COTTON MATHER (1663-1728) A tense system of any kind long adhered to rigorously is bound to produce abnormalities. Puritanism in the second and third generations in New England tended to degenerate into bigotry and gloom and a superstitious frame of mind that could accept even the demonology of the middle ages. The most notable prodigy of the system was Cotton Mather, son of Increase Mather, the president of Harvard College, and grandson of Richard of Bay Psalm Book fame. The precocity of this culmination of the Mather "dynasty," if we are to believe the traditions that have come down from his generation, was indeed amazing. He seems to have lisped Hebrew and Greek and Latin in his very cradle and he seems to have had no childhood. At fifteen he was graduated at Harvard with all the honors the college could bestow. Looked upon wherever he went, even from boyhood, with something akin to awe because of his erudition, he became intellectually vain and almost childishly fond of amazing his readers and hearers with specimens from the vastness of his learning. His reading was largely in the antique and like the English Burton, author of The Anatomy of Melancholy, he was fond of far-fetched and curious quotations and allusions which his retentive memory abundantly supplied. The biography of Mather centres about his work as a writer and his leadership as pastor for many years of the Old North Church of Boston. For a generation he was regarded as the religious dictator of New England. He was promiment in all her counsels; he preached to Boston congregations more than four hundred sermons a year; and his pen was incessant in its activity. He seems never in his whole life to have permitted an idle moment. There are manuscripts of his still unpublished the quantity of which almost exceeds belief. The number of his published works,-pamphlets, sermons, histories, and the like,-exceeded four hundred. Modern times, however, know him chiefly because of his part in the witchcraft tragedy at Salem. From the first he urged the extremest measures, and his position as he explained it with voice and pen, was always clear and always logical. To read his various tracts and books and chapters dealing with the matter is to be convinced of his honesty and at the same time of his truly mediæval narrowness. To him the devil and his agents were as objectively real as they were even to Luther, and he never wavered from his position. In later years other leaders, like Samuel Sewall, acknowledged they had been hasty and deluded, but Mather stood firm. His leading work, to which he gave the characteristic title Magnalia Christi Americana, is one of the most curious mélanges in all literature. It purports to be a history, but it is history written after the seventeenth century pattern rather than the twentieth. Its primary purpose was religious,-to show to New England the pit from which she had been digged and to exhort her to make herself worthy of her God-given past. It is a mosaic with little attempt at order; it is a miscellaneous assembling of various of his writings many of which had been previously published as separate works. From the standpoint of the modern historian who is scientific and accurate, it is a monstrosity. It swarms with errors, it presents often as undisputed fact mere hearsay and traditionary material, it passes swiftly over important events and dwells long upon wonders and strange answers given by children suspected of being bewitched, and instead of giving biographical details concerning the subject of a memoir it rambles on with elaborate anagrams and puns upon the name, as on the case of Mr. Partridge and President Oakes. His style for the most part was antique even in the day when it was written. He makes use often even of the Elizabethan device of euphuism, the most elaborate and artificial of all prose mannerisms, and was perhaps the last writer in English prominently to do so. His book, however, is not without value. Parts of it, like the Decennium Luctuosum, or The Sorrowful Decade, 1688-1698, republished as a part of Book Seven of the Magnalia, covers periods of which otherwise we should know little. And not everywhere is he elephantine in his literary tread. There are certain pages of his writings where for a moment he forgot his literary vanity and his pedantic devices and wrote straight on with a style that may be compared to its advantage even with the best English prose of his century. ENCHANTMENTS ENCOUNTERED [From Wonders of the Invisible World.] II. The New Englanders are a People of God settled in those, which were once the Devil's Territories; and it may easily be supposed that the Devil was exceedingly disturbed, when he perceived such 10 a people here accomplishing the Promise of old made unto our Blessed Jesus, That he should have the Utmost parts of the Earth for his Possession. There was not a greater uproar among the Ephe- 15 sians, when the Gospel was first brought among them, than there was among, The Powers of the Air (after whom these Ephesians walked) when first the Silver Trumpets of the Gospel here made the 20 Joyful Sound. The Devil thus Irritated, immediately try'd all sorts of methods to overturn this poor Plantation: and so much of the Church, as was Fled into this Wilderness, immediately found, The 25 Serpent cast out of his Mouth a Flood for the carrying of it away. I believe, that never were more Satanical Devices used for the unsetling of any People under the Sun, than what have been Em- 30 ploy'd for the Extirpation of the Vine which God has here Planted, Casting out the Heathen, and preparing a Room before it, and causing it to take deep Root, and fill the Land, so that it sent its 35 Boughs unto the Atlantic Sea Eastward, and its Branches unto the Connecticut River Westward, and the