his _Wonders of the Invisible
World_, he speaks of the Ministers present "as very pious and learned;"
says that they uttered the prevailing sense of others "eminently
cautious and judicious;" and declares that they "have both argument and
history to countenance them in it."

It is to be noticed, that this opinion of the Ministers, given on the
first of August, if it did not authorize the admission, without reserve
or limitation, of spectral evidence, in judicial proceedings, reduces
the objection to it to an almost inappreciable point.

Observe the date. Already six women, heads of families, many of them of
respectable positions in society, all in advanced life, one or two quite
aged, and two, at least, of the most eminent Christian character, had
suffered death, wholly from spectral evidence, that is, no other
testimony was brought against them, as all admit, that could, even then,
have convicted them. Twelve days had elapsed since five of them had been
executed; in four more days, six others were to be brought to trial,
among them the Rev. George Burroughs; and the Ministers pass a vote,
under the lead of Increase Mather, and with the express approval of
Cotton Mather, that there is very little danger of innocent people
suffering, in judicial proceedings, from spectral evidence.

Let us hear no more that the Clergy of New England accepted the
doctrines of those writers who had "declared against the admission of
spectral testimony;" that "the Magistrates rejected those doctrines;"
that "all the evils at Salem, grew out of the position taken by the
Magistrates;" and that "it had been well with the twenty victims at
Salem, if the Ministers of the Colony, instead of the Lawyers, had
determined their fate."

The Clergy of New England did, indeed, entertain great regard for the
authority of certain writers, who were considered as, more or less,
discrediting spectral evidence. The Mathers professed to concur with
them in that judgment; but the ground taken at the meeting on the first
of August, as above stated, was, it must be allowed, inconsistent with
it. The passages I have given, and shall give, from the writings of
Cotton Mather, will illustrate the elaborate ingenuity he displayed in
trying to reconcile a respect for the said writers with the admission of
that species of evidence, to an extent they were considered as
disallowing.

I am indebted to George H. Moore, LL.D., of New York city, for the
following import