dom of God in the world." His conduct, adds his biographer, was altogether consonant to these sentiments.*

"In regard of literature, or an acquaintance with books of all kinds," says Dr. Chauncy, "I give the palm to Cotton Mather. No native of this country had read so much, or retained more of what he read. He was the greatest redeemer of time I ever knew, and lost as little of it, as any one could do in his situation. There were scarcely any books written, but he had, somehow or other, got the sight of them. His own library was the largest, by far, of any private one on the continent. He was always reading and writing, and had the happiest talent of going rapidly through a book. He knew more of the history of this country than any man in it; and could he have conveyed his knowledge with proportionable judgment, he would have given the best history of it." What Dr. Chauncy said of Cotton Mather in his day, I have no doubt may be said with equal truth now. In point of learning, in the stricter application of the term, as denoting a general acquaintance with books, he was the most learned man that New England ever bred. "No native of this country ever read so much, or retained so much of what he read."

As might be expected from the above account of the learn-. ing of Cotton Mather, he was most diligent and systematic in the improvement of time. He had written, in large letters, over his study door, to be seen and read by every visitant, BE. SHORT. In the morning, he arranged the business of the day; and to each day of the week, he allotted some particular department of duty. He maintained an extensive correspondence with philosophers and literary characters, in different languages, and in various parts of the world. In 1710, the university of Glasgow conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity; and three years after, he was elected a member of the Royal Society, London. His publications, in all, amounted to three hundred and eighty-three.

I have said already, that Cotton Mather was pre-eminently a man of prayer. Besides his daily secret devotions, it appears from his diary that he kept, in one year, no less than sixty private fasts, and twenty vigils. His son thinks that, on a mode

*Life by his Son, p. 21.

+ Mass. Hist. Col., 1st series, Vol. X. p. 156.

rate computation, he kept between four and five hundred fasts, in the course of his public life. Indeed, he seems to have studied and acquired the habit of turning almost every thing into prayer. The most common occurrences of life were made the occasion of lifting up his soul to God, in pious, appropriate ejaculations.

But with all this greatness and excellence of character, Cotton Mather inherited some weaknesses. He had more genius than judgment; more learning than taste; a greater facility for acquiring knowledge, than skill in arranging and employing it. He seems also to have been credulous, and inclined to the marvellous, to a degree which exposed him to frequent impositions. His knowledge of human nature, having been acquired rather from books than from the living world, was necessarily defective; on which account his intercourse with the world was less useful, and at times less agreeable, than might otherwise have been expected.

In the winter of 1728, he was seized with the disorder which terminated his life. In the note calling his physician, he made use of these words: " My last enemy is come; or I would rather say, my best friend." When asked by one of his church, if he was desirous to be gone, he replied: “I dare not say that I am, nor yet that I am not; I would be entirely resigned unto God." When his physician expressed to him the opinion that he could not recover, he lifted up his hands, and said: "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." Taking the hand of his nephew, who stood near him, he said: "My dear son, I do, with all possible affection, recommend you to the blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Take my hands and my heart full of blessings." A few hours before his death, he remarked: "Now I have nothing more to do here. My will is entirely swallowed up in the will of God." When it came to the last, he said: "Is this dying? Is this all? Is this all that I feared, when I prayed against a hard death? OI can bear this! I can bear it! I can bear it !" When his wife wiped his disordered eye, he said: "I shall in a few moments be where all tears shall be wiped away."

Indeed, the entire closing scene of this great and good man was peaceful and happy. He died, February 13th, 1728, when he had just completed his sixty-fifth year. He was followed to the grave by an immense concourse of people, among whom

were all the high officers of government. "It was the general sentiment," says one of his biographers, " that a great and good man had fallen."

CONNECTION OF COTTON MATHER WITH THE EXCITEMENT RESPECTING WITCHCRAFT.

In examining the objections urged by President Quincy and others, against the character of Cotton Mather, the first which presents itself is that growing out of his connection with the subject of witchcraft. This, it will be necessary to consider at some length, and with special care.

In the first place, I remark, that Cotton Mather was a sincere and earnest believer in the reality, and not unfrequent occurrence of what, in his day, was denominated witchcraft. He also believed that the crime of witchcraft, when fully proved, was justly punishable with death. Nor was his faith, in regard to these points, at all singular. It was the common faith of Christendom, and had been so for several hundred years.

