fines of the spiritual
world as to be alternately visited by angels and devils. Indeed, what
tales of the supernatural Mather relates, what a juxtaposition of saints
and demons! Of course, there was a foundation to build upon,--had not
Mather himself in his family for more than a year a possessed girl,
whose familiar haunted the house and made it ring at times like a
bedlam? It was a peculiar characteristic in this chapter of _diablerie_,
that when the Scriptures were being read, or prayers attended, the
spasms became terrific; but when any ungodly book was substituted in
place of the Bible, there was an immediate relief.

The age was one of wonders, and Mather devotes an entire book to what he
calls Thaumaturgia. Many of its statements are bold impositions on the
reader's credulity; but there was much which, in those days of
ignorance, must have seemed to Mather to be undeniable phenomena of a
mysterious nature. After the colony had escaped many minor dangers, a
new ordeal of suffering awaited it in a faith in sorcery, resulting in
the horrible episode of Salem witchcraft, which may be considered the
darkest stain upon the age. The death-beds and parting scenes in such a
community were cherished features in domestic history, and almost every
cottage could boast its Euthanasy. Ministering angels not only hovered
over the couch, but touched their harps in melodies, whose music
sometimes reached the human ear. Youth tender and inexperienced claimed
a share in these triumphs, and Nathanael Mather, though but seventeen,
expires in all the maturity of a saintly old age.

Coming down to the survivors of the first emigration, we find them
lingering amid the respect and veneration of the community, and their
graves were deemed worthy of patriarchal honor. After their departure
the ministry seems to have lost tone and fervor. The union of church and
state swept them into secularities, and thus impaired their strength. So
great was the decline, that by the close of the first century, formality
chilled the churches, and the people bewailed their coldness, while the
aged wept at the remembrance of by-gone days. Cotton Mather had
prophesied of a coming time when churches would have to be gathered _out
of the churches_ in the colony. The cry of the saints was 'Return, how
long, O Lord, and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.' Some of
the more hopeful maintained that the midnight only heralded an
approaching dawn. Two ministe