Chapter C: W. Upham (9)

"The proceedings of the 11th and 12th of April produced a great effect in driving on the general infatuation.... 'Twas awful to see how the afflicted persons were agitated.... Those girls, by long practice in 'the circle,' and day by day before the astonished and wondering neighbors gathered to witness their distresses, and especially on the more public occasions of the examinations, had acquired consummate boldness and tact. In simulations of passions, sufferings, and physical affections; in sleight of hand, and the management of voice and feature and attitude, no necromancers have surpassed them. There has seldom been better acting in a theater than they displayed in the presence of the astonished and horror-stricken rulers, magistrates, ministers, judges, jurors, spectators, and prisoners. No one seems to have dreamed that their actings and sufferings could have been the result of cunning or imposture. Deodat Lawson was a man of talents, had seen much of the world, and was by no means a simpleton, recluse, or novice; but he was totally deluded by them. The prisoners, although conscious of their own innocence, were utterly confounded by the acting of the girls. The austere principles of that generation forbade with the utmost severity all theatrical shows and performances; but at Salem village and the old town, in the respective meeting-houses, and at Deacon Nathaniel Ingersoll's, some of the best playing ever got up in this country was practiced, and patronized for weeks and months at the very centre and heart of Puritanism, by 'the most straitest sect' of that solemn order of men. Pastors, deacons, church-members, doctors of divinity, college professors, officers of state, crowded, day after day, to behold feats which have never been surpassed on the boards of any theater; which rivaled the most memorable achievements of pantomimists, thaumaturgists, and stage-players, and made considerable approaches toward the best performances of ancient sorcerers and magicians, or modern jugglers and mesmerizers."

The brilliancy, fervor, and literary finish of that description of the public enthusiasm and bewilderment are truly worthy of admiration, while the picture is not, and probably could not be, overwrought. Still we must doubt the competency of the alleged authors of the excitement to perform the bewildering and frenzying acts ascribed to them.

We have heard from of old, and could quasi believe, that mountains in labor brought forth mice. But it is only rarely one has earnestly and fervently sought and striven to entice the reading public to admit conviction that a dozen _enceinte_ mice could enwomb and give birth to a vast and terrific volcano.

One must needs look in wondering astonishment upon that keenness of vision which, at the middle of the nineteenth century, penetrating through mold and debris which have, through a century and three fourths, been gathering over momentous events, sees clearly that they were the genuine offspring of youthful "cunning and imposture," even while the owner of such vision himself perceived that neither the learned, talented, and keen Deodat Lawson, nor any other one of all the many able and sagacious men who were lookers-on at the amazing feats while they were transpiring, _dreamed_ that the actings and sufferings could have been the results of cunning and imposture. The day of Lawson and his companion observers was too near the facts for any dreams about them. It required a peculiarly plastic modern brain, and the intervening lapse of eightscore years, for the generation and birth of such a _dream_. The reason of its non-appearance in 1692 is very plain. Known facts then left no vacancy in the brains of that day for storage of the fictions of dreamland.

We return to little Dorcas Good. The creed devil-ward had hoodwinked all eyes. All things were in a terrific and bewildering whirl. Calm reflection and deliberate reasoning upon anything new were impossible. If perchance a mind asked itself whether an infant was competent to bargain with the devil and thence become a witch, it had no time to respond to its own inquiry. In open court, mysterious bitings were perpetrated by the teeth of this little girl, because the marks fitted her set and none other. The marks were made by the accused girl's teeth. Ocular demonstration, therefore, was proving her to be the devil's instrument; for otherwise she could not invisibly bite, nor could her teeth be made to bite, those who were off beyond her reach.

Standing upon what we said in the last chapter relating to the passing of hurts through the spirit to its outer body, we hold that spirits may have so applied the spirit teeth of little Dorcas to the spirit limbs of the afflicted girls, as to have left the marks of her teeth upon their flesh.

Woefully did the creed of that time not only permit, but call for the arrest of that infantile girl, solely because, under the operation of natural laws of generation, she inherited properties or capabilities which rendered her, from the time when she was conceived, ever onward, very susceptible to psychological influences. The judges, observing what were but legitimate and necessary outworkings of her inborn properties, being ignorant of their true source and nature, deemed them such a crime that the court sent her to Boston jail a prisoner, there to keep company with the mother from whom her peculiar properties had been derived, by whose milk they had been nourished, and in whose magnetisms they had unfolded. The present century is learning facts which teach that inborn properties and susceptibilities, and not compacts with the devil, constitute _witches_--some of whom are very lovely. An infantile witch is no great marvel now. Such can be found in many a family, "through whose lips angels speak" to-day, as they did through Emanuel Swedenborg's when but a child, and who, born in January, 1688, was precisely a contemporary of Dorcas Good.

