Chapter C: W. Upham (11)

A subsequent charge against "G. B." (George Burroughs) was, that "when they" (the accusing girls) "cried out of G. B. biting them, the print of his teeth would be seen on the flesh of the complainers; and just such a set of teeth as G. B.'s would then appear upon them." As in the case of little Dorcas Good, here we have it charged that indentations on the flesh of complainants corresponded to the size and shape of the teeth belonging to the person who was accused of biting. If G. B.'s spirit-form or apparition was made to approach and bite the accusers,--and it probably was,--his spirit-teeth would naturally, and, as we apprehend, necessarily have the exact size and form of his external ones.

Another charge is embraced in the following quotation:--

"His wives" (he had buried two) "had privately complained unto the neighbors about frightly apparitions of evil spirits with which their house was sometimes infested; and many such things had been whispered among the neighborhood."

We have previously quoted but did not comment upon the above which relates to the appearance of apparitions. That statement may as well indicate that the wives themselves, or any other persons resident in his house, were the attracting or helping instrumentalities for producing the "frightly" sights, as that Burroughs himself was, provided only that some one or more of them were mediumistic. But the probabilities are, that the elements emanated from him which rendered such presentations practicable.

His telling the purport of talks held in the house during his absence indicates that his inner ears were opened to catch either the spirit of mundane sounds, or sounds made by spirits, as could those of Margaret Jones, Ann Hibbins, Joan of Arc, and many others. The same power in him is indicated in the following extract:--

"One Mr. Ruck, brother-in-law to this G. B., testified that G. B., and he himself, and his sister, G. B.'s wife, going out for two or three miles to gather strawberries, Ruck, with his sister, the wife of G. B., rode home very softly" (slowly) "with G. B. on foot in their company. G. B. stepped aside a little into the bushes. Whereupon they halted and hollowed for him. He not answering, they went homewards with a quickened pace without any expectation of seeing him in a considerable while. And yet, when they were got near home, to their astonishment they found him on foot with them, having a basket of strawberries. (Philip was found at Azotus.) G. B. immediately then fell to chiding his wife on account of what she had been speaking to her brother of him on the road. Which when they wondered at, he said he _knew their thoughts_. Ruck, being startled at that, made some reply, intimating that the devil himself did not know so far; but G. B. answered, My God makes known your thoughts unto me."

True and luminous fact! The humble, pious, intelligent, illumined Burroughs, far-looker into the realm of causes--an observer of things behind the vail which bounds the reach of mortal senses and pure reason--stated that _God_--not the devil--made known to him the thoughts of other and absent people. In other words, his intended meaning probably was, that God's worlds and laws provide for legitimate inflowings, to some minds, of knowledge of the thoughts and purposes of other minds, even though far distant in space. The character, or rather the actual qualities of this man, if we read him correctly, were truthfulness, humility, and piety. When such a one deliberately said to a brother-in-law, under such circumstances as stated above, "_My God makes known your thoughts unto me_," he indicated his consciousness of possessing self-experienced knowledge of the existence of an instructive and momentous fact pertaining to human capabilities. Only few persons, relatively, have had proof by personal experience of the extent to which the inner perceptives of embodied mortals may reach forth and imbibe knowledge by processes common to freed spirits, and in the realms of their abode. What the unfoldings of Burroughs permitted him to do and know is possible with many others while resident in mortal forms. If he could, some others may, come into that condition in which thought itself shall be heard speaking itself out to them, in which they shall be listeners to "_cogitatio loquens_"--self-speaking thought--which Swedenborg says abounds in spirit spheres; in which thought from supernal fonts shall make itself known to the consciousness of an embodied man, and become matter of knowledge with him. Others, and more in number, may have the inner ear opened and hear the words of spirits.

With ears competently attuned, the meek and truth-loving Burroughs was occasionally able to receive not only knowledge of the thoughts of mortals in ways unusual, but also, as we judge, to receive spiritual truths copiously from purer fountains than his cotemporaries generally could get access to; and he thence obtained such truths as relaxed in him many credal bonds which firmly held most of his cotemporary preachers to the creeds, forms, ordinances, and customs common in the churches then. Many questions put to him at his trial were, obviously, designed to draw forth evidence of his lax regard for and inattention to the accepted ordinances of religion. He admitted both that it was long since he had sat at the communion table, and that some of his own children had not been baptized. We presume that he was inwardly, wisely, and beneficently prompted to walk somewhat astray from the narrow and soul-cramping paths then trod by most New England clergymen. The spirit of the Lord was giving him more liberty than most of his cotemporaries felt privileged to exercise. Using his greater facilities than theirs for instruction in heavenly things, he probably advanced far beyond his brethren generally in sinking the _letter_, that is, sinking the forms, and ceremonies, and ordinances of religion beneath its divine spirit, and his less illumined brethren suspected him of an abandonment of religion itself, and of alliance with the great enemy of all goodness. Some among them apparently looked upon him as a combined heretic and wizard, withheld all sympathy from, and exulted over the doom of, this double culprit.

But this victim may have been, and probably was, as high above most of his crucifiers as freedom is above bondage, as the spirit above the letter, as light above darkness, as sincerity above hypocrisy. The blood of such as Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Mary Easty, GEORGE BURROUGHS, and probably many others who in company with these took their exit from life shrouded in witchcraft's blackening mists, may go far toward making Gallows Hill a Mount Calvary--a spot on which zeal urged on the worse to crucify their betters in true godliness--betters in all that fits immortal souls for gladdening welcome into realms above.

