Mather's sermon, prefixed to this narrative, is a curious specimen of fanatical declamation. "Witchcraft," he exclaims, "is a renouncing of God, and the advancement of a filthy devil into the throne of the Most High. Witchcraft is a renouncing of Christ, and preferring the communion of a loathsome, lying devil before all the salvation of the Lord Redeemer. Witchcraft is a siding with hell against heaven and earth, and therefore a witch is not to be endured in either of them. 'Tis a capital crime, and is to be prosecuted as a species of devilism that would not only deprive God and Christ of all his honor, but also plunder man of all his comfort. Nothing too vile can be said of, nothing too hard can be done to, such a horrible iniquity as witchcraft is!"
Such declamations from such a source, giving voice and authority to the popular superstition, prepared the way for the tragedy that followed. The suggestion, however, that Cotton Mather, for purposes of his own, deliberately got up this witchcraft delusion, and forced it upon a doubtful and hesitating people, is utterly absurd. And so is another suggestion, a striking exhibition of partisan extravagance, that because the case of the four Boston children happened during the government of Andros, therefore the responsibility of that affair rests on him, and not on the people of Massachusetts. The Irish woman was tried under a Massachusetts law, and convicted by a Massachusetts jury; and, had Andros interfered to save her life, to the other charges against him would doubtless have been added that of friendship for witches.
Cotton Mather seems to have acted, in a degree, the part of a demagogue. Yet he is not to be classed with those tricky and dishonest men, so common in our times, who play upon popular prejudices which they do not share, in the expectation of being elevated to honors and office. Mather's position, convictions, and temperament alike called him to serve on this occasion as the organ, exponent, and stimulator of the popular faith.
The bewitched girl, as she ceased to be an object of popular attention, seems to have returned to her former behavior. But the seed had been sown on fruitful ground. After an interval of nearly four years, three young girls in the family of Parris, minister of Salem village, now Danvers, began to exhibit similar pranks. As in the Boston case, a physician pronounced them bewitched, and Tituba, an old Indian woman, the servant of Parris, who undertook, by some vulgar rites, to discover the witch, was rewarded by the girls with the accusation of being herself the cause of their sufferings. The neighboring ministers assembled at the house of Parris for fasting and prayer. The village fasted; and presently a general fast was ordered throughout the colony. The "bewitched children," thus rendered objects of universal sympathy and attention, did not long want imitators. Several other girls and two or three women of the neighborhood began to be afflicted in the same way, as did also John, the Indian husband of Tituba, warned, it would seem, by the fate of his wife.
Parris took a very active part in discovering the witches; so did Noyes, minister of Salem, described as "a learned, a charitable, and a good man." A town committee was soon formed for the detection of the witches. Two of the magistrates, resident at Salem, entered with great zeal into the matter. The accusations, confined at first to Tituba and two other friendless women, one crazed, the other bedrid, presently included two female members of Parris' church, in which, as in so many other churches, there had been some sharp dissensions. The next Sunday after this accusation Parris preached from the verse, "Have I not chosen you twelve, and one is a devil?" At the announcement of this text the sister of one of the accused women rose and left the meeting-house. She, too, was accused immediately after, and the same fate soon overtook all who showed the least disposition to resist the prevailing delusion.
The matter had now assumed so much importance that the Deputy-governor—for the provisional government was still in operation—proceeded to Salem village, with five other magistrates, and held a court in the meeting-house. A great crowd was present. Parris acted at once as clerk and accuser, producing the witnesses, and taking down the testimony. The accused were held with their arms extended and hands open, lest by the least motion of their fingers they might inflict torments on their victims, who sometimes affected to be struck dumb, and at others to be knocked down by the mere glance of an eye. They were haunted, they said, by the spectres of the accused, who tendered them a book, and solicited them to subscribe a league with the devil; and when they refused, would bite, pinch, scratch, choke, burn, twist, prick, pull, and otherwise torment them. At the mere sight of the accused brought into court, "the afflicted" would seem to be seized with a fit of these torments, from which, however, they experienced instant relief when the accused were compelled to touch them—infallible proof to the minds of the gaping assembly that these apparent sufferings were real and the accusations true. The theory was that the touch conveyed back into the witch the malignant humors shot forth from her eyes; and learned references were even made to Descartes, of whose new philosophy some rumors had reached New England, in support of this theory.
In the examinations at Salem village meeting-house some very extraordinary scenes occurred. "Look there!" cried one of the afflicted; "there is Goody Procter on the beam!" This Goody Procter's husband, notwithstanding the accusation against her, still took her side, and had attended her to the court; in consequence of which act of fidelity some of "the afflicted" began now to cry out that he too was a wizard. At the exclamation above cited, "many, if not all, the bewitched had grievous fits."
Question by the Court: "Ann Putnam, who hurts you?"
Answer: "Goodman Procter, and his wife, too."
Then some of the afflicted cry out, "There is Procter going to take up Mrs.
Pope's feet!" and "immediately her feet are taken up."