SARAH OSBURN

was companion prisoner of Sarah Good and Tituba on the memorable first week in March, 1692. Thirty years before, she had been married to Thomas Prince, and at the time of her arrest was wife of Alexander Osburn; consequently she was well advanced in years. She also had long been an invalid, confined during long periods to her bed. Her worldly circumstances were comfortable--she and her family were neither poor nor rich--were neither very low nor very high on the social scale. _But she had heard words coming forth from unseen lips._ And on February 25, her apparition appeared to and annoyed Ann Putnam. Nothing has been noticed in the records which indicates that Ann ever spoke of any perceptions by her inner senses prior to that date, or that any member of the circle, excepting Tituba, preceded Ann in having opened vision. The latter saw "the tall man, with white hair and serge coat," as early as January 15. But Tituba's voice, had she have spoken, would have been powerless. Ann's position in society was high; she belonged to a family of wealth, culture, influence, and high respectability. Her mystical words were potent. In four days subsequent to her first reported vision of apparitions, three women were under arrest for witchcraft, and Ann's father was one of the very efficient advocates of prosecutions for that crime. Feeble, "bed-ridden" Sarah Osburn, of whom Upham speaks as one whose "broken and disordered mind was essentially truthful and innocent," and whose residence was at least a mile and a half north from Mr. Parris's home, and quite distant east from Ann's, on a road not likely to be often traveled by her, was among the marked and blasted three. Why? None now, perhaps, can tell with certainty. Probabilities alone can be adduced. Our supposition is, that at the moment when Ann's keen and far-sweeping inner sight was opened, and spirit substance, instead of material light, became her medium of vision, the most brilliant objects to meet her gaze, in all the region far around, would be one or more of the mediumistically unfolded persons dwelling there. From those among that class whose systems were fountains of emanations which at the time impinged upon her sensibilities, and did not harmoniously coalesce with her elements, and therefore acted as quasi acids upon her alkalies, or as alkalies upon her acids, produced painful effervescences which might ensue naturally, apart from the aid of any manipulating intelligence; or, if some intelligent being were observant of the currents and conditions of spirit magnetisms or forces then, and disposed to either intensify, abate, or modify their natural action, he might do so, and also could manipulate them to furtherance of his own ends, whether beneficent or malignant. Then and there, even high benevolence in one whose vision swept the far future, might take such primal steps as short-sighted mortals must look upon as necessarily altogether harmful in both immediate and remote results.

Such natural laws as reign supreme in spirit-realms may have led to the selection of secluded, inoffensive, "essentially truthful, and innocent" Sarah Osburn, as one of the tormentors of the girls, who were either schooled in magic by their own elected study and practice of it, or were constitutionally fitted for fitful enfranchisement of their inner perceptive organs while yet dwellers in their mortal forms, and whose bodies could become tools for other minds to use. If she was simply the voluntary actor out of her own "cunning or imposture," little Ann Putnam, twelve years old, brightest among the bright, and member of one of the most intelligent and religious families of the Village, she also must have been herself a _devil_, and so devilishly a devil, that even Cloven-foot might feel it a duty to pass his scepter into her hands. But grant that she was a medium through whose form other minds and wills could act, as she in fact was, and then we can regard her physical form as simply an instrument through which an intelligence other than herself manifested action to human senses; and thus we can deem _her_ guiltless, whatever shall be our judgment of the intruding performer upon her "harp of a thousand strings."

Parts of the testimony in the case of Mrs. Osburn reveal her possession of mediumistic susceptibilities. As with Joan of Arc and many others, so with this woman; the inner ear could hear voices from some source impalpable by external senses.

"(It was said by some in the meeting-house that she had said that she would never be tied to that lying spirit any more.)

"_Q._ 'What lying spirit is this? Hath the devil ever deceived you and been false to you?'

"_A._ 'I do not know the _devil_. I never did see him.'

"_Q._ 'What lying spirit was it, then?'

"_A._ 'It was a _voice_ that I thought I heard.'

"_Q._ 'What did it propound to you?'

"_A_. 'That I should go no more to meeting. But I said I would; and did go the next Sabbath day.'"--_Woodward's Hist. Series_, No. I. p. 37.

Although the timid prisoner said only that she _thought_ she heard a voice, the reader will notice that she made no denial that she had previously said "that she would never be tied to that _lying spirit_ any more;" therefore by fair implication she conceded that she had once, if not many times, heard a voice which she had openly spoken of as having been that of a _lying spirit_; and also that she had more or less been instructed by and followed his, her, or its advice. The fact that she was enjoined not to go to meeting any more, argues nothing either against the spiritual source of the advice, or the good intent of whoever gave it. She had long been a sickly, bed-ridden woman; therefore such advice might have been given by any wise Christian physician. We are not concerned with either the moral or religious states of invisible actors and speakers, but are looking specially for some of the more distinct evidences that invisible intelligences of some quality enacted Salem witchcraft, and, therefore, looking for the peculiar properties of both the embodied persons through and those upon whom they directly acted.

Sarah Osburn, though a secluded, respectable, inoffensive woman well advanced in years, was an early victim before the sweeping blast that rushed over the Village. Too feeble to endure the hardship of prison life, she died in jail before the day for her trial. She who heard voices from out the realm of silence, possessed inner faculties in fit condition to permit effluxes that reached and annoyed the mediumistic children, who traced them back to her, and made statements which brought her under suspicion of being a covenanter with the devil. Such capabilities constituted her crime--her witchcraft--and incited a devil-fighting people to persecution which hastened her exit to the realm from which the advisory voices had come upon her ears.

MARTHA COREY.

