velous stories as could be raked up. In the eighth volume of the
Fourth Series of the _Collections of the Massachusetts Historical
Society_, consisting of _The Mather Papers_, the responses of several of
his correspondents may be seen. [_Pp. 285, 360, 361, 367, 466, 475, 555,
612._] He pursued this business with an industrious and pertinacious
zeal, which nothing could slacken. After the rest of the world had been
shocked out of such mischievous nonsense, by the horrid results at
Salem, on the fifth of March, 1694, as President of Harvard College, he
issued a Circular to "The Reverend Ministers of the Gospel, in the
several Churches in New England," signed by himself and seven others,
members of the Corporation of that institution, urging it, as the
special duty of Ministers of the Gospel, to obtain and preserve
knowledge of notable occurrences, described under the general head of
"_Remarkables_," and classified as follows:

"The things to be esteemed memorable are, especially, all unusual
accidents, in the heaven, or earth, or water; all wonderful deliverances
of the distressed; mercies to the godly; judgments to the wicked; and
more glorious fulfilments of either the promises or the threatenings, in
the Scriptures of truth; with apparitions, possessions, inchantments,
and all extraordinary things wherein the existence and agency of the
invisible world is more sensibly demonstrated."--_Magnalia Christi
Americana._ Edit. London, 1702. Book VI., p. 1.

All communications, in answer to this missive were to be addressed to
the "President and Fellows" of Harvard College.

The first article is as follows: "To observe and record the more
illustrious discoveries of the Divine Providence, in the government of
the world, is a design so holy, so useful, so justly approved, that the
too general neglect of it in the Churches of God, is as justly to be
lamented." It is important to consider this language in connection with
that used by Cotton Mather, in opening the Sixth Book of the _Magnalia_:
"To regard the illustrious displays of that Providence, wherewith our
Lord Christ governs the world, is a work than which there is none more
needful or useful for a Christian; to record them is a work than which
none more proper for a Minister; and perhaps the great Governor of the
world will ordinarily do the most notable things for those who are most
ready to take a wise notice of what he does. Unaccountable, therefore,
and inexcusable, i