Persons who have not attended particularly to the subject can have no idea of the extent to which the supposed crime of witchcraft has prevailed in different countries, and the multitude of deaths which it has occasioned. In the latter part of the sixteenth century, not only hundreds, but thousands, were put to death-many of them by the extremest tortures-in Germany, France and Spain, under the imputation of witchcraft. In 1612, fifteen persons were indicted, and twelve executed, in Lancashire, England; and in 1634, seventeen more were put to death in the same county. The Rev. Thomas Cooper, one of the ministers of this county, in his "Mystery of Witchcraft," published in 1617, says: "Doth not every assize almost, throughout the land, resound of the arraignment and conviction of notorious witches?" p. 15.

Between the years 1644 and 1646, the celebrated witchhunter, Matthew Hopkins, was encouraged and employed, to visit different parts of England, ferret out those who dealt with familiar spirits, and aid in bringing them to justice. Through his instrumentality, sixteen were executed at Yarmouth, fifteen at Chelmsford, one at Cambridge, several in Huntingdon, and not less than sixty in the single county of Suffolk. Among those who encouraged this infamous man, were persons of no

less celebrity and excellence, than Richard Baxter and the elder Calamy.*

In the year 1664, Sir Matthew Hale presided at the trial of two females in Suffolk, supposed to be witches, both of whom were condemned and executed. At these trials, Sir Thomas Browne attended as a witness, who "declared his opinion in favor of the reality of witchcraft, and entered into a particular discussion of the subject before the jury." Near the close of the seventeenth century, many were tried and condemned in England, under the administration of Chief Justice Holt. It is stated by Mr. Upham, that in this century alone, "more than two hundred were hanged in England, thousands were burned in Scotland, and larger numbers perished in various parts of Europe," for the supposed crime of witchcraft.

About the middle of the seventeenth century, a narrative of an alleged case of witchcraft was published in France, under the title of "The Devil of Mascon." The celebrated Robert Boyle "gave his sanction to the work, promoted the translation of it into English, and publicly declared his belief of the supernatural transaction it related."

Sir William Blackstone, the great oracle of British law, who died no longer ago than 1780, declared his belief in witchcraft, in the following terms: "To deny the possibility, nay, the actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God, in various passages, both of the Old and New Testament; and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath, in its turn, borne testimony, either by examples seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of commerce with evil spirits."||

* Of one of Cotton Mather's publications on Witchcraft, Mr. Baxter said in his old age: "It comes with such convincing evidence, that he must be a very obdurate Sadducee who will not believe it."

See Hutchinson on Witchcraft, pp. 41-63.

Upham on Witchcraft, pp. 164, 219. In the year 1670, eighty-five witches were condemned in Sweden, the most of whom, if not all, were burned and executed. There were also thirty-six children that ran the gauntlet, and twenty were whipped every Sunday, at the church door, for three weeks together, for the same crime.

§ See Hutchinson ut supra, p. 123. See Upham on Witchcraft, p. 219.

In our own country, at the time of Cotton Mather, the belief in witchcraft may be said to have been universal. The most experienced physicians, who were called to prescribe for the afflicted persons, and the most eminent ministers who were invited to pray with them, did not hesitate to pronounce them bewitched. Even those persons who had the least sympathy with the Mathers on some subjects, such as Thomas and William Brattle, John Leverett, and even Robert Calef, all agreed with them as to the reality of witchcraft. In the year 1694, two years subsequent to the executions at Salem, a paper was issued by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, and signed, among others, by Samuel Willard, John Leverett and William Brattle, inviting observation and information concerning "apparitions, possessions, enchantments, and all extraordinary things, wherein the existence and agency of the invisible world is more sensibly demonstrated.'

Nor was the belief in witchcraft, in this country, confined to New England. In the early settlement of Pennsylvania, William Penn presided on the bench at the trial of two Swedish women for witchcraft, both of whom would have been condemned and executed, but for some technical error in the indictment.t The French and Dutch ministers of New-York, when their opinion was asked by the chief justice of that province, replied in writing: "If we believe in no verrifick witchcraft, we must renounce the Scripture of God, and the consent of almost all the world." To all this I will add, that Rev. Dr. Watts, writing to Cotton Mather, so late as the year 1720, respecting the Salem witchcraft, says: "I am persuaded that there was much

* See Mather's Magnalia, Vol. II., p. 294. I have previously shown that Thomas Brattle was a believer in witchcraft. It is evident from the paper above quoted, that the same was true of Samuel Willard, John Leverett and William Brattle. We have additional evidence of this in the case of Willard, (notwithstanding what some have said to the contrary,) in the fact that Calef wrote him a solemn letter of reproof on the subject. He addressed a similar letter, also, to Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth. See Calef's "More Wonders," etc., pp. 89, 115. Calef repeatedly affirms his own belief in witchcraft, though he disagreed with the ministers as to the proper definition of the term witch. See "More Wonders," etc., pp. 50, 111, 162. † See Upham on Witchcraft, p. 182.

Magnalia, Vol. I. p.191.