Soon after the commencement of prosecutions, suspicion alighted on one of more refinement, intelligence, efficiency, godliness, and respectability than the females first arrested. Martha, wife of Giles Corey,--aged, prayerful, but bright; disbelieving in any witchcraft; doubting the existence of any witches; discountenancing searches for any,--said that the eyes of the magistrates were blinded, and that she could open them. She possessed spiritual and theological knowledge uncommon in her day and vicinity, and must have held beliefs and convictions derived from other sources than those at which her neighbors obtained their supplies. She was aloof from the prevalent delusion devil-ward.

Though a church member, a woman of prayer, of reputed, and doubtless of genuine, piety, Martha Corey was very early _sensed_ by the Anns Putnam, mother and daughter, as the source of emanations which tortured them. Therefore she must be a witch. Grounds for such conclusion were not necessarily fanciful and fallacious. When and where natural outworkings from mediumistic properties and conditions were mistaken for symptoms of witchcraft, Martha Corey might easily be convicted of diabolism. We credit the allegation of Ann Putnam the younger that she was annoyed and afflicted by Mrs. Corey even while the two were miles apart. But we decline to admit that Mrs. Corey necessarily or probably had any voluntary connection with the girl's sufferings. Either unintelligent natural forces attracted the woman's effluvia to Ann, or else Tituba's "tall man," or some other hidden intelligent being, formed connections and applied processes which brought elements of these two persons into conjunction, and thus produced in the girl intense physical disturbances and sufferings, and attendant liberation of her inner perceptive faculties.

Ann's uncle, Edward Putnam, together with Ezekiel Cheever, because of the girl's repeated outcries upon Mrs. Corey, only just one week after the sending of Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osburn to jail, concluded to make a call upon sister Corey, who was "in church covenant" with them, and learn from her own lips what she would say relative to the suspicions that had been raised concerning her.

These just and considerate men,--for they were such,--probably seeing the possibility that the child might be mistaken as to the person who was causing her to suffer, very properly called upon Ann when they were about to start on their way to the woman's residence, and asked the suffering girl to describe the dress Mrs. Corey was then wearing. Their obvious design was to test the accuracy of the child's perceptions. But that purpose was not accomplished. The child pleaded inability to see, and stated that blindness was put upon her just then _by the accused woman herself_. The sequel indicates that Mrs. Corey foresensed the visit she was about to receive, imbibed knowledge of the intended test, and of action to thwart its success. Though dwelling and being miles apart as physical persons, those two females may have then been practically together as spirits, and have mutually sensed the thoughts, acts, and conditions of each other as far as each avoided intentional concealment. All of Ann's statements may have been in strict accordance with facts actually witnessed and experienced by her inner self. There is no need to assume that she feigned or falsified at all, even if no invisible personal operators were concerned in what then transpired; and certainly not, if Tituba's "tall man" and his associates were then present and acting, as they may have been. Perhaps invisible actors, holding both of these impressible subjects under psychological control, either imparted to, or withheld from either of them, just such knowledge and perceptions as would further the purposes of the operators--which may have been either simply a manifestation of their own powers, or an intimation to the adroit men that they were undertaking to deal with something which it would not be easy to outwit or thwart. Also other and very different purposes may have actuated them.

Some spirits, at some times, have ability, through some mortal lips, to express their thoughts to the embodied, and to wreathe their own emotions over faces they borrow, even while the spirit, the selfhood, of the mortal form usurped is conscious of what is being done through it. Remember that the form of the conscious Agassiz was, against his own will, made to obey Townshend's mind. Perhaps Madam Corey's expressions of thoughts and emotions were sometimes prompted, and at other times modified by an unseen intelligence temporarily cohabiting with her own.

When the two brethren of the church, going forth on their solemn, self-imposed mission, had arrived at her home, Madam Corey welcomed them _with a smile_; notwithstanding she possessed and expressed very exact knowledge of the ominous nature and the purpose of their call. Her saluting words were, "I know what you are come for. You are come to talk with me about being a witch; but I am none. I cannot help other people's talking of me." This probably had reference to Ann Putnam's saying that she was afflicted by this speaker. She soon asked the men whether Ann, whose accusations had prompted their call, "had described the clothes she then wore." Learning that her dress had not been described, "a smile came over her face." Somebody's consciousness of power, issuing from her form, to obscure the child's vision, probably expressed itself in that smile; and the reflection that the child was operated upon by forces within or action through Mrs. Corey's own form, and therefore not necessarily by the devil, and inference thence that the girl was not necessarily bewitched, was followed by her saying, "she did not think there were any witches." She knew enough of spiritual things to enable her to observe the broad distinction, overlooked by her cotemporaries, that may exist between some spirits and the devil; and also between persons whose inner senses were cognizant of spirit presence and action as naturally as the outer eye was of the sunlight, between these and such other human beings, could there be any such, and she thought there could not, who made a covenant with the devil, which covenant was a necessary preliminary to being a witch. "She," very reasonably, "did not think there were any" such "witches;" and only _such_ were sought for by her visitors and the startled public.

This woman was intelligent, courteous, and devout--was capable of understanding that _witch_, as then defined, necessarily meant a person who had voluntarily entered into a distinct compact with a factitious devil. Her _sensings_ in spirit spheres found no native-born monstrosity there, and she could say in good conscience that she did not believe there existed any such witches as her visitors and fellow church members were on the hunt for. At the same time she may have known, probably did know, that her own spirit and the spirit of little Ann Putnam could come into such communings as would give them accurate and conscious mutual perception of many unspoken thoughts and experiences in each other.

