the Trials at
Salem. It is fully admitted that he did not personally attend any of
them. His averment to this effect does not allow the supposition that he
could have deceived himself, on such a point. In his letter to Richards,
as has been seen, he expressed his great disappointment in not being
well enough to accompany him to this first Session of the Special Court;
and the tenor of the passage proves that he had fully expected and
designed to be present, at the trials, generally. Whether the same
bodily indisposition continued to forbid his attendance at its
successive adjournments, we cannot obtain information.

The first point of connection I can find between him and the trials, is
brought to view in a meeting of certain Ministers, after executions had
taken place, and while trials were pending.

Increase Mather, in his _Cases of Conscience_, has the following: "As
for the judgment of the Elders in New England, so far as I can learn,
they do generally concur with Mr. Perkins and Mr. Bernard. This I know,
that, at a meeting of Ministers at Cambridge, August 1, 1692, where were
present seven Elders, besides the President of the College, the question
then discoursed on, was, whether the Devil may not sometimes have a
permission to represent an innocent person as tormenting such as are
under diabolical molestations? The answer, which they all concurred in,
was in these words, viz. 'That the Devil may sometimes have a permission
to represent an innocent person as tormenting such as are under
diabolical molestations; but that such things are rare and
extraordinary, especially when such matters come before civil
judicatures'; and that some of the most eminent Ministers of the land,
who were not at that meeting, are of the same judgment, I am assured.
And I am also sure that, in cases of this nature, the Priest's lips
should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth.
_Mal._, 2, 7."

What was meant by the quotation from Malachi is left to conjecture. It
looks like the notion I have supposed Cotton Mather to have, more or
less, cherished, at different times--to have such cases committed to the
confidential custody and management of one or more Ministers. Whether
Cotton Mather, as well as his father, was at this meeting, is not
stated. The expressions "rare and extraordinary" and "sometimes have a
permission," and the general style of the language, are like his. At any
rate, in referring to the meeting, in