this
sense, may be said to have originated, the awful superstitions long
prevalent in the old world and the new, and reaching a final catastrophe
in 1692; and among these leading minds, aggravating and intensifying, by
their writings, this most baleful form of the superstition of the age,
Increase and Cotton Mather stand most conspicuous.

This opinion was entertained, at the time, by impartial observers.
Francis Hutchinson, D.D., "Chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty, and
Minister of St. James's Parish, in St. Edmund's Bury," in the life-time
of both the Mathers, published, in London, an _Historical Essay
concerning Witchcraft_, dedicated to the "Lord Chief-justice of England,
the Lord Chief-justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of
Exchequer." In a Chapter on _The Witchcraft in Salem, Boston, and
Andover, in New England_, he attributes it, as will be seen in the
course of this article, to the influence of the writings of the Mathers.

In the Preface to the London edition of Cotton Mather's _Memorable
Providences_, written by Richard Baxter, in 1690, he ascribes this same
prominence to the works of the Mathers. While expressing the great value
he attached to writings about Witchcraft, and the importance, in his
view, of that department of literature which relates stories about
diabolical agency, possessions, apparitions, and the like, he says, "Mr.
Increase Mather hath already published many such histories of things
done in New England; and this great instance published by his son"--that
is, the account of the Goodwin children--"cometh with such full
convincing evidence, that he must be a very obdurate Sadducee that will
not believe it. And his two Sermons, adjoined, are excellently fitted to
the subject and this blinded generation, and to the use of us all, that
are not past our warfare with Devils." One of the Sermons, which Baxter
commends, is on _The Power and Malice of Devils_, and opens with the
declaration, that "there is a combination of Devils, which our air is
filled withal:" the other is on _Witchcraft_. Both are replete with the
most exciting and vehement enforcements of the superstitions of that
age, relating to the Devil and his confederates.

My first position, then, in contravention of that taken by the Reviewer
in the _North American_, is that, by stimulating the Clergy over the
whole country, to collect and circulate all sorts of marvelous and
supposed preternatural occurrences, by giving