Whereto I reply.... First—that there has been hitherto throughout all ages and among every people, and is now a general, if not a universal, belief in witchcraft and so forth. Now if such universality of belief respecting the appearance of departed souls after death, has been, as it certainly has, a great argument for the immortality of the soul with such as never heard of the Scriptures of Truth, I would ask why a like universality of belief respecting witchcraft and sorcery should be thought of no value, as an argument? Every where the multitude believe in witchcraft or in that which is of a piece with it. Spirits and fairies, goblins and wizards, prophets and witches, astrologers and soothsayers are found mixed up with the traditionary love and the religious faith of every people on earth, savage and civilized—(so far as we know, I should say);—with that of people who inhabit the isles of the sea, afar and apart from each other and from all the rest of the world. I speak advisedly. They believe in spirits, and they believe in a future state—in sorcery and immortality. The wild Irish have what they call their banshees, and the Scotch their second-sight, and the French their loup-garoux, or men turned into wolves—and so also have the Irish; and a part of our jocular superstition is the posterity of that which existed among the terrible Goths. Maria—a word that we hear from the lips of the idle and profane, before they have got reconciled to the wholesome severity of our law, was in old Runic a goblin that seized upon the sleeper and took away all power of motion. Old Nicka too—he that we are in the habit of alluding to, in a grave way, as Old Nick, was a spright who used to strangle such as fell into the water. Bo—was a fierce Gothic captain, the warlike son of Odin, whose name was made use of in battle to scare a surprised enemy. Every where indeed, and with every people, earth sea and air have been crowded with specters, and the overpeopled sky with mighty shadows—I do not know a——
Here the great black horse which Burroughs had left underneath a tree, trotted up to the very door, and stood still, with the reigns afloat upon his neck, and thrust his head in over the heads of the people, who gave way on every side, as he struck his iron hoofs on the step, and for a second or two there was a dead quiet over the whole house. The speaker stopped and appeared astonished, for the eyes of the animal in the strong light of the torches, were like two balls of fire, and his loose mane was blowing forward in the draught of the door, so as actually to sound aloud.
Why do you stop—what are you afraid of, Doctor Mather? Not afraid of old Pompey are you?
Hadn’t you better tie him up? asked a judge.
No—I have something else to do, but I desire that somebody at the door will. But nobody would go near the creature.
—History abounds with proof, I say, respecting witchcraft and sorcery, witches and wizards, magic, spells and wicked power. If we put all trust in the records of history for one purpose, why not for another? If a witness is worthy of belief in one thing—why is he not another? If we find no treachery nor falsehood in a writer; if we meet with nothing but confirmation of what he says, when we refer to other writers of the same people and age, why disbelieve him when he speaks of that which, being new to our experience, we cannot be able to judge of? Able and pious men should be trusted, whatever they may say, so long as they are not contradicted by other able and pious men—
We are to believe not only in witches then, but in fairies and loups-garoux—
Be quiet Sir—
Softly judge.... And we are to believe that he who in the course of a tale about the ordinary affairs of ordinary life—
Have done Sir.