d in such eligible type and so
readable a form, as to commend it to favorable notice.

It may be safely said that few publications have produced more immediate
or more lasting effects. It killed off the whole business of Margaret
Rule. Mather abandoned it altogether. In 1694, he said "the forgetting
thereof would neither be pleasing to God nor useful to men." Before
Calef had done with him, he had dropped it forever.

Calef's book put a stop to all such things, in New and Old England. It
struck a blow at the whole system of popular superstition, relating to
the diabolical world, under which it reels to this day. It drove the
Devil out of the preaching, the literature, and the popular sentiments
of the world. The traces of his footsteps, as controlling the affairs of
men and interfering with the Providence of God, are only found in the
dark recesses of ignorance, the vulgar profanities of the low, and a few
flash expressions and thoughtless forms of speech.

No one can appreciate the value of his service. If this one brave man
had not squarely and defiantly met the follies and madness, the
priestcraft and fanaticism, of his day; if they had been allowed to
continue to sway Courts and Juries; if the pulpit and the press had
continued to throw combustibles through society, and, in every way,
inflame the public imaginations and passions, what limit can be assigned
to the disastrous consequences?

Boston Merchants glory in the names, on their proud roll of public
benefactors, of men whose wisdom, patriotism, and munificence have
upheld, adorned, and blessed society; but there is no one of their
number who encountered more danger, showed more moral and intellectual
prowess, or rendered more noble service to his fellow citizens and
fellow men, every where, than ROBERT CALEF.

I again ask attention to the language used in the _North American
Review_, for April, 1869. "These views, respecting Mr. Mather's
connection with the Salem trials, are to be found IN NO PUBLICATION OF A
DATE PRIOR TO 1831, when Mr. Upham's _Lectures_ were published."

Great as may be the power of critical journals, they cannot strike into
non-existence, the recorded and printed sentiments of Brattle, the
Hutchinsons, Neal, Watts, Bentley, Eliot, Quincy, and Calef.

XX.

MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS. CONCLUSION.

There are one or two minor points, where the Reviewer finds occasion to
indulge in his peculiar vein of criticism on my book, which it