Mrs. Corey, as we view her, was very mediumistic, and was also a woman whose habitual aspirations were after things true, pure, and excellent. But no amount of good or bad moral and religious qualities either constitutes or nullifies ability for mutual visibility and rapport between mediumistic persons. All such are impressible more by virtue of their organisms and native properties, external and internal, than by any intellectual and moral acquisitions, whether good or _bad_.

Properties issuing from Mrs. Corey's system probably pinched and otherwise tortured Ann Putnam; the girl knew their special mundane issuance, and innocently gave utterance to the knowledge. She did so innocently and in good faith. But the divulgence of facts often brings fearful sequences.

When clear-headed logicians, being also conscientious and true men, as well as holders of undoubting faith that none but covenanted devotees to a wily devil could obtain knowledge and work harm by mysterious processes,--when such men took this case into careful consideration, the facts stated by the girl were to them proof that Mrs. Corey was the devil's minion, and therefore must be consigned to a witch's doom--death.

Edward Putnam and one other complained of her.

The warrant for her arrest was dated March 19, just one week after the visit of Putnam and Cheever. She was examined on the 21st; sentenced, September 9; executed, September 22. The questioning at the examination was discursive and protracted, spreading beyond inquiries as to who hurt the children, and how they were tormented, because of the prisoner's alleged disbelief in witchcraft; disapprobation of efforts to detect it; declarations that the magistrates, ministers, and others were blinded, and that she could open their eyes. She denied all knowledge as to who hurt the children, all knowledge of the devil, and repeatedly asked permission to go to prayer; but this privilege was denied her. She behaved like one conscious of innocence of the things laid to her charge, and manifested much intelligence, self-possession, and tact.

While on trial, one feature in her demeanor, already indicated on a previous occasion, strongly attracts notice. Notwithstanding the terrible fate that was standing before her, and the unflagging persistency of the magistrates and all others present in assuming her guilt, she was several times accused of _laughing_. Those laughs may have been simply hysterical, but possibly they were widely different from such.

"Why did you say the magistrates' and ministers' eyes were blinded," and "you would open them? She laughed, and denied it."

"Were you to serve the devil ten years? She laughed."

"Why did you say you would show us? She laughed again."

As previously stated, when Edward Putnam and Ezekiel Cheever made their call, although she knew the solemn object of the visit, they report that "in a _smiling manner_ she said, 'I know what you are come for.' With 'eagerness of mind' she asked them, 'Does she tell you what clothes I have on?' And when they replied that Ann had said, 'You came and blinded her, and told her that she should see you no more before it was night, that so she might not tell us what clothes you had on,' she seemed to _smile at it as if she had showed us a pretty trick_." These men obviously were prettily tricked. But who was genuine author of playful proceedings at a time when the business was so grave and solemn? And whose emotions mantled her face with smiles in the stern and frowning presence of "authority"? Her calm and pleasant deportment, while others were agitated or solemnly stern, was very like what is often manifested through some human forms by intelligences whose condition places them beyond the reach of man's frowns, laws, prisons, and scaffolds, and who, dwelling aloof from storms of human passion, can smile amid scenes that make humanity shudder.

Calef states, that "Martha Corey, wife to Giles Corey, protesting her innocency, concluded her life with an eminent prayer upon the ladder." Upham (vol. ii. 458) sums up her character thus: "Martha Corey was an aged Christian professor of eminently devout habits and principles. It is indeed a _strange fact_, that, in her humble home, surrounded, as it then was, by a wilderness, this husbandman's wife should have reached a height so above and beyond her age." The strangeness of the fact argues strongly in favor of our position, that she was so unfolded as to receive instruction directly from supernal teachers, or sense it in amid supernal auras. "But," continues the historian, "it is proved conclusively by the depositions adduced against her, that her mind was wholly disinthralled from the errors of that period. She utterly repudiated the doctrines of witchcraft, and expressed herself strongly and fearlessly against them. The prayer which this woman made 'upon the ladder,' and which produced such an impression upon those who heard it, was undoubtedly expressive of enlightened piety, worthy of being characterized as 'eminent' in its sentiments, and in its demonstration of an innocent, heart and life."

All her history suggests that this worthy woman, whose ways and powers were somewhat peculiar, was one of those rare individuals whose interior perceptives become so unfolded while in the body as to sense in knowledge by processes, and in some directions to extent, beyond the possible reach of man's outward intellect. Because of such blissful unfoldings her age condemned her, hastened her exit from among a creed-bound people, and her entrance to the home of freed spirits.

GILES COREY.