SUMMARY.

1648. MARGARET JONES manifested startling efficacy of hands and medicines, consternating keenness of perceptives, predictions subsequently verified, and the presence of a vanishing child. Such was her witchcraft; and for this she was executed.

1656. ANN HIBBINS comprehended conversation between persons too distant from her to be heard normally, ... and was hanged.

1662. ANN COLE had her form possessed and spoken through by either the devil or other disembodied ones, and by them made both to express thoughts that never were in her mind, and to further the conviction and execution of the Greensmiths.

1671-2. ELIZABETH KNAP'S external form was strangely convulsed and agonized by an old man, and also spoken through by one who called himself a pretty black boy.

1680. WILLIAM MORSE, in his home, where lived his good wife, who had been called a witch, saw pots, andirons, tools, and household furniture generally, seem to take on wills of their own, and rudely play many a lively gymnastic game.

1688. JOHN GOODWIN saw four of his children subjected and tortured immediately subsequent to the scolding of one of them by a wild Irish woman; and the same one afterward was made to play the deuce in Cotton Mather's own house. Mrs. Glover was hanged for bewitching; and also she _continued to torture the same children after her spirit had left its outer form_.

The above cases occurred prior to the holding of "The Circle" at Salem, before the establishment of a school at which the arts of "necromancy, magic, and spiritualism" might be learned. Generally the performers named thus far had no visible confederates. If sole actors, their geniuses were vast, and the fonts of malice or of benevolence in some of them were both very capacious and copiously overflowing.

1692. TITUBA, the slave, avowed having been forced by something like a man, and his four female spectral aids, to pinch the two little girls in her master's family at the very time when they were first mysteriously afflicted. She furnished strong evidence that a tall man with white hair and serge coat, invisibly to others, frequently visited her, compelled her aid, and kindled and long kept adding fuel to the fires of witchcraft at Salem Village. For this she was imprisoned thirteen months, and then sold to pay her jail fees.

SARAH GOOD was seen as a specter, was accused of hurting by occult organs and processes; became invisible by those standing guard over her; announced to the magistrates the great explanatory fact that none but the accusers and the accused, that is, none but clairvoyants, could see the actual inflictors of the pains endured. Also she fore-sensed a fact that occurred when Mr. Noyes died in an after year. She was hanged.

DORCAS GOOD, not five years old, was big enough to have her specter seen, to have her spirit-teeth bite, and also to see clairvoyantly. The little witch was sent to jail.

SARAH OSBURN was sighted by the inner optics of the accused, and she heard voices from out the unseen. This feeble one was sent to jail, and soon died there.

MARTHA COREY was charged with afflicting; also she avowed heresy pertaining to witchcraft. Though interiorly illumined far beyond her accusers and judges, and enabled to smile amid their frowns, she was executed.

GILES COREY, seen as a specter, and accused of harming many, would make no plea to his indictment. Pressure, applied for forcing out a plea, extorted only his call for "More weight, more weight,"--and his life went out.

REBECCA NURSE, venerable matron, daughter of a mother who had been called a witch, and conscious of personal liability to then prevalent fits, was seen by, and accused of hurting, members of The Circle. Therefore she must be hanged--though jury first acquitted, and then, under rebuke, called her guilty; and though governor pardoned, and then revoked his clement act. Fealty to witchcraft creed in that case triumphed, though nearly defeated twice.

MARY EASTY, noble woman, sister of the above, and daughter of the same witch-blooded mother, once arrested and discharged, and then re-arrested, because seen by inner eyes and accused of bewitching, rose sublimely above thoughts of self and dread of death, and appealed to the magistrates, in clear, strong, and forceful language, to change their course of procedure, to spare the innocent, and become wisely humane.

SUSANNA MARTIN, spectrally seen, and a reputed witch during more than a score of years, bravely faced the dangers besetting an accused one, was self-possessed before the magistrates, was spicy, shrewd, and keen in her answers to their questions, but failed to descend to confession, and died on Gallows Hill.

MARTHA CARRIER, having been a clear seer for forty years, and long visible by others similarly unfolded, was brave, self-possessed, and ready with pointed retort. Because hard to subdue, accusations came thick and heavy upon her from "The Circle" almost _en masse_, and she too was doomed to mount the ladder.

SARAH CARRIER, daughter of the above, eight years old, stated instructive facts in her experience as a clairvoyant, and notably said that her own _spirit_ could go forth to others and hurt them; also that her mother's was the only spirit with which she entered into the compact that made her a witch.

REV. GEORGE BURROUGHS, sometimes supernally strong physically, because, as himself asserted, an Indian, invisible by others, helped him; able, by God's help as he claimed, to read his brother's thoughts; A freer and less formal religionist than most clergymen of his day, because of his high spiritual illumination; a humble but beneficent Christian--was, like his exemplar, made to yield up life at the call of such as cried, "Crucify him! crucify him!" If he was luminous, and spoke like an angel of light in the hour of his departure, he was not Satan transformed, but George Burroughs unvailing his genuine self.

