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 "otton Mather 
 Witchcraft 
 
 TWO 
 
 NOTICES OF 
 
 MR UPHAM HIS REPLY 
 
 
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 Cotton Mather 
 Witchcraft 
 
 TWO 
 
 NOTICES OF 
 
 MR UPHAM HIS REPLY 
 
 A? 4 _ 
 
 Boston: T R Marvin & Son 131 Congress Street 
 
 London : Henry Stevens 4 Trafalgar Square 
 
 May 1870 
 
f.& 
 
Till Cain's Club be taken out of Abel's hand, as well as 
 out of Cain's, 'tis impossible to rescue the world from 
 endless confusions. C. Mather 
 
 The Christian religion brings us not into a temporal 
 Canaan — it knows no designs, it has no weapons, but what 
 are purely spiritual. C. Mather 
 
 It will be safe to account the names, as well as the lives, 
 of our neighbors. C. Mather 
 
 We should be very tender in such relation, lest we wrong 
 the reputation of the innocent by stories not enough inquired 
 into. C. Mather 
 
 I cannot indeed resist the conviction that he looked upon 
 the occurrences in the Salem trials with secret pleasure, and 
 would have been glad to have had them repeated in Boston. 
 
 C. W. Upham 
 
 3, 
 
I confess it is a lamentation— and it shall be for a lamen- 
 tation — that so much false history is imposed upon the 
 world. C. Mather 
 
 How many excellent men, and more precious than the 
 golden wedge of Ophir, have been strangely Sanbenitd*d 
 by partial, prejudiced, passionate historians; and handed 
 down to posterity in vile. characters. C. Mather 
 
 It is not more certain, than shameful, that historians very 
 commonly write as tools of a party. The motto to be in- 
 scribed on them is Omnia pro Tempore^ Nihil pro Veri- 
 tate. C. Mather 
 
 Indeed Luther and Calvin, and some other buffeted heroes, 
 have had their vindicators. But who will dare appear in 
 
 the vindication of [Puritan ministers scandalized in 
 
 English history ] or so much as say, ' Tis pity they are not 
 vindicated ? Who is there ? Who so hardy or honest as 
 to take the A thence Oxonienses of a Wood, and so take the 
 poison out, that the books may be read with safety, and 
 become a useful performance ? C. Mather 
 
Upham vs. Mather, 
 
 Tt. Charles W. Upham's Reply to Mr. 
 Poole's article in the North American 
 Review for April last, has been lying 
 on our desk for several months, and 
 we have at last, with paibfal application, mastered 
 this tangled mass of historical detail. The author, 
 we think, has made a mistake in not bringing his 
 statement into a narrower and more leadabie com- 
 pass. His paper, if printed in the North American 
 Review, would rake an entire number. We live in 
 a busy age. Many persons interested in the dis- 
 cussion will, having read the title page and 
 skimmed over the surface, feel their utter inability 
 to wade through the ninety -one pages of small type 
 in double columns. Tne paper is heavy and mo- 
 
notonous in the extreme, and the writer never re- 
 lieves the reader by laying aside the character of a 
 special pleader for that of an impartial historian. 
 His task is to write down the Mathers, and to sub- 
 stantiate the hard assertions he has made against 
 them in his previous writings. Some of his points 
 we will endeavor to condense and illustrate. 
 
 The subject of the first of his twenty chapters is 
 "The Connection of the Mathers with the Super- 
 stitions of their Time." Towards its close he 
 sums up as follows: "My first position is (we 
 abridge somewhat his redundant phraseology) that 
 Increase and Cotton Mather are, particularly the lat- 
 ter, justly chargeable with, and may be said to have 
 brought about, the extraordinary outbreaks of 
 fanaticism exhibited in the cases of the Goodwin 
 children and of the afflicted children at Salem vil- 
 lage." Here is the corner-stone of his argument, 
 and we will inspect it for a moment. 
 
 We need only consider the bearing of these 
 charges upon the son, for Mr. Upham elsewhere 
 admits that the father condemned and opposed the 
 proceedings at Salem. We do not object to his 
 connecting the Good win case with the Salem trials, 
 for the younger Mather was as much responsible 
 for the one as for the other. 
 
The Goodwin case occurred in 1688. Cotton 
 Mather was then twenty -five years of age. It is in 
 proof that he had no personal connection with the 
 case till it had been the town talk for three months, 
 and then he was invited by the father of the afflict- 
 ed family to his house with the other ministers of 
 the town. Mr. Mather, when he called, was so 
 much a stranger that he required an introduction. 
 These facts were first brought to light by Mr. 
 Poole, to disprove the statement of Mr. Upham 
 in his Lectures of 1831, that the Goodwin case "was 
 brought about by Dr. Mather's management." In 
 bis late "Keply" Mr. Upham does not pretend that 
 he had any evidence to sustain this gross charge, 
 and says that, in his History of 1867, "I carefully 
 omitted the sentence, fearing that it might lead to 
 misapprehension." Why misapprehension ? The 
 fault of the sentence is not in ambiguity, but in its 
 falsification of history. His History of 1867 is full 
 of charges against Mr. Mather quite as gross, and 
 having as little foundation in fact. We need not 
 go beyond the paragraph which he thinks he has 
 expurgated (vol. II.. p. 366) to find two examples, 
 namely : "he repeatedly endeavored to get up 
 cases ef the kind in Boston ;" and "he was secretly 
 and cunningly endeavoring to renew them (the Sa- 
 lem proceediogs) the next year in his own parish 
 in Boston." It is singular that one who has the 
 
8 
 
 jaistorical faculty so highly developed that be eas 
 tell what a person who lived almost two centuries 
 ago "was secretly and cunningly endeavoring to 
 do," misapprehends so completely his public acts 
 and avowed opinions. 
 