As renowned as any one among all sufferers under persecutions for witchcraft--a hero in the band--was Giles Corey, husband of Martha, more than fourscore years old, but still strong and resolute. He may have been wild and rough in youth and early manhood, but was efficient in business, and before the close of life was possessor of a very handsome estate for those times in that region. When the witchcraft prosecutions commenced, he sided with the multitude for a time; was vexed that his wife would not do the same, and, in his excitement, perhaps gave free vent to such hard epithets as his tongue had been allowed to put forth freely in his earlier years; some of which were soon brought to bear against his good dame, while she was subjected to examination. From some cause his sympathy with the prosecutors subsided when he saw his good wife maligned by them, and soon the witch detectors were after him also. He was arrested and imprisoned. His keen penetration perceived that acquittal, as things were going, was impossible, unless the accused pleaded guilty; which plea truth, honor, and manhood forbade him to make. To be tried and condemned would involve a forfeiture of his property, and take it from his children. But no trial could be had, and of course no condemnation, unless he should plead either guilty or not guilty to the indictment. His decision was soon formed. Taken into court, he closed his lips, and no power there could open them. Neither _guilty_ nor _not guilty_ could be wrung from them. The large, strong, old man stood in calm majesty before the court, his silence challenging the whole civil power of the province to shake his purpose. English custom in such cases--and he probably knew it--was to subject the recusant to lingering torture, trusting that pain or prostration would wring out a plea of either guilty or not guilty. Order was given by the court to lay this old man prostrate, pile over him heavy weights, and put him upon starvation diet for the purpose of bringing his stubborn will to subjection. But neither oppressing weights, the pangs of hunger, nor both combined, weakened the hold of that strong will upon its purpose. His only utterances then were, "More weight, more weight!"

Corey himself testified at his preliminary examination, and the court tried to make it evidence of diabolism, that, twice at least, when attempting to pray, there was more or less stoppage of his utterance. Whether this was caused by the action of some outside intelligence bringing spirit forces to bear upon him is not apparent. The case as stated will hardly justify the presumption, though it suggests the possibility that it was. The dumbness that was formerly imposed upon the prophet Ezekiel and priest Zacharias, and that which frequently befalls mediums in our own age, teach that unseen intelligences sometimes can and do temporarily prevent the use of vocal organs by their legitimate owners.

The conclusive evidences which led to his commitment were spectral. His apparition had been seen by many, and had harmed them. Ann Putnam's sharp eyes were first in this case, as in most others, to see the witch. She saw this old man's apparition April 13; Mercy Lewis did on the 14th; and subsequently he was seen as a specter by, and gave annoyances to, eight other females and two males, who severally gave in depositions to that effect.

Was their perception of him nothing more than the product of the imagination of the witnesses? Were all the declarations false? Possibly--but not probably; for both imagination and perjury are often charged with doing what clairvoyance legitimately sees and authorizes.

He was examined April 19, five days after his apparition was first seen. Calef states that "Sept. 16th Giles Corey was prest to death." In a foot-note, p. 260 of _Salem Witchcraft_, we read that "Giles Corey was _executed_ Sept. 19, 1692, about noon." Perhaps these statements permit the conclusion that he was subjected to pressure from some hour of the 16th, Calef's date, till noon of the 19th, or about three days, when, according to Fowler, he died. "In pressing," Calef says, "his tongue being prest out of his mouth, the sheriff, with his cane, forced it in again when he was dying."

Corey's endurance and call for "more weight," says Upham, ii. 340, "for a person of more than eighty-one years of age, must be allowed to have been a marvelous exhibition of prowess, illustrating, as strongly as anything in human history, the power of a resolute will over the utmost pain and agony of body, and demonstrating that Giles Corey was a man of heroic nerve, and of a spirit that could not be subdued." Hutchinson closes his account of this case with the remark that, "in all ages of the world, superstitious credulity has produced greater cruelty than is practiced among Hottentots, or other nations, whose belief of a deity is called in question." And why "_greater_ cruelty"? Nowhere outside of Christendom was so cruel a devil conceived of as within it. And therefore greater incitements to cruelty were called up in those fighting against his minions than in any other men anywhere at any time. The creed devil-ward, and not general "superstitious credulity," evoked in strong, good men, true to their ancestral and the _Christian_ world's faith, more than SAVAGE CRUELTY.

REBECCA NURSE.

The deluding and heart-steeling power of false conceptions of the devil, combined with clear faith that he could get access to external things only through human covenanters with himself, and also with belief that it was an imperative duty of Christian men to slay such persons as even spectral evidence or statements of clairvoyants pointed to as being in league with him, is perhaps manifested as strikingly and sadly in the case of Rebecca Nurse, as in that of any other person tried and executed at Salem--or indeed anywhere, in any age. The spirit-form or apparition of this venerable lady--venerable not only for years then bordering upon fourscore, but for a long life of active beneficence; for strong good sense; for Christian graces; for being the good wife of one and mother and mother-in-law of several as good, respectable, and useful men as the Village contained. Character and domestic connections so shielded her that nothing short of mighty power could fix upon her a blasting crime.

Her spirit-form or apparition had been seen by several members of the circle, and charged with having tempted them to evil and tormented them prior to the 23d of March; on the 24th she was brought before the magistrates and subjected to examination. The occasion was well fitted to put to severe test existing fealty to a fearful creed. Well might the magistrate then say to the prisoner, as he did, "What a sad thing it is that a church member ... should be thus accused and charged." Especially _sad_ it must have been in this case, because the accused had long been, and well deserved to be, regarded as one of the most venerable and esteemed of all the "mothers in Israel" residing in the region there and round about. Some sympathy was on her side, for when she said, "I can say before my Eternal Father I am innocent, and God will clear my innocency," the magistrate responded, "There is never a one in the assembly but desires it."