1693. MARGARET RULE, the first of afflicted ones noticed in our pages, endured her strange experiences last. The evening before her fits came on she had been bitterly treated and threatened by an old woman whose curings of hurts had put her under suspicions of witchcrafts. Margaret was not a graduate from the Salem school, but was self-taught, if taught at all; and yet she saw many specters--saw, in the night, a young man in danger of drowning who was miles away from her; was lifted from her bed to the ceiling above in horizontal position by invisible beings; fasted nine days without pining; and saw and heard one bright and glorious visitant who comforted and heartened her much. She under the special watch and care of Cotton Mather, was held back, mainly perhaps by his advice, from any divulgences which should endanger the lives of others. No blood was shed because of her afflictions.

Twenty persons were put to death in Essex County, by the direct action of government officials, between June 9 and September 23, 1692. Nearly or quite two hundred were accused, arrested, imprisoned, and many more than the executed twenty were convicted. Numerous arrested ones perished under the hardships of prison life and gnawings of mental anxieties. Others had health, spirits, domestic ties, and worldly possessions shattered to pieces, and the condition of their subsequent lives made most forlorn and wretched. Neither tongue nor pen can possibly tell their tale in its fullness of horrors. Most excessively frenzying and woeful must have been the privations, sufferings, heart-wrenchings, agonies of nearly all the scattered residents of the then wooded region at and round about Salem Village, when Christendom's mighty and malignant witchcraft devil was believed to be prowling and fiercely slaughtering in their midst. No blood, nor any other mark, on the door-posts would effectually warn the fell destroyer to pass by and leave the occupants within unscathed. Mysterious and fearful dangers flocked above, below, around, before, and behind: they lurked here, there, and everywhere continually, so that none could ever be at ease.

And now we ask, whether common sense admits that such credulity and infatuation ever pervaded any hardy, energetic, and intelligent community, in any county of Massachusetts or New England, in any age, as that girls and old women, aided by a very few insignificant men, however bright, cunning, roguish, playful, self-conceited, greedy of notice, or resentful and malicious the leaders might be, could possibly so perform as to induce Rev. Mr. Whiting, Samuel Willard, William Morse, Cotton Mather, Deodat Lawson, Samuel Parris, Rev. Mr. Hale, and scores upon scores of other intelligent, sagacious, and leading men, to present to the public, in writing, such narratives as they did, and to essentially vouch for their own belief in the positive occurrence of such "amazing feats" as they described? We ask also, whether such frail enactors as a band of mere girls and a few women must have been, could possibly devise and manifest such tricks, and put forth such accusations, from any motives whatsoever, as would cause the leading minds throughout a large section of the state to regard the accused ones as allies of beings rising up from regions of darkness, and making malignant and most baneful onslaught upon the children of God and Christ, and upon the families and possessions of men, in such numbers and with such force, that the civil power of the land was urged and helped to put the gallows in use upon every one whose specter was said to be seen and to torment? The amazing feats are well attested. The more amazing deviltries both of the accusers and of courts and executives, no one can doubt, if all the feats were offspring of mere juvenile and senile cunning, fraud, and malice.

In the cases of Margaret Jones, Ann Cole, Elizabeth Knap, John Stiles, and Martha Goodwin each, there is distinct mention of the presence, the speech, or the action of some spirit. We found Tituba distinctly stating that she saw, heard, and was made to help a nocturnal visitant whose doings indicate that he was the originator of the vast Salem Tragedy: that visitant was a spirit. Mr. Burroughs said, in explanation of his feats of strength, that an Indian, invisible by others, was his helper. Margaret Rule, as had Mercy Lewis the year before, saw, and each was infilled with bliss by, a most glorious bright spirit. In our own day, in every city, town, and hamlet of our land, as well as on the opposite shore of the Atlantic, spirits are widely recognized as the authors of performances alike strange and amazing in themselves, as those described in the seventeenth century, which are there called witchcrafts. The primitive records of American witchcrafts show that portions of it, and especially that Salem witchcraft feats, were devised in supermundane brains, and enacted under their supervision.

THE CONFESSORS.

When persons arraigned for specific offences plead guilty, their pleas generally are deemed conclusive evidence that the accused have performed the special deeds set forth in the allegations. Many of the accused in witchcraft times made statements which have ever since been called _confessions_. Inference from that has long been general and wide-spread, that nearly such witchcraft as the creed of our fathers specified had positive manifestation in their day. But we seriously doubt whether any record of statements made by an accused one exhibits distinct admission that he or she had entered into covenant with that devil which one must have been in league with to become such a witch or wizard as the laws against witchcraft were intended to arrest.

Such confessions as were recorded may have been true in the main, but they fall short of confessions of the special crime alleged; they amount to little, if anything, more than admissions and statements that the confessors had seen, been influenced by, and had acted in company with apparitions or spirits all of whom were of earthly origin, and were members of the _human_ family; they confessed only to being, or to having been at times, clairvoyants.

The circumstances under which even such confessions were generally made, need to be carefully viewed before just estimate can be placed upon the worth and significance of the recorded statements.

