. The little thing could not have walked the distance from Benjamin Putnam's farm. When led in to be examined, Ann Putnam, Mary Walcot, and Mercy Lewis, all charged her with biting, pinching, and almost choking them. The two former went through their usual evolutions in the presence of the awe and terror stricken magistrates and multitude. They showed the marks of her little teeth on their arms; and the pins with which she pricked them were found on their bodies, precisely where, in their shrieks, they had averred that she was piercing them. The evidence was considered overwhelming; and Dorcas was, per mittimus, committed to the jail, where she joined her mother. By the bill of the Boston jailer, it appears that they both were confined there: as they were too poor to provide for themselves, "the country" was charged with ten shillings for "two blankets for Sarah Good's child." The mother, we know, was kept in chains; the child was probably chained too. Extraordinary fastenings, as has been stated, were thought necessary to hold a witch.
There was no longer any doubt, in the mass of the community, that the Devil had effected a lodgement at Salem Village. Church-members, persons of all social positions, of the highest repute and profession of piety, eminent for visible manifestations of devotion, and of every age, had joined his standard, and become his active allies and confederates.
The effect of these two examinations was unquestionably very great in spreading consternation and bewilderment far and wide; but they were only the prelude to the work, to that end, arranged for the day. The public mind was worked to red heat, and now was the moment to strike the blow that would fix an impression deep and irremovable upon it. It was Thursday, Lecture-day; and the public services usual on the occasion were to be held at the meeting-house.
Deodat Lawson had arrived at the village on the 19th of March, and lodged at Deacon Ingersoll's. The fact at once became known; and Mary Walcot immediately went to the deacon's to see him. She had a fit on the spot, which filled Lawson with amazement and horror. His turn of mind led him to be interested in such an excitement; and he had become additionally and specially exercised by learning that the afflicted persons had intimated that the deaths of his wife and daughter, which occurred during his ministry at the village, had been brought about by the diabolical agency of the persons then beginning to be unmasked, and brought to justice. He was prepared to listen to the hints thus thrown out, and was ready to push the prosecutions on with an earnestness in which resentment and rage were mingled with the blindest credulity. After Mary Walcot had given him a specimen of what the girls were suffering, he walked over, early in the evening, to Mr. Parris's house; and there Abigail Williams went into the craziest manifestations, throwing firebrands about the house in the presence of her uncle, rushing to the back of the chimney as though she would fly up through its wide flue, and performing many wonderful works. The next day being Sunday, he preached; and the services were interrupted, in the manner already described, by the outbreaks of the afflicted, under diabolic influence. The next day, he attended the examination of Martha Corey. On Wednesday, the 23d, he went up to Thomas Putnam's, as he says, "on purpose to see his wife." He "found her lying on the bed, having had a sore fit a little before: her husband and she both desired me to pray with her while she was sensible, which I did, though the apparition said I should not go to prayer. At the first beginning, she attended; but, after a little time, was taken with a fit, yet continued silent, and seemed to be asleep." She had represented herself as being in conflict with the shape, or spectre, of a witch, which, she told Lawson, said he should not pray on the occasion. But he courageously ventured on the work. At the conclusion of the prayer, "her husband, going to her, found her in a fit. He took her off the bed to sit her on his knees; but at first she was so stiff she could not be bended, but she afterwards sat down." Then she went into that state of supernatural vision and exaltation in which she was accustomed to utter the wildest strains, in fervid, extravagant, but solemn and melancholy, rhapsodies: she disputed with the spectre about a text of Scripture, and then poured forth the most terrible denunciations upon it for tormenting and tempting her. She was evidently a very intellectual and imaginative woman, and was perfectly versed in all the imagery and lofty diction supplied by the prophetic and poetic parts of Scripture. Again she was seized with a terrible fit, that lasted "near half an hour." At times, her mouth was drawn on one side and her body strained. At last she broke forth, and succeeded, after many violent struggles against the spectre and many convulsions of her frame, in saying what part of the Bible Lawson was to read aloud, in order to relieve her. "It is," she said, "the third chapter of the Revelation."—"I did," says Lawson, "something scruple the reading it." He was loath to be engaged in an affair of that kind in which the Devil was an actor. At length he overcame his scruples, and the effect was decisive. "Before I had near read through the first verse, she opened her eyes, and was well." Bewildered and amazed, he went back to Parris's house, and they talked over the awful manifestations of Satan's power. The next morning, he attended the examination of Rebecca Nurse, retiring from it, at an early hour, to complete his preparation for the service that had been arranged for him that afternoon.