This venerable matron was then, and for scores of years had been, beloved and respected wherever known for her beautiful domestic, social, and religious course. Even such a one, however, was drawn in and crushed by the fierce and whirling zeal that was impelling community into headlong and frenzied fight for God and Christ against the _Devil_. Age and virtue were insufficient to arrest or divert the rushing storm which hallucination devil-ward then generated and propelled. A benighting creed, like a huge nightmare, lay down upon, and held down, both reason and all the kindlier sentiments, while it evoked and allowed free play to harsh and murderous propensities. Whither either natural brilliancy or natural attraction drew clairvoyant eyes most intently, thither were the accusing girls swayed to lead the whelming force. Why should they lead to, or rather why fix upon, the beloved and venerated Mrs. Nurse?

We may not find in the old records as full and distinct evidence that she was constitutionally impressible by either mesmeric or spirit force, as many others are now seen to have been--we may miss conclusive _proof_ that she was a magnet either drawing to or emitting from itself psychological forces unconsciously, and thence either becoming herself psychologized or yielding out substances from her own system which might cause, or be made instrumental in causing, marked changes in other human organisms. Still, several facts indicate that she may be assigned a place among the sensitives.

Mrs. Nurse, Mrs. Easty, and Mrs. Cloyse--three sisters--whose maiden name was Towne, were eminently intelligent, efficient, respectable, and respected matrons, and yet were all accused, tried, and the elder two were executed because their spirit-forms or apparitions had been seen by clairvoyants. The records contain a statement made at the time, in these words: "It was no wonder they were witches, _for their mother was so before them_." Often "blood will out" whatever its quality. Three noble daughters bespeak a good mother, and yet, for some reason, Mrs. Towne had been called _a witch_. The properties of the parent reappeared in her children, and rendered them visible by the inner or clairvoyant sight of others. Perception of their spirit-forms and of influences thence emanating caused the accusing girls to name these good women as their tormentors. Visibility as spirits or apparitions, and effluxes from their systems, were their crimes.

Though members of the accusing circle had been demonstrative for several weeks, and probably had attracted to their bedsides or homes nearly every person in the town who could move abroad, yet, at the time of her examination, Mrs. Nurse had not been to see any of them. Her age and infirmities alone might well have excused her. But when asked why she had not visited the sufferers, she added to a statement of her years and debility, that "by reason of _fits_ that she formerly used to have," she had not been to see them. Remembrance of her own past fits--not recent--not impending fits--but fits which "she _formerly_ used to have," deterred her from going to the presence of the fit-afflicted. The question was repeated thus: "_Why_ did you never visit these afflicted persons?" _Ans._ "Because I was afraid _I should have fits, too_." Why afraid of such result? Obviously she felt a secret apprehension that her coming in contact with emanations from these mysteriously fit-afflicted ones, or into close sympathy with them, would bring upon herself again such fits as "she formerly used to have." From this comes forth spontaneously the inference that she suspected that the nature and source of her own former fits, and of those then transpiring in youthful forms, were so nearly allied, that under the general law which makes like produce its like, she was liable to have again generated within herself, in her old age, such sufferings as she had experienced some time in previous years. In our view she was correct in her supposition that she herself was constitutionally liable to just such handlings as the jumping-jack girls were receiving. Her own fears bespeak the probability that Mrs. Nurse was very impressible by mind not her own--that she was highly mediumistic; and we ascribe her persecution to her impressibility. Natural law led to designation of both this woman and her sisters as the devil's covenanted servants. Their creed blinded her persecutors to moral perceptions in certain emergencies, and made them reason falsely concerning the source and purport of spectral data. The presumed mediumistic properties of her mother, together with her own apprehension that presence with the girls might bring renewal of her own old fits, indicate that she probably was quite mediumistic. There is, however, no clear indication that she was at any time so far developed as to see or hear spirits or specters, nor that her own selfhood ever yielded up to another's use her physical organs of speech or action.

Mr. Parris, who, by request from the magistrates, took minutes of the questions and responses at the trial of Mrs. Nurse, states that the tumult in court was very disturbing, and intimates that it was difficult to furnish a very reliable account of the transactions. Also Mrs. Nurse was quite deaf and otherwise infirm, so that it is doubtful whether she always correctly understood the questions put to her, or that she held her mental faculties under such control as enabled her to give pertinent answers at all times. She is reported as expressing belief that the accusing girls were "not acting against their wills." Therein, if she was correctly understood, she differed from the court and most beholders of the children. Then the court remarked, "If you think it is not unwillingly, but by design, you must look upon them as murderers." Probably all others made that inference, and yet the accused did not. She distinctly denied that she looked upon them as _murderers_, and only called them "distracted." Crazy, and yet voluntary, seems to have been the view she took of the girls; they were voluntary, but not responsible actors. Their own wills, guided by their own intellects in disordered condition, produced the fearful allegations. This was her charitable view.

The power of human will to resist fits like those which the afflicted endured is brought up for consideration when we find enfeebled Mrs. Nurse afraid that visiting the suffering girls might induce recurrence of such fits as she "formerly used to have." She seems to have surmised the probable existence of such contagion in the air surrounding the sufferers as in her weak state she might be unable to ward off; and it is possible that memories of her own success when she was strong, in baffling fit-producers may have persuaded her that young persons possess power to withstand such operators, whether intelligent or merely physical, even though the old may not.

