hat he hoped and believed to conquer.
For this reason, he did not advise Goodwin to go to the law. For this
reason, he labored in the distressed household in exercises of prayer,
and took the eldest child into his own family, so as to bring the
battery of prayer, with a continuous bombardment, upon the Devil by whom
she was possessed. For this reason, he persisted in praying in the cell
of the old Irish woman, much against her will, for she was a stubborn
Catholic. Of course, he could not pray _with_ her, for he had no doubt
she was a confederate of the Devil; and she had no disposition to join
in prayer with one whom, as a heretic, she regarded in no better light;
but still he would pray, for which he apologized, when referring to the
matter, afterward.

Cotton Mather was always a man of prayer. For this, he deserves to be
honored. Prayer, when offered in the spirit, and in accordance with the
example, of the Saviour--"not my will but thine be done," "Your Father
knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him--" is the noblest
exercise and attitude of the soul. It lifts it to the highest level to
which our faculties can rise. It

"opens heaven; lets down a stream
Of glory on the consecrated hour
Of man, in audience with the Deity."

It was the misfortune of Cotton Mather, that an original infirmity of
judgment, which all the influences of his life and peculiarities of his
mental character and habits tended to exaggerate, led him to pervert the
use and operation of prayer, until it became a mere implement, or
device, to compass some personal end; to carry a point in which he was
interested, whether relating to private and domestic affairs, or to
movements in academical, political, or ecclesiastical spheres. While
according to him entire sincerity in his devotional exercises, and, I
trust, truly revering the character and nature of such expressions of
devout sensibility and aspirations to divine communion, it is quite
apparent that they were practiced by him, in modes and to an extent that
cannot be commended, leading to much self-delusion and to extravagances
near akin to distraction of judgment, and a disordered mental and moral
frame. He would abstain from food--on one occasion, it is said, for
three days together--and spend the time, as he expresses it "in knocking
at the door of heaven." Leaving his bed at the dead hours of the night,
and retiring to his study, he would cast himself on