domestics, but who seem to have visited as friends and equals the other
girls in the village. In fact, it was not considered at that time
degrading in country neighborhoods--perhaps it is not so now in many
places--for the sons and daughters of men of respectability, and even of
property, to occupy the position of "help" or servant, eating at the
same table with, and being considered members of the family. In the case
before us, Mercy Lewis, Mary Warren and Sarah Churchhill seem to have
been among the most active and influential members of the party. Though
Abigail Williams, the minister's niece, and Ann Putnam, only eleven and
twelve years of age respectively, proved themselves capable of an
immense deal of mischief.

What the proceedings of these young women actually were, neither
tradition nor any records that I have met with, informs us; but the
result was even worse than could have been expected. By the close of the
winter they had managed to get their nervous systems, their
imaginations, and their minds and hearts, into a most dreadful
condition. If they had regularly sold themselves to be the servants of
the Evil One, as was then universally believed to be possible--and which
may really be possible, for anything I know to the contrary--their
condition could hardly have been worse than it was. They were liable to
sudden faintings of an unnatural character, to spasmodic movements and
jerkings of the head and limbs, to trances, to the seeing of witches and
devils, to deafness, to dumbness, to alarming outcries, to impudent and
lying speeches and statements, and to almost everything else that was
false, irregular and unnatural.

Some of these things were doubtless involuntary but the voluntary and
involuntary seemed to be so mingled in their behavior, that it was
difficult sometimes to determine which was one and which the other. The
moral sense seemed to have become confused, if not utterly lost for the
time.

They were full of tricks. They stuck concealed pins into their bodies,
and accused others of doing it--their contortions and trances were to a
great extent mere shams--they lied without scruple--they bore false
witness, and what in many, if not most, cases they knew was false
witness, against not only those to whom they bore ill will but against
the most virtuous and kindly women of the neighborhood; and if the
religious delusion had taken another shape, and we see no reason why it
should not have done so,