What human wills can do deserves most careful notice, and was well illustrated in the case of little Elizabeth Parris. She was only nine years old, and was one of the first, if not the very first, to be distressed by fits and pinchings at the Village,--was the one whom Tituba loved, and was specially unwilling, and yet was forced, to pinch. Upham says, "She seems to have performed a leading part in the first stages of the affair, and must have been a child of remarkable precocity." Drake, in vol. iii., Appendix, says, "Parris appears to have been very desirous of preventing his daughter Elizabeth from participating in the excitement at the village. She was sent by her father, at the commencement of the delusion, to reside at Salem, with Captain Stephen Sewall. While there, the captain and his wife were much discouraged in effecting a cure, as she continued to have sore fits. Elizabeth said that the great Black-man came to her and told her, that if she would be ruled by him, she should have whatsoever she desired, and go to a _golden city_. She related this to Mrs. Sewall, who immediately told the child it was the devil, and he was a liar, and bade her tell him so if he came again; which she did accordingly.... The devil ... unaccustomed in those days to experience such resistance ... never troubled her afterwards." It is generally true, that if one strenuously resist the visitings of any spirit, whether it be Gabriel or Beelzebub, the spirit cannot long maintain close access. If the account just given, relating to Elizabeth Parris, be correct, she both saw and heard what she, the actual and unsophisticated observer of his form and features, called the "black man,"--who, as Mather states clairvoyants generally say, "resembles an Indian." But Mrs. Sewall, adopting the usage of the time, ignorantly called this semblance of an Indian "THE DEVIL." Yes, the little girl, after her removal from home and _The Circle_, and no doubt without young confederates, continued to have sore fits, and also to see and to hear with her inner organs of sense during quite a long time. "The captain and his wife were much discouraged in effecting a cure." The discouragement shows that the process of cure was slow and prolonged; eventually, however, the desired result was reached. The remedy is indicated. Will-power wrought out the cure. The patient's own will was aroused and armed with a resolute purpose to close up, and to keep constantly and firmly closed, her own spirit loopholes through which only could she see or hear the black man, or be influenced by him. A strong will, steadily set against the entrance of a disembodied spirit, or against perception of such, generally, though not always, effects its purpose. The wills of companions and advisers, if working in harmony with the resisting one, greatly increase its resisting power. Mrs. Sewall, and the captain too, no doubt kept their wills set against the visiting black man, till will-force generated an aura whose outgoing waves he could not breast, and by which the girl's inner perceptives were firmly bandaged and made dormant. Were the fits and visions which the isolated child continued to have for a time after she was sent from home nothing other than her own voluntary pranks and feignings? She was not author of them. The black man, or Indian, then acted through and upon her till it was no longer in his power to perform mighty works there because of unbelief, which had grown up and hardened into an impervious wall of seclusion.

Knowledge, gained by our personal observation in 1857, enables us to state distinctly that the late Professor Agassiz, a man strong in body, mind, and will, (while arrangements were being made for himself and several associate professors for an investigation of spirit manifestations at the Albion in Boston,) demanded for himself at the very outset, and was granted, exemption from obligation to sit in a circle. Through all the sessions which followed he kept most of the time on his feet, walking vigorously back and forth, and manifesting symptoms of great uneasiness. We then had heard that he formerly had been mesmerized, and therefore suspected that he feared that if he sat quietly down in the presence of mediums, he "should have fits too." His own account of his experiences under the hands of Rev. Chauncy Hare Townshend we have given at length in a recent work, published by Colby & Rich, Boston, entitled "Agassiz and Spiritualism." We now gladly use what seems fitting occasion to state our own belief, that his demand for personal exemption from compliance with a rule which it was customary, fair, and important to enforce upon every person present at a seance, and that his restlessness and disturbing movements all sprung from a motive much more in harmony with the high character and principles of that illustrious man, than are disparaging ones which have often been ascribed to him. In our judgment, _self-protection_ was his motive, and not design to disturb harmony, and thus frustrate manifestations. His former experience had taught him that even over his firm mental resistance another's mind had entered his body and taken it out from under his own control; therefore he well might apprehend that, if not very cautious, he again "might have fits," or might become "a Saul among prophets."

We have already substantially said that the blinding, infuriating, and bloodthirsty beliefs of former days are perhaps in no case more distinctly and deplorably manifested than in the lawless, barbarous treatment to which good Rebecca Nurse was subjected by a court and people who sought to do, and believed that they were doing, acceptable service to God, or, at least, offensive service to the devil. Spectral evidence against her, and that alone, was allowed to outweigh the merits of a long and beneficent life. The jury first brought her in _not_ guilty. This verdict, surprising the court, induced it to express apprehension that the jurors had not given due weight to certain expressions which the prisoner had uttered; whereupon _the jury itself requested permission_ to retire and hold further deliberation; and even such a privilege was granted them! They retired, reversed their verdict, pronounced her _guilty_, and she was sentenced to be hanged. Afterward the governor of the province granted her reprieve; and yet he soon revoked his own clement act. Probably neither jury, nor the governor, was convinced that she was guilty of the crime charged; nevertheless, both were forced by popular demand to let the reputation and life of this eminently good woman fall a sacrifice before infatuation and frenzy which the erroneous creed of the times engendered.