Hutchinson supposed that "those who were condemned and not executed, all confessed their guilt," ... and that "the most effectual way to prevent an accusation" (of one's self) "was to become an accuser." Strange--strange--and yet obviously true. An accused one, then, could look for escape from death--the legal penalty of witchcraft--only by pleading guilty to the charge. Confession of guilt, and nothing else, then, purchased exemption from capital punishment. This becoming obvious, all natural instincts for preservation of one's life, and all possible entreaties, urgings, and commands of friends and relatives, forcibly tended to extort confession even from the innocent. Husband or wife, children, parents, brothers, sisters, and trusted advisers, often all conspired in urging an accused one to plead guilty--yes, even a condemned one, for that plea was as efficacious after conviction and sentence as before. It is said that many did confess. Confessed to what? Never to having made a covenant with the great witchcraft devil nor any formidable imp of his, but generally to clairvoyant visions, to mental meetings with the specters of friends, neighbors, and other embodied mortals, and to some compacts and co-operative labors with such personages,--_never with the devil_. They did not confess to witchcraft itself _as then defined_. The clear-headed Mary Easty besought the magistrates "to try some of the confessing witches, I being confident there is several of them has belied themselves and others." Her clear and calm brain perceived the broad distinction existing between clairvoyance and witchcraft. So, too, did Martha and Giles Corey, Jacobs, Proctor, Susanna Martin, George Burroughs, and others; these, and such as these, did not confess, while many weaker and more ignorant ones did.

Little Sarah Carrier, only eight years old, whose testimony we adduced in part, when presenting the case of her mother, throws much light upon some _confessions_ of that day. _Simon Willard_, who wrote out and attested to "the substance" of her statements, heads his record, "Sarah Carrier's _Confession_, August 11th." The girl's confession? No; it was simply a frank statement of facts in her own experience, which lets us know that when she was about six years old her own mother made her a witch, and baptized her. But "the devil, or black man, was not there, as she saw," when she was made a witch. She afflicted folks by pinching them; went to those whom she afflicted; but went only "_in her spirit_." Her mother was the only devil who bewitched her, and the only being whom her baptism bound her to serve. Such was her witchcraft. That plain statement is refreshing and valuable. It shows that when about six years old this mediumistic girl had become so developed that her spirit could commune with her mother's, independently of their bodies. She then became a conscious clairvoyant, and could trace felt influences, issuing from her mother, back to their source. Thenceforth mother and daughter could conjointly place themselves on the green at Salem Village, ten miles off, or in any pasture or any house whither thought might lead them. The mother's stronger mind had but to wish, and the child must go with her and do her bidding; and when the two were in rapport, any stronger spirit controlling the mother could make the child co-operative in pinchings or any other inflictions of pains. Because the little girl had set her hand to a red book presented by her own mother, and thus, by implication, bound herself to be obedient to that mother, her statement of the fact was labeled _a confession_ of witchcraft, and deemed damaging to her mother. Three or four other children of Mrs. Carrier were able to sense spirit scenes. Her home was a domestic school of prophets, and her own children were apt pupils in it. Her moral character and influence do not here concern us.

Abigail Faulkner was condemned, and two of her children, "Dorothy ten, and Abigail eight years old, testified that their mother appeared and made them witches." That mother was daughter of Rev. Francis Dane of Andover, some of whose other children and grandchildren were accused, which suggests, though it fails to prove, that much medianimic susceptibility was imparted through either him or his wife, or both, to their offspring. His descendants attracted the notice of clairvoyants. Hutchinson states that Mr. Dane himself "is _tenderly_ touched in several of the examinations, which" (the tenderness?) "might be owing to a fair character; and he may be one of the persons accused who" (the accusation of whom) "caused a discouragement to further prosecutions." "He," being then "near fourscore, seems to have been in danger." Internal luminosity and copious radiations from their interior forms probably rendered Rev. Mr. Dane, Rev. Samuel Willard, Mrs. Hale, wife of the minister at Beverly, Mrs. Phips, wife of the governor, and many others of high character or standing, visible by mediumistic optics, and presentible apparitionally where spirits were wont to congregate, consult and manipulate instruments for acting out--not for learning--the "wonders of necromancy, magic, and Spiritualism."

Witch meetings, as they were called, or congregated spirits or apparitions on the green, or in the pasture of the minister at Salem Village, are mentioned more frequently and with more particularity and concordant specifications, than would naturally be looked for if they had no basis on fact. That Spirits in vast crowds have more than once been seen in modern times by a seer looking up from High Rock in Lynn, can be learned by perusal of A. J. Davis's visions there. But he was the observer of departed ones only, while the apparent personages at witch meetings of old were partly either the spirits of embodied persons or their apparitions. The fact of apparitions being present thereat in those days proved the persons themselves apparitionally seen to be the devil's allies. Some confessors of witchcraft intended to verify the truth of their statements by describing whom they had seen, and what they had observed at such meetings. And it is not without interest that some people now read confessions like the following from Ann Foster of Andover, viz.: "That she was at the meeting of the witches at Salem Village when about twenty-five were present; that Goody Carrier came and told her of the meeting and would have her go, and so they got upon sticks and went the said journey, and being there did see Mr. Burroughs the minister, who spake to them all;... that they were presently at the Village," when they rode on the "stick or pole"; and that she heard some of the witches say that there were three hundred and five in the whole country, and that they would ruin that place--the Village. Also that there was present at that meeting two men besides Mr. Burroughs, the minister, and _one of them had gray hair_.