Hills were covered with the shadow thercof. But, All these Attempts of Hell, have hitherto been Abortive, many an Ebenezer has been Erected unto the Praise of God, by his Poor People here; and, Having obtained Help from God, we continue to this Day. Wherefore the Devil is now 45 making one Attempt more upon us; an Attempt more Difficult, more Surprizing, more snarl'd with unintelligible Circumstances than any that we have hitherto encountered; an Attempt so Critical, that 50 if we get well through, we shall soon enjoy Halcyon Days with all the Vultures of Hell Trodden under our Feet. He has wanted his Incarnate Legions to Persecute us, as the People of God have in the other Hemisphere been Persecuted: he has therefore drawn forth his 40 55 upon us. more Spiritual ones to make an Attacque We have been advised by some Credible Christians yet alive, that a Malefactor, accused of Witchcraft as 5 well as Murder, and Executed in this place more than Forty Years ago, did then give Notice of, An Horrible PLOT against the Country by WITCHCRAFT, and a Foundation of WITCHCRAFT then laid, which if it were not seasonably discovered, would probably Blow up, and pull down all the Churches in the Country. And we have now with Horror seen the Discovery of such a Witchcraft! An Army of Devils is horribly broke in upon the place which is the Center, and after a sort, the First-born of our English Settlements: and the Houses of the Good People there are fill'd with the doleful Shrieks of their Children and Servants, Tormented by Invisible Hands, with Tortures altogether preternatural. After the Mischiefs there Endeavoured, and since in part Conquered, the terrible Plague, of Evil Angels, hath made its progress into some other places, where other Persons have been in like manner Diabolically handled. These Our poor Afflicted Neighbours, quickly after they became Infected and Infested with these Daemons, arrive to a Capacity of Discerning those which they conceive the Shapes of their Troublers; and notwithstanding the Great and Just Suspicion, that the Daemons might Impose the Shapes of Innocent Persons in their Spectral Exhibitions upon the Sufferers, (which may perhaps prove no small part of the Witch-Plot in the issue) yet many of the Persons thus Represented, being Examined, several of them have been Convicted of a very Damnable Witchcraft; yea, more than One Twenty have Confessed, that they have Signed unto a Book, which the Devil show'd them, and Engaged in his Hellish Design of Bewitching, and Ruining our Land. We know not, at least I know not, how far the Delusions of Satan may be Interwoven into some Circumstances of the Confessions; but one would think, all the Rules of Understanding Humane Affairs are at an end, if after so many most Voluntary Harmonious Confessions, made by Intelligent Persons of ali Ages, in Sundry Towns, at several Times, we must not Believe the main strokes wherein If those Confessions all agree: especially III 20 would not afford Witches numerous to a Prodigy? Accordingly, The Kingdoms of Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, yea and England itself, as well as the Province of New-England, have had their storms of Witchcrafts breaking upon them, which have made most Lamentable Devastations: which also I wish, may be The Last. And it is not uneasie to be imagined, That God had not brought out all the Witchcrafts in many other Lands with such a speedy, dreadful, destroying Jealousie as burns forth upon such High Treasons committed here in A Land of Uprightness: Transgressors may more quickly here than elsewhere become a Prey to the Vengeance of Him, Who has Eyes like a Flame of Fire, and, who walks in the midst of the Golden Candlesticks. . . We are blessed with a GOVERNOUR, than whom no man can be more willing to serve Their Majesties, or this their Province: He is continually venturing his All to do it: and were not the Interests of his Prince dearer to him than his own, he could not but soon be weary of the Helm, whereat he sits. We are under the Influence of a LIEUTENANT GOVERNOUR, who not only by being admirably accomplished both with Naturai and Acquired Endowments, is fitted for the Service of Their Majesties, but also with an unspotted Fidelity applies himself to that Service. Our COUNCELLOURS are some of our most Eminent Persons, and as Loyal Subjects to the Crown, as hearty lovers of their Country. Our Constitution also is attended with singu40 lar Priviledges; all which Things are by the Devil exceedingly Envy'd unto And the Devil will doubtless take this occasion for the raising of such complaints and clamours, as may be of pernicious consequence unto some part of our present Settlement, if he can so far Impose. But that which most of all Threatens us, in our present Circumstances, is the Misunderstanding, and so the Animosity, whereinto the Witchcraft now Raging, has Enchanted us. The Embroiling, first, of our Spirits, and then of our Affairs, is evidently as considerable a Branch of the Hellish Intrigue which now vexes us as any one Thing whatsoever. The Devil has made us like a Troubled Sea, and the Mire and Mud begins now also to heave up apace. Doubtless, the thoughts of many will receive a great Scandal against NewEngland, from the number of Persons that have been Accused, or Suspected, 45 for Witchcraft, in this Country. But it were easie to offer many things, that may Answer and Abate the Scandal. If the Holy God should any where permit the Devils to hook two or three 50 wicked Scholars into Witchcraft and then by their Assistance to Range with their Poisonous Insinuations, among Ignorant, Envious, Discontented People, till they have cunningly decoy'd them 55 into some sudden Act whereby the Toyls of Hell shall be perhaps inextricably cast over them: what Country in the World |