Part 29

Who helped the little clergyman lift and hold the heavy gun? He says it was "_an Indian_." But Mather says, "none of the spectators ever saw any such Indian; but they _supposed the black man_ (as the witches call the _devil_, and they generally say he _resembles an Indian_) might have given him that assistance." That sentence illumines many a dark spot in our ancient witchcraft. The witches, or clairvoyants, whether accusers or accused, were not accustomed to speak of seeing _the devil_. It is fairly questionable whether any one among them ever spoke of seeing _the devil_, or of having any interview with _him_, or knowledge of _him_ obtained by personal observation. It was _man_ whom they saw. They spoke of the black _man_. Mather says that was their name for _the devil_. We doubt it. What they saw failed to present a semblance of Cloven-foot, with horns, tail, and hoofs, and did not suggest to them an idea of _the devil_. The substitution of devil for black man, or the regarding the two as synonymous, was Mather's work, and not that of the clairvoyants. And who was _the black man_? Mather informs us that those whose optics could see him "generally say he _resembles an Indian_." If he resembled an Indian, is not the inference very fair that he was an Indian? Yes. "Black man" obviously was applied by clairvoyants to designate any Indian spirit, and spirits of human beings probably were the only spirits whom their inner vision ever beheld. Thanks to you, Mather, for recording that explanatory sentence. The devil you fought against was your brother man--was earth-born--and when seen and conferred with not very formidable. Your clairvoyants, or witches, saw and heard occult men, women, children, beasts, and birds, but never spoke of seeing your ecclesiastical devil. The human beings whom they beheld varied in size from little children to tall men, and in complexion from black to white--even up to glorious brightness. Your informants never used the word _devil_ in their descriptions. You misreported them, as Cheever did Tituba; Calef followed your lead, and subsequent historians have copied from both you and him.

You also state that Burroughs was "_foolish_ enough to say that an Indian" helped him. Was it foolish in him to state the truth? Your own witnesses en masse say his helper _resembled_ an Indian--he said the assistant _was_ an Indian. Why didn't you take the words of your own witnesses as corroborative of the man's statement? They surely were so, and they give us a true presentation of the case. The reason of your course is obvious; the creed of your times deemed any spirit visitant or helper to be the devil himself.

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.