Not without interest are such things read, because they prompt to fancyings of things possible in an unseen sphere which hangs over and enfolds all mortals. Could Ann Foster's gray-haired man have been Tituba's white-haired visitant--the originator and enactor of Salem witchcraft? Who knows? Could not he and such as he have searched out and numbered many persons in the land who were adapted to be facile instruments for his use, and found three hundred and five in all? Had not his will power to call instantly together, that is, to arrest and concentrate the attention of as many of them as were at the moment impressible by him, either directly or through other plastic mortals, from any part of the region between the Penobscot and the Hudson, or even further, and thus collect a band, that is, arrest and fix the attention, of twenty-five of them, more or less, to whom inklings of his plans for the future might be given, and whose relative rank, efficiency, or importance could be foreshadowed? Through either unconscious apparitions or conscious spirits of mortals, or of both classes commingled, might he not enact scenes which it pleased him to have certain witnesses behold, and to proclaim, so far as he judged best, his purposes, his doctrines, or aught else it should be his pleasure to divulge or enforce? Possibly. Those witch meetings may have been much more than mere fictions.

We will look now at other and quite different confessions, or rather at what reputed confessors afterward said in explanation and defense of their own admissions. Six well-esteemed women of Andover conjointly subscribed to the following account:--

"We were all seized, as prisoners, by a warrant from the justice of
the peace, and forthwith carried to Salem. And, by reason of that
sudden surprisal, we, knowing ourselves innocent of the crime, were
all exceedingly astonished and amazed, and consternated and affrighted
even out of our reason. And our nearest and dearest relations, seeing
us in that dreadful condition, and knowing our great danger,
apprehended there was no other way to save our lives, as the case was
then circumstanced, but by our confessing ourselves to be such and
such persons as the afflicted represented us to be: they" (our
friends), "out of tenderness and pity, persuaded us to confess what we
did confess. And indeed that confession, that it is said we made, was
no other than what was suggested to us by gentlemen, they telling us
that we were witches, and they knew it and we knew it, which made us
think that it was so; and our understandings, our reason, our
faculties almost gone, we were not capable of judging of our
condition; as also the hard measures they took with us rendered us
incapable of making our defense; but said anything and everything
which they desired, and most of what we said was but, in effect, a
consenting to what they said. Some time after, when we were better
composed, they telling us what we had confessed, we did profess that
we were innocent and ignorant of such things....

"MARY OSGOOD, ABIGAIL BARKER,
MARY TILER, SARAH WILSON,
DELIVERANCE DANE, HANNAH TILER."

That document no doubt describes very accurately the mental condition and pressing circumstances under which a very large number of the confessions were made. There existed some cases, however, which differed from the above. Samuel Wardwell, represented in some accounts as insane, confessed, and afterward recalled his confession, and was executed. Margaret Jacobs, perhaps under pressure and bewilderment as great as those attendant upon the Andover women, made confession, in which she accused both her grandfather and Mr. Burroughs; but compunctions of conscience forthwith came over her, and she most fully and humbly recalled her confession, choosing rather to die on the gallows than not to confess and repent before the God of truth.

THE ACCUSING GIRLS.

One more case--not of an accused one, but of a chief accuser, Ann Putnam, the younger--merits careful attention. She was only twelve years old in 1692; but was the eldest child in a family of at least nine children, both of whose parents died while they were all young; and this eldest continued to live at the homestead, caring for the younger ones, during many years. In August, 1706, fourteen years subsequent to the scenes in which she was eminently conspicuous, she made the following confession before the church, and thereupon was admitted to membership in it.

"The confession of Anne Putnam, when she was received to communion,
1706.

"I desire to be humble before God for that sad and humbling providence
that befell my father's family in the year about '92; that I, then
being in my childhood, should by such a providence of God _be made an
instrument_ for the accusing of several persons of a grievous crime,
whereby their lives were taken away from them, whom now I have just
grounds and good reason to believe were innocent persons; and that it
was a great delusion of Satan that deceived me in that sad time;
whereby I justly fear I have been instrumental, with others, _though
ignorantly and unwillingly_, to bring upon myself and this land the
guilt of innocent blood. Though what was said or done by me against
any person I can truly and uprightly say, before God and man, I did it
_not out of any anger, malice, or ill-will to any person_, for I had
no such thing against one of them; but what I did was ignorantly,
being deluded by Satan. And particularly as I was a chief _instrument_
of accusing Goodwife Nurse and her two sisters, I desire to lie in the
dust, and to be humbled for it, in that I was a cause, with others, of
so sad a calamity to them and their families; for which cause I desire
to lie in the dust, and earnestly beg forgiveness of God, and from all
those unto whom I have given just cause of sorrow and offense, whose
relations were taken away or accused.

(Signed) ANNE PUTNAM.

"This confession was read before the congregation, together with her
relation, August 25, 1706; and she acknowledged it.

"J. GREEN, _Pastor_."