I say arranged, because the facts in this case prove long-concerted arrangement. He was to preach a sermon that day. Word must have been sent to him weeks before. After reaching the village, every hour had been occupied in exciting spectacles and engrossing experiences, filling his mind with the fanatical enthusiasm requisite to give force and fire to the delivery of the discourse. He could not possibly have written it after coming to the place. He must have brought it in his pocket. It is a thoroughly elaborated and carefully constructed performance, requiring long and patient application to compose it, and exhausting all the resources of theological research and reference, and of artistic skill and finish. It is adapted to the details of an occasion which was prepared to meet it. Not only the sermon but the audience were the result of arrangement carefully made in the stages of preparation and in the elements comprised in it. The preceding steps had all been seasonably and appositely taken, so that, when the regular lecture afternoon came, Lawson would have his voluminous discourse ready, and a congregation be in waiting to hear it, with minds suitably wrought upon by the preceding incidents of the day, to be thoroughly and permanently impressed by it. The occasion had been heralded by a train of circumstances drawing everybody to the spot. The magistrates were already there, some of them by virtue of the necessity of official presence in the earlier part of the day, and others came in from the neighborhood; the ministers gathered from the towns in the vicinity; men and women came from all quarters, flocking along the highways and the by-ways, large numbers on horseback, and crowds on foot. Probably the village meeting-house, and the grounds around it, presented a spectacle such as never was exhibited elsewhere. Awe, dread, earnestness, a stern but wild fanaticism, were stamped on all countenances, and stirred the heaving multitude to its depths, and in all its movements and utterances. It is impossible to imagine a combination of circumstances that could give greater advantage and power to a speaker, and Lawson was equal to the situation. No discourse was ever more equal, or better adapted, to its occasion. It was irresistible in its power, and carried the public mind as by storm.
The text is Zechariah, iii. 2: "And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan! even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" After an allusion to the rebellion of Satan, and his fall from heaven with his "accursed legions," and after representing them as filled "with envy and malice against all mankind," seeking "by all ways and means to work their ruin and destruction for ever, opposing to the utmost all persons and things appointed by the Lord Jesus Christ as means or instruments of their comfort here or salvation hereafter," he proceeds, in the manner of those days, to open his text and spread out his subject, all along exhibiting great ability, skill, and power, showing learning in his illustrations, drawing aptly and abundantly from the Scriptures, and, at the right points, rising to high strains of eloquence in diction and imagery.
He describes, at great length and with abundant instances ingeniously selected from sacred and profane literature, the marvellous power with which Satan is enabled to operate upon mankind. He says,—
"He is a spirit, and hence strikes at the spiritual part, the most excellent (constituent) part of man. Primarily disturbing and interrupting the animal and vital spirits, he maliciously operates upon the more common powers of the soul by strange and frightful representations to the fancy or imagination; and, by violent tortures of the body, often threatening to extinguish life, as hath been observed in those that are afflicted amongst us. And not only so, but he vents his malice in diabolical operations on the more sublime and distinguishing faculties of the rational soul, raising mists of darkness and ignorance in the understanding.... Sometimes he brings distress upon the bodies of men, by malignant operations in, and diabolical impressions on, the spirituous principle or vehicle of life and motion.... There are certainly some lower operations of Satan (whereof there are sundry examples among us), which the bodies and souls of men and women are liable unto. And whosoever hath carefully observed those things must needs be convinced, that the motions of the persons afflicted, both as to the manner and as to the violence of them, are the mere effects of diabolical malice and operations, and that it cannot rationally be imagined to proceed from any other cause whatever.... Satan exerts his malice mediately by employing some of mankind and other creatures, and he frequently useth other persons or things, that his designs may be the more undiscernible. Thus he used the serpent in the first temptation (Gen. iii. 1). Hence he contracts and indents with witches and wizards, that they shall be the instruments by whom he may more secretly affect and afflict the bodies and minds of others; and, if he can prevail upon those that make a visible profession, it may be the better covert unto his diabolical enterprise, and may the more readily pervert others to consenting unto his subjection. So far as we can look into those hellish mysteries, and guess at the administration of that kingdom of darkness, we may learn that witches make witches by persuading one the other to subscribe to a book or articles, &c.; and the Devil, having them in his subjection, by their consent, he will use their bodies and minds, shapes and representations, to affright and afflict others at his pleasure, for the propagation of his infernal kingdom, and accomplishing his devised mischiefs to the souls, bodies, and lives of the children of men, yea, and of the children of God too, so far as permitted and is possible.... He insinuates into the society of the adopted children of God, in their most solemn approaches to him, in sacred ordinances, endeavoring to look so like the true saints and ministers of Christ, that, if it were possible, he would deceive the very elect (Matt. xxiv. 24) by his subtilty: for it is certain he never works more like the Prince of darkness than when he looks most like an angel of light; and, when he most pretends to holiness, he then doth most secretly, and by consequence most surely, undermine it, and those that most excel in the exercise thereof."
The following is a specimen of the style in which he stirred up the people:—
"The application of this doctrine to ourselves remains now to be attended. Let it be for solemn warning and awakening to all of us that are before the Lord at this time, and to all others of this whole people, who shall come to the knowledge of these direful operations of Satan, which the holy God hath permitted in the midst of us.