vindication." It is plain that the paragraph refers, not to
the _admission_ of "diabolical representations," but to the _manner_ in
which they are to be received, in the "management" of the trials, as
will more fully appear, as we proceed.

The suggestion, to reconcile Richards to the use of spectral evidence,
that something would "ordinarily" providentially turn up to rescue
innocent persons, against whom it was borne, was altogether delusive. It
was an opinion of the day, that one of the most signal marks of the
Devil's descent with power, would be the seduction, to his service, of
persons of the most eminent character, even, if possible, of the very
elect; and, hence, no amount of virtue or holiness of life or
conversation, could be urged in defence of any one. The records of the
world present no more conspicuous instances of Christian and saintlike
excellence than were exhibited by Rebecca Nurse and Elizabeth How; but
spectral testimony was allowed to destroy them. Indeed, it was
impossible for a Court to put any restrictions on this kind of evidence,
if once received. If the accusing girls exclaimed--all of them
concurring, at the moment, in the declaration and in its details--that
they saw, at that very instant, in the Court-room, before Judges and
Jury, the spectre of the Prisoner assailing one of their number, and
that one showing signs of suffering, what could be done to rebut their
testimony? The character of the accused was of no avail. An _alibi_
could not touch the case. The distance from the Prisoner to the party
professing to be tormented, was of no account. The whole proceeding was
on the assumption that, however remote the body of the Prisoner, his or
her spectre was committing the assault. No limitation of space or time
could be imposed on the spectral presence. "Good, plain, legal evidence"
was out of the question, where the Judges assumed, as Mather did, that
"the molestations" then suffered by the people of the neighbourhood,
were the work of Demons, and fully believed that the tortures and
convulsions of the accusers, before their eyes, were, as alleged, caused
by the spectres of the accused.

To cut the matter short. The considerations Mather presents of the
"inconvenience," as he calls it, of the spectral testimony, it might be
supposed, would have led him to counsel--not as he did, against making
"too great a progress" in its use--but its abandonment altogether. Why
did he not, as the Reviewer