MARY EASTY,

a woman of strong character, good common sense, and capable of comprehending both the dangers besetting any one then accused of witchcraft, and also the purport and bearings of such questions as the court was accustomed to ask, is presented in the following account.

"The examination of Mary Easty, at a court held at Salem Village,
April 22, 1692, by the Wop. John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin.

"At the bringing in of the accused, several fell into fits. 'Doth
this woman hurt you?' Many mouths were stopt, and several other fits
seized them. Abigail Williams said it was Goody Easty, and she had
hurt her; the like said Mary Walcot and Ann Putnam. John Jackson said
he saw her with Goody Hobbs.

"'What do you say; are you guilty?' _Ans._ 'I can say before Jesus
Christ I am free.' _Response._ 'You see these accuse you.' _Ans._
'There is a God.'

"'Hath she brought the book to you (the accusing girls)?' Their months
were stopt.

"'What have you done to these children?' _Ans._ 'I know nothing.'

"'How can you say you know nothing, when you see these tormented and
accuse you?' _Ans._ 'Would you have me accuse myself?' 'Yes, if you be
guilty. How far have you complied with Satan whereby he takes this
advantage of you?'

"'Sir, I never complied: but prayed against him all my days. I have no
compliance with Satan in this. What would you have me do?'

"'Confess, if you be guilty.'

"'I will say it, if it was my last time: I am clear of this sin.'

"'Of what sin?'

"'Of witchcraft.'

"(To the children.) 'Are you certain this is the woman?'

"Never a one could speak for fits.

"By and by, Ann Putnam said that was the woman: it was like her; 'and
she told me her name.'

"(The court.) 'It is marvelous to me that you should sometimes think
they are bewitched and sometimes not, when several confess that they
have been guilty of bewitching them.'

"'Well, sir, would you have me confess what I never knew?'

"Her hands were clenched together, and then the hands of Mercy Lewis
were clenched.

"'Look: now your hands are open, her hands are open. Is this the
woman?'

"They made signs, but could not speak. But Ann Putnam, (and)
afterwards Betty Hubbard, cried out, 'Oh, Goody Easty, Goody Easty,
you are the woman!'

"'Put up her head; for while her head is bound, the necks of these are
broken.'

"'What do you say to this?'

"'Why, God will know.'

"'Nay, God knows now.'

"'I know he does.'

"'What did you think of the actions of others before your sisters came
out? Did you think it was witchcraft?'

"'I cannot tell.'

"'Why, do you not think it is witchcraft?'

"'It is _an evil spirit_; but whether it be witchcraft I do not know.'

"Several said she brought them the book, and then they fell into fits.

"Salem Village, March 24, 169-1/2.

"Mr. Samuel Parris, being desired to take in writing the examination
of Mary Estie, hath delivered it as aforesaid.

"'Upon hearing the aforesaid, and seeing what we did then see,
together with the charge of the persons then present, we committed
said Mary Easty to their Majesty's jail.

"JOHN HATHORNE, }
"JONATHAN CORWIN, } _Assists_.'"

Among the records of examinations and trials for witchcraft in 1692 we have met with none other more commendable in its apparent spirit on both sides, and in its continuous decorum, than the above; none other, also, which reveals more clearly extreme depth of public conviction that the prevalent witchcraft creed was sound to the core, and belief that spectral evidence alone might legally prove the crime charged. From aught that appears, there was something pertaining to Mrs. Easty, probably her whole general character and her intellect, which held back both court and spectators from rudeness in treatment of her, and even frequently tied up the tongues of the accusing girls. The spectacle presented by that examination was most rare and wonderful. We feel, when reading the records, that magistrates, populace, and the accusers, all--all longed for her acquittal; that none desired to, because none did accuse her of anything but having been seen as an apparition, and of being the cause of the fits which the girls were enduring. The girls named her as the cause of their fits, but seemingly with less alacrity than they did most others in like circumstances. But sympathy and respect must yield before belief; her fit-producing emanations at that day proved her to have covenanted to serve the devil. Having done that, she was _witch_, and therefore must die.

Her clear head perceived that the sufferings of the girls must owe their existence to some occult power outside of themselves, and ascribed it to "an evil spirit." Such an origin, however, did not prove to her satisfaction that the doings were witchcrafts, that is, acts performed either at the instigation or by aid of some mortal who was in covenant with the devil. She was enough in advance of her times to suspect that a spirit might work upon and among men without having formed such connection with a mortal ally as would prove one's operations to be witchcrafts. She perceived that the girls were wrought upon by some spirit, and she deemed it an evil one.

This noble woman was wife of Isaac Easty of Topsfield, fifty-eight years old, and mother of seven children. After her conviction and sentence, and when hope of escaping the dire penalty had fled, she addressed an admirable letter to those then in power. The same inborn susceptibilities which made her a victim may also have permitted a free influx of uplifting power which raised her above narrow, selfish, and domestic views, and prompted her, in moods generous and lofty, to appeal, in behalf of the whole people of the land, for a stop in the course which the civil authorities were pursuing. We judge the letter to be her own production, and deem it indicative of good mental powers and of elevated philanthropy.