In that confession she speaks very pointedly of herself as having been used as an _instrument_. Any mortal may perhaps properly do so in relation to each and every act performed. But her history induces inquiry whether Ann was not very strictly an instrument; whether her own will, or whether some other intelligent being's will, used her lips when they put forth accusations of witchcraft. The latter may have been possible; for once, while we were in conversation with a lady who applied disparaging remarks to particular gentleman who was a prominent medium, we, in reply, expressed our belief that the doings which annoyed her were not the man's voluntary acts, and also that his consciousness that such deeds were alleged by truthful and trustworthy persons to have actually been performed through his physical organism made the acts even more grievous to him than to any one of his acquaintances. She doubted, while we maintained, the possibility of one's mortal form being thus subjected to a will outside of itself. Not many minutes had elapsed--not much argument having been presented on either side--before her own lips were set in use for putting forth a warm defense of Victoria C. Woodhull, a person upon whom our colloquist looked, and of whom she was accustomed to speak, with very decided disapprobation. She was a conscious listener to the words that rolled from her own lips, and experience taught her that our defense of the censured man might be admissible; for, in spite of herself, her own lips were made to bless whom her sentiments were inclining her to curse. Baalam _could_ not curse whom his Lord did not. That lady is a _conscious_ medium--conscious that her physical organs, without her consent, and in spite of her resistance, are sometimes temporarily borrowed and used by an intelligence outside of herself. As such she is representative of many others. Of course, in these days, she is so informed as to see that actions and words of spirits are imputed to her as being her own because performed by use of her organs, while they are, in fact, no more hers than are the acts and utterances of her neighbors. But we doubt much whether any one in 1692 or 1706 had attained to knowledge that some human forms could be thus filchable and usable; no ground had then been discovered on which one could stand and credibly say, "Though my own lips spake thus and so, another's will put forth the utterances in spite of me." Firm ground for that has now been found; it is not a new formation, but existed, though then unknown, in 1692. Ann Putnam's form may have been used by another's will in each and all of her imputed accusations for witchcraft, and she, as far as then concerned, have been absolutely a will-less _instrument_.

There are other classes of mediums. We call to mind at this instant four ladies, all of them respectable and excellent, whom we know and have known for years, whose lips often give utterance to facts, opinions, and beliefs while the ladies are absolutely unconscious; and sayings then which seem to be theirs are often wide at variance with what either their knowledge or their sense of right and truth would permit their own wills to announce. These are _unconscious_ mediums; not responsible for, because absolutely ignorant of, what their physical forms are being made to say and do. These persons are representatives of a large class of good mediums.

One phrase in Ann Putnam's confession indicates to us that she probably belonged to the mediumistic class here presented. She had been, years before, as she says, an _instrument_ not only ignorant, but _unwitting_. In childhood, Ann was brightest among the bright; and, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it is fair to presume that when reaching the age of twenty-six she was an intelligent woman, capable of knowing the fair import of any statements to which she gave deliberate and solemn assent. We apprehend that her confession was drawn up very carefully, and in consultation with her intelligent and excellent pastor, Rev. Mr. Green; also that every word of it was carefully weighed. She seems then to have been stretching forth a hand soliciting acceptance and friendly grasp by representatives of some whose blood had been shed because of accusations from her lips; and we feel forced to presume that then she was in mental and affectional moods which would make it her duty and her choice to take upon herself all the blame for her share in the witchcraft transactions which facts and truth could possibly permit. Her confession is special. It all pertains to her _instrumental_ share in accusing innocent persons of what was then deemed grievous crime, and thus in bringing them to death upon the gallows. Her declaration is as distinct as words can make it, that the doings through her were "not out of any anger, malice, or ill-will to any person" on her part; and this renders Upham's supposition, that family, neighborhood, and sectional quarrels, disputes, rivalries, &c., were motives in her, very improbable.

Also her statement is very distinct, that whatever she did in that respect was done, so far as she was concerned, both "_ignorantly_ and _unwittingly_." We are aware that those two words are sometimes used synonymously, or very nearly so. But when the first occurs in a carefully constructed sentence, the other, if added, should be deemed to have been inserted for the special purpose of expressing something beyond what the first usually imports. The whole had not been told when she had said she acted ignorantly. To express the remainder, she added--_unwittingly_. When that word was thus applied, she cannot fairly be supposed to have meant less than that she acted _unknowingly_--that is, without either knowledge or consciousness that she did thus act. An _unwitting_ instrument--an instrument not knowing that it was being used--enfolds within itself a silent but most potent plea for the world's lenient regards. When consciousness has taken no cognizance of acts performed by the tongue or the hand,--when memory can find no record of them, compunction cannot gnaw deeply, nor conscience be a stern accuser. Often conscience may be at peace, and God may approve, where man blames. Testimony from without may force mental conviction that one's lips and limbs must have been used in doing excessive harm, though consciousness of the fact be entirely wanting. Conviction even thus generated will naturally and almost necessarily create apprehension that the world is regarding the owner of those lips and limbs as having been guilty of very great crimes. That apprehension may create sadness over all one's subsequent days. Public opinion bridles the tongue then; for a denial of guilt, however honest and true, can receive no credence where external senses have perceived knowledge to the contrary. Ann's relations to society may necessarily have been saddening during many years, even though she of herself had done nothing offensive either to her own conscience or to God.

Imagination can scarcely picture the sadness which must have come upon the accusing girls when, a year or two later, public opinion and favor, which at first buoyed them up and favored such use of their organisms as has been depicted, began to turn against them and to brand them as murderers of the innocent and good. We have no means to trace many of them through their subsequent years. Could we do it, we should expect to find them weighed down, depressed, and made forlorn by the great change of estimation in which the doings were afterward held, in which they had appeared to be prominent and most disastrous actors. Few of them probably had inherent stamina enough to enable them to stand erect, and move about firmly poised, under the burdens of obloquy, pity, hatred, resentment, &c., which the wounded hearts of the families of murdered ones would lay upon these seeming authors of their losses.

