All pinked with varnished flowers of paradise.
Then clothe therewith mine understanding, will,
Affections, judgment, conscience, memory,
My words and actions, that their shine may fill
My ways with glory and Thee glorify.
Then mine apparel shall display before Ye
That I am clothed in holy robes for glory.
The Salem Witch Trials
During the seventeenth century, the superstitions of the Middle Ages had not yet relaxed their hold on men’s minds. People still believed in witches, even such a prominent clergyman as Cotton Mather. Hence, the events of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, are understandable, though they are nonetheless tragic. Early that year Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, who were nine and eleven years old, began having strange fits. Soon the mysterious disease spread to other girls in the village. When the local doctor, with his primitive knowledge of medicine, could not diagnose the trouble, he concluded that the devil must have bewitched the girls.
This diagnosis did not surprise anyone. The New England Puritans believed that the devil was always at work trying to tempt them from the path of righteousness. The parents of the children set about to discover the identity of the devil’s agent who was tormenting their girls. They questioned the children at length until the children really began to believe they were bewitched. Betty and Abigail then accused three women in the community of practicing witchcraft: Tituba, an illiterate slave from Barbados; Sarah Good, a sharp-tongued woman whom many in the village thought a nuisance; and Sarah Osburne, a backslider who did not go to church. No one was surprised when these women were named as witches. The town proceeded to examine the three on charges of practicing witchcraft. John Hathorne, ancestor of the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, conducted the hearing in the village church.