CHAPTER TENTH.
'It is good to see a little light in these dark days,' said Lyford, addressing Miss Elliott on their return from church. 'Mr. Willard has acted the hero and the christian.'
'He has indeed,' said Margaret; 'I hope his counsels will be regarded; for I am confident he has given them at the risk of his life.'
'I never before heard a sermon,' said Lyford, 'which contained so much sound mental philosophy. If feeling and fanaticism condemn it, reason and common sense will approve. But he who has most of the former, and least of the latter, is counted the wisest man in these days.'
'Yet these are times,' said Margaret, 'in which the truly wise man may add vastly to his stock of wisdom. It is interesting after all to trace the windings and workings of this fanaticism, especially when it acts upon such minds as Cotton Mather's. This man is a perfect paradox to me. His mind is original and bold, yet his language is often so puerile as to disgrace his intellect. His manners and conversation are pleasing and often fascinating; he is beyond all his compeers in industry and intelligence, yet his pedantry and superstition are intolerable. I have a great desire to hear him preach this afternoon. Miss Graham also wishes to go; and as the occasion is so remarkable, I think we shall be justified in leaving our own church. If you and Mr. Strale will accompany us, your curiosity at least will be gratified, and we hope some greater good may be the result.'
Walter and Lyford readily consented, and when the interval of public worship had elapsed, the party went to the North Church, where the services commenced at two o'clock. An immense congregation had assembled, for it was understood Mr. Mather would defend the popular theories, and on such an occasion no one could be listened to with more interest and attention. After the preliminary exercises by Dr. Mather, which were exceedingly interesting, and a psalm of nearly the same character as those sung at the South Church in the morning, the text was announced by Cotton Mather from Isaiah xxviii., 15: 'For your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand. When the overflowing scourge shall pass by, ye shall be trodden down by it.'
The great object of this discourse was to support the position that Satan has confederates among men, and that some of these individuals are parties to a covenant or agreement, in virtue of which they are regularly enlisted in his service, and empowered to act in his behalf.
The nature and provisions of this contract, he alleged, were in general uniform, though in some cases slight variations were made, and now and then special powers were conferred. The confessions of witches, and the concurring testimony of the Bible, furnished an amount of proof on this subject, which, however remarkable and opposed to the usual course of events, could not be rejected without incurring the displeasure of God, and subjecting the land to still greater encroachments from the powers of darkness. The providence of God had unfolded a variety of facts from which we were enabled to state the general terms and conditions on which the confederacy was founded, and he felt it due to the occasion and to his people to make known its principal features, in the belief that it might induce his hearers to watch the first approaches of Satan, and shun every possible temptation.
To the mind, in its common apprehensions, he said the influence of Satan was only perceived in the general forms of temptation and suggestion; but in proportion as it yielded its consent to sin, in these days of Satan's peculiar power, its perceptions of the invisible world became enlarged and distinct, and the advantages and pleasure of sin were greatly magnified, while its dreadful consequences were thrown entirely in the back ground, and the mind was wholly occupied in grasping at the luminous and beautiful forms which were made to pass over the imagination. In this state of feeling the suggestions of Satan became more rapid and distinct, until they were imbodied in a regular system. At this stage of the transaction, Satan appears in a visible form, adapted to the temper and feelings of his victim, doing no violence to his natural taste, but assuming an air of dignity and authority, blended with seeming kindness, and proffers his terms of treaty on a scroll, in the form of interrogatory, in substance as follows: