this direction to the
preaching and literature of the times, these two active, zealous,
learned, and able Divines, Increase and Cotton Mather, considering the
influence they naturally were able to exercise, are, particularly the
latter, justly chargeable with, and may be said to have brought about,
the extraordinary outbreaks of credulous fanaticism, exhibited in the
cases of the Goodwin family and of "the afflicted children," at Salem
Village. Robert Calef, writing to the Ministers of the country, March
18, 1694, says: "I having had, not only occasion, but renewed
provocation, to take a view of the mysterious doctrines, which have of
late been so much contested among us, could not meet with any that had
spoken more, or more plainly, the sense of those doctrines" [_relating
to the Witchcraft_] "than the Reverend Mr. Cotton Mather, but how
clearly and consistent, either with himself or the truth, I meddle not
now to say, but cannot but suppose his strenuous and zealous asserting
his opinions has been one cause of the dismal convulsions, we have here
lately fallen into."--_More Wonders of the Invisible World_, by Robert
Calef, Merchant of Boston, in New England. Edit. London, 1700, p. 33.

The papers that remain, connected with the Witchcraft Examinations and
Trials, at Salem, show the extent to which currency had been given, in
the popular mind, to such marvelous and prodigious things as the Mathers
had been so long endeavoring to collect and circulate; particularly in
the interior, rural settlements. The solemn solitudes of the woods were
filled with ghosts, hobgoblins, spectres, evil spirits, and the
infernal Prince of them all. Every pathway was infested with their
flitting shapes and footprints; and around every hearth-stone,
shuddering circles, drawing closer together as the darkness of night
thickened and their imaginations became more awed and frightened,
listened to tales of diabolical operations: the same effects, in
somewhat different forms, pervaded the seaboard settlements and larger
towns.

Besides such frightful fancies, other most unhappy influences flowed
from the prevalence of the style of literature which the Mathers brought
into vogue. Suspicions and accusations of witchcraft were everywhere
prevalent; any unusual calamity or misadventure; every instance of real
or affected singularity of deportment or behavior--and, in that
condition of perverted and distempered public opinion, there would be
many s