It is pleasant to find that the sensitive and bright Ann Putnam, as prominent as any one in the band of accusers, survived such pressure, continued long to care for her orphaned little brothers and sisters, and, after the first and most crushing effects of the change in public opinion had been endured for a dozen years or more, held out her hand in friendly beckoning to those who had most seeming cause to blame her, and who perhaps in turn had imposed her heaviest burdens, and seeking to thus open the way for her unopposed admission to the church, and to fellowship with the kindred and friends of those whom her tongue had been used to defame and bring to ignominious death. Her life experiences were hard, but perhaps fruitful of good to man beyond what words can express. Possibly it is her blessed privilege now to see that her form was used as an _instrument_ for effecting Christendom's emancipation from monstrous error, and putting an effectual stop to executions for witchcraft everywhere.

THE PROSECUTORS.

The first warrants for arrest for witchcraft at Salem were issued on February 29, 1692, on complaint preferred by Joseph Hutchinson, Thomas Putnam, Edward Putnam, and Thomas Preston, that Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn, and Tituba had by witchcraft, within the last two months, done harm to Elizabeth Parris, Abigail Williams, Anne Putnam, and Elizabeth Hubbard.

Complaint of Martha Corey was made by Edward Putnam and Henry Keney, March 19.

Edward Putnam and Jonathan Putnam complained of Rebecca Nurse; and

Jonathan Walcott and Nathaniel Ingersoll, against Elizabeth Proctor.

Perusal of the records shows that very many of the most intelligent, influential, highly respected, and trusted men of the Village were complainants; and shows also that, as early as February 29, when the first complaint was entered, there were four afflicted ones: two in the family of Mr. Parris; one in that of Thomas Putnam, living more than two miles north from the parsonage; and one in that of Dr. Griggs, dwelling more than two miles east from the same. Thus much had the trouble spread before the law was invoked to aid in its suppression. The homes of the minister, the doctor, and the parish clerk--a capable and good-one, too--were the first invaded. Not mean abodes housed, nor low-lived people cared for the first afflicted ones. Men of the highest standing there were leaders off in the impending conflict with the devil. Two were most prominently and persistently active, viz., Thomas Putnam and Mr. Parris. And why? If any people then and there knew what the emergency required, these two would be among them: none were more competent than they to perceive and perform the duties of such an hour. They, too, and theirs were the chief sufferers. No other active men there had motives pressing as theirs to work for prompt relief in their households; and we will notice these two as representatives of the prosecutors.

Thomas Putnam deservedly held high position among the inhabitants there, and possessed the esteem, respect, and confidence of the whole community around him. How came it that this very intelligent, influential, and useful citizen, then a little more than forty years old and in the full vigor of manhood, was prominent among the foremost and most pertinacious prosecutors? Why was such a one an enterer of complaints against neighbors, whether high or low, good or bad? Our response is, that in his home a loved and loving wife, cultured, refined, and of acute sensibilities,--a daughter, twelve years old, bright and charming,--and also Mercy Lewis, a young domestic, were all so mysteriously tortured at times, that no doubt existed in a mind which comprehended the creed of that day, that the devil was author of the abnormal torments. That enemy must be getting access to these innocent and loved ones, the creed said, through some neighbors--at least some living mortals--who had made covenants with the Evil One, and thus become his agents. Imbued and bound by the creed of his day, this husband and father could cherish no expectation that his wife and child could be shielded, or that comfort, tranquillity, and peace could come to him and his dear ones, so long as such covenanters were allowed to live. His creed--the general creed of the times--called upon him to invoke the law's aid, since by help from no other source could he hope to reclaim wife, child, and domestic from the clutches of hell's sovereign, and save his own fireside from continuing on indefinitely a frenzied pandemonium. The higher his manhood, and the deeper his love for wife and children, the more vigilant, resolute, and untiring would be his purpose and his efforts to use any and every available means for delivering his family from the hell which had been thrust in under his roof.

The sufferings of his dear ones, then necessarily operative upon his mind and affections, we presume were the chief prompters of his course and incentives to his perseverance in it. Defense and protection of wife, children, and all within his household are incumbent on any one worthy to be called a _man_. Think not the worse of Thomas Putnam because of his resolute purposes and speedy as well as prolonged efforts to rescue from sufferings and perdition wife, child, and domestic. Because a prominent sufferer, he became a prominent prosecutor--yes, the most prominent. Though that fact stands boldly out on the pages of history, no one in his time or since, so far as we have noticed, ever imputed to him an unworthy motive, or annexed a disparaging epithet to his name. Perhaps he, as well as Mr. Dane of Andover, was "tenderly touched" because of "a fair character."

In part the same can be said in defense of Rev. Samuel Parris as we have adduced in defense of his co-sufferer and co-laborer for relief. During the weeks from January 20 to the end of February, both his little daughter and niece, under his own roof, were so strangely and sorely tormented that he and his whole household must have been wearied, agitated, and rendered miserable. When medical aid and kind nursing had proved abortive, and medical authority announced the working of an _Evil Hand_ there, who can wonder, knowing the creed of the day and place, that Mr. Parris sought the law's aid for bringing relief to the little sufferers and to all beneath his roof? Samuel Parris and Thomas Putnam, the minister and the clerk of the parish, were both the first and the greatest sufferers affectionally at the oncoming of invasion by mysterious tormentors, and both have fair claims to be judged of tenderly in their connection with witchcraft prosecutions. The chief apparent action of the minister was as scribe or reporter for the courts, and this because he was more competent to that work than any other person obtainable there. Such action is surely not censurable. His position and abilities, however, were such that it was quite as much within his power to have stopped the whole proceedings as in that of any man then living; and they, no doubt, had his sanction and efficient support. And yet we find no ground from which inference either must or can fairly be drawn that the motives of the minister's actions _pertaining to that special matter_, both at its commencement and in its subsequent progress, were other than those common to the most enlightened and best members of the community. Still we have not learned to like the _man_. Selfishness, and disposition to rule harshly over his parish and individuals, if not resentfully and even maliciously, are made too manifest in the records for us to hold him in high esteem.

