residence in
the Massachusetts colony. He was a man of wealth, and owned plantations
at Nashaway, now Lancaster, and at Saco, in Maine. He was skilful in
mineralogy and metallurgy, and seems to have spent a good deal of money
in searching for mines. He is well known as the author of the first
decided movement for liberty of conscience in Massachusetts, his name
standing at the head of the famous petition of 1646 for a modification
of the laws in respect to religious worship, and complaining in strong
terms of the disfranchisement of persons not members of the Church. A
tremendous excitement was produced by this remonstrance; clergy and
magistrates joined in denouncing it; Dr. Child and his associates were
arrested, tried for contempt of government, and heavily fined. The
Court, in passing sentence, assured the Doctor that his crime was only
equalled by that of Korah and his troop, who rebelled against Moses and
Aaron. He resolved to appeal to the Parliament of England, and made
arrangements for his departure, but was arrested, and ordered to be kept
a prisoner in his own house until the vessel in which he was to sail had
left Boston. He was afterwards imprisoned for a considerable length of
time, and on his release found means to return to England. The Doctor's
trunks were searched by the Puritan authorities while he was in prison;
but it does not appear that they detected the occult studies to which
lie was addicted, to which lucky circumstance it is doubtless owing that
the first champion of religious liberty in the New World was not hung
for a wizard.

Dr. Child was a graduate of the renowned University of Padua, and had
travelled extensively in the Old World. Probably, like Michael Scott,
he had:

"Learned the art of glammarye
In Padua, beyond the sea;"

for I find in the dedication of an English translation of a Continental
work on astrology and magic, printed in 1651 "at the sign of the Three
Bibles," that his "sublime hermeticall and theomagicall lore" is
compared to that of Hermes and Agrippa. He is complimented as a master
of the mysteries of Rome and Germany, and as one who had pursued his
investigations among the philosophers of the Old World and the Indians
of the New, "leaving no stone unturned, the turning whereof might
conduce to the discovery of what is occult."

There was still another member of the Friends' society in Vermont, of
the name of Austin, who, in a