ed unto me a black puppy,
somewhat bigger than the first, but as black as a coal. Its motions were
quicker than those of my axe; it flew at my belly, and away; then at my
throat; so, over my shoulder one way, and then over my shoulder another
way. My heart now began to fail me, and I thought the dog would have
torn my throat out; but I recovered myself and called upon God in my
distress; and, naming the name of Jesus Christ, it vanished away at
once."

Charles Stevens tried to argue with Bly that he had had an attack of
blind staggers, and that the dog was only an optical delusion; but he
could in no way convince him that it was not a reality, and that he was
not bewitched.

According to Mr. Bancroft, New England, like Canaan, had been settled by
fugitives. Like the Jews, they had fled to a wilderness. Like the Jews,
they had looked to heaven for a light to lead them on. Like the Jews,
they had heathen for their foes, and they derived their highest
legislation from the Jewish code. Cotton Mather said, "New England being
a country whose interests are remarkably inwrapped in ecclesiastical
circumstances, ministers ought to concern themselves in politics."
Cotton Mather and Mr. Parris did concern themselves in politics, and the
latter, being unscrupulous and ambitious as well as fanatical, caused
hundreds of unfortunate people to mourn.

The circle of children who had been meeting at the house of Mr. Parris
began to perform wonders. In the dull life of the country, the
excitement of the proceedings of the "circle" was welcome, no doubt, and
it was always on the increase. The human mind requires amusement, as the
human body requires food, exercise and rest, and when healthful and
innocent amusements are denied, resort is had to the low and vicious.
Mr. Parris, who preached sermons against the evils of the theatre and
excommunicated the child of an actor, fostered in his own house an
amusement as diabolical and dangerous as has ever been known. Results of
that circle were wonderful. Whatever trickery there might be--and, no
doubt, there was plenty; whatever excitement to hysteria; whatever
actual sharpening of common faculties, it is clear that there was more;
and those who have given due and dispassionate attention to the process
of mesmerism and its effects can have no difficulty in understanding the
reports handed down of what these young creatures did and said and saw,
under peculiar conditions of the nervous system.