As servants of God and Christ, which they professed and believed themselves to be, the prosecutors entered upon and long followed up war, bloody war,--not against neighbors and men, but against the Devil--the great enemy of God, Christ, and all good Christians. They were true, earnest, resolute, strong, fearless men, waging their fight in good conscience.

The community at large, in which those men lived and held prominent position, was not below most, if below any other of equal numbers on the continent. Intellect there was keen, and morality high. Upham's "History of Salem Village," admirable for its research, its thoroughness, its prevailing accuracy, and its extensive charms, clearly shows that the five hundred people, more or less, residing there in 1692, could scarcely be surpassed by the residents of any other locality in intelligence, mental keenness, moral strength, personal courage, and firmness of purpose and resolve to live up to their convictions of truth, right, and duty. Salem witchcraft was born in the homes of intelligent, brave, honored men,--who, in co-operation with their wives, children, and domestics, contributed to its growth, and elicited its vast and awful power to startle, frenzy, and desolate the region round about. The world at large has never been kept well instructed as to the circumstances amid which that great _delusion_ made its entrance on the field of human vision, nor as to the high standing, intelligence, and character of its first escorts and sponsors. Its victims, too, as a whole, were very respectable. Some of them, it is true, were not high on the social scale, but the most of them were well up, and quite a number ranked high among the intelligent, virtuous, and saintly. The wide-spread and long prevalent notion that the dark doings there were little else than outgrowths from tricks played by a few artful and mischievous girls upon some low-lived and bed-ridden old women, has no foundation on the facts in the case. This most monstrous child of Christendom's creed had begetting and birth, in 1692, amid as reputable circumstances and people, and as religious opponents of Satan, as any marked revival of religion which has anywhere transpired since that memorable day when the leading men of Salem Village, being challenged to defense of their homes, armed themselves with civil law, and bravely, long, and forcefully fought for God and His against the Devil.

WITCHCRAFT'S AUTHOR.

What personality or persons, and of what rank in the scale of being, was or were primal and chief in originating and enacting the famous Salem Tragedy? If, as the generation then living believed, it was a specially great controller and commander of all invisible foes to God, Christ, and Christians everywhere, and who, having been effectually baffled in Europe, resolved to keep America from passing into the control of his enemies, God and Christ, and to thoroughly banish the hated intruders from these his more exclusive and prized domains; if it was that being, his strategy seemingly was to "beard the lion in his den," to make bold and fierce attack on one of the strongest fortresses of Christians, presuming that capture of such a post would lead to easy expulsion of all trespassers from the whole of his broad lands on this side the Atlantic. His apparent policy, judged of by the place and circumstances of attack, was to subdue the strongest first, and thus so intimidate as to frighten all others back to their former homes or the homes of their fathers. But _such_ a devil was not there. Many beliefs prevalent two centuries ago are now obsolete. Such a devil as witchcraft was imputed to, and who was believed to put forth greater power over all Indian and heathen lands than God exercised there, receives cognition in few brains to-day. Nevertheless, faith in the presence, power, and malignity of such a being, present and at work among them, was the main force that enabled his contestants to unwittingly put an end to faith in the existence of any one special foe to all goodness, whose power and dominion over the earth and its inhabitants very nearly rivaled those of the Omnipotent One, and whose malice was a near counterpoise to complete supernal benevolence.

Reason demands that the creature shall be inferior to its creator, that devil shall be less than God; and she in most persons refers all things and all events, in the ultimate analysis of causes and agents, back to One Great Over-Soul--one God.

If an all-wise and omnipotent One, being full of mercy too, proposed to subject an erroneous and enslaving human creed to a strain which should shatter it past restoration to strength, and thus to set its subjected holders free, highest wisdom may have seen that bright intellect, true courage, firm nerves, unfaltering devotion to sense of duty, and strong faith heavenward, were needful instrumentalities for best accomplishment of the design. The abode of people than whom none elsewhere were better prepared, more able, or more willing to fight the devil himself promptly, unfalteringly, and persistently, may have been a spot where supernal prescience saw that men, as blinded instruments, could best be made to effect their own and the world's emancipation from a time-hardened and disastrous public error. The mental and moral strength, and other good _fighting_ qualities of its occupants generally, may have caused the Village to be fixed upon as the most favorable battle-ground available for the projected struggle.

Neither God nor the devil, however, was author in any sense pertinent to the present inquiry. Our _ifs_, and the sentences which follow them, cannot meet the demands nor the needs of modern readers. Faith, in direct personal action upon either individual human beings or communities and nations by any incomprehensibly vast and ubiquitous intelligent being either malignant or benevolent, is not as prevalent now as it was in many generations past. God, or a mighty devil either, as constant, immediate, and personal performer on humanity's stage of operations, is not extensively recognized by the deep thinkers of our age.