 In answer to the charge that the Mathers, espe- 
 cially the younger, brought about the Goodwin and 
 Salem cases, we need only inquire what Cotton 
 Mather had done, up to the year 1688, to bring 
 about the extraordinary outbreak of fanaticism here 
 alleged ? Holding, doubtless, the opinions common 
 at that time on the subject of witchcraft and dia- 
 bolical agency, he had written no book on the subject, 
 and Mr. Upham has never undertaken to, and 
 cannot show that he had preached a sermon, of 
 had any opinions thereon. His corner-stone crum- 
 bles at the first touch. 
 
 We are well aware of a statement which has 
 long been current in our histories, that Mr. 
 Mather published his first work on Witchcraft hi 
 1685, and we may here pause for a moment and 
 examine it. 
 
 "It was not," says Mr. Peabody, in his "Life of 
 Cotton Mather," 1836, p. 241, "till Cotton Mather 
 in 1685 published an account of several cases of 
 
witchcraft, with arguments to prove that they were 
 no delusions, that such fears and fincies revived. 
 The case of Goodwin's family took place sooo after, 
 and this being published renewed the appetite for 
 horrors, and prepared the way for the scenes ex- 
 hibited at Salem." 
 
 Mr B^rry, in his "History of Massachusetts," 
 1856, vol. II , p. 31, says, "Cotton Mather pub- 
 lished in 1685 an account of cases which had oc- 
 curred in Ndw Eagland, with arguments to prove 
 that they were the effects of familiarity with the 
 devil." The same statement may be found in oth- 
 er historical works, among which is that candid 
 and excellent work, the "History of the Second 
 Boston Church," p. 102. Mr. Upham speaks of 
 himself (Reply, p. 20) as "a critical interpreter," 
 and of his reviewer as "a careless, cursory reader." 
 He therefore knows that Cotton Mather published 
 no work on witchcraft in 1685, and yet he has al- 
 lowed the statement to pass unchallenged these 
 many years. More than this, he has perpetuated 
 the misprint/mt of which the error originated^in 
 his History of 1867, vol. II. p. 361. This date 
 evidently made a strong impression on the mind of 
 Mr. Peabody (than whom there never was a fairer, 
 kindlier-hearted manj prejudicial to Mr. Mather, 
 and it will make this impression on any thought- 
 
10 
 
 ful man who accepts it as true. Bat it is not true ; 
 and it was the duty of the "critical interpreter" of 
 Salem Witchcrafc to have corrected the error in 
 his later publications. 
 
 The error in date we have described has evi- 
 dently arisen from two sources — a misprint in the 
 "Magnalia," of 1685 for 1689, the date ot Cotton Ma- 
 ther's "Memorable Providences ;*' and a misconcep- 
 tion of a statement of Gov. Hutchinson in "His- 
 tory of Massachusetts," vol. II., p. 24, concerning 
 another work printed in 1685, or more correctly 
 1684. This last work was Increase Mather's "Re- 
 markable Providences." Toe "Magnolia" was print- 
 ed in England, and the author had no opportunity 
 to revise the proofs as the work was passing 
 through the press. A list of Mr. Mather's three 
 hundred and eighty-three publications is appended 
 to Samuel Mather's life of his father. The first 
 title in the list, "The Call of the Gospel," is dated 
 1686. An earlier book has recently been found, 
 "Elegies on Collins," which was printed in 1685. 
 
 It is alleged, secondly, that Mr. Mather was es- 
 pecially chargeable for the Salem cases. It is not 
 pretended that he had any personal intercourse, or 
 even acquaintance, with the afflicted persons at Sa- 
 lem Village; but that his "Memorable Providences," 
 
II 
 
 printed in 1689, containing an account of the Good- 
 win case and the sermons he preached on the occa- 
 sion, was the cause of all the mischief. He pub- 
 lished no other book on witchcraft till 1693, and no 
 connection has been traced between this book and 
 the origin of the Salem cases in 1692. Witch tri- 
 als had been held in the colony, and the death pen- 
 alty inflicted, for more than forty years. The In- 
 dian servants of Mr. Parris, with whom the Salem 
 troubles arose, brought their superstitions from the 
 West Indian Islands. One or more Eng ish books 
 on witchcraft, which were then very numerous, 
 were in Mr. Parris's family, but no trace was found 
 there of Mr. Mather's. This was an unfortunate 
 circumstance; for the little manual would have 
 taught the faoaily and the Salem authorities a safe 
 and judicious practice in treating the subtile ene- 
 my. Prayer and fasting were Mr. Mather's meth- 
 od of dealing with evil spirits — not hanging. Mr. 
 Upham in his "Reply," when the proof was 
 brought home to him by Mr. Poole, admits that 
 this was the import of the book. A spirit of kind- 
 ness and charity towards persons afllicted and ac- 
 cused pervades the volume from beginning to end. 
 Samuel Willard and the other ministers of the 
 town vouched for the facts and principles of the 
 book in a commendatory preface. 
 
12 
 
 With these f*cts staring him in the face — for Mr. 
 Upham's equanimity is greatly ruffled at the inti- 
 mation that some incidents and books relating to 
 the subject may have escaped his observation— he 
 asserts that Cotton Mather is justly chargeable 
 with the chief responsibility of originating the 
 Goodwin and Salem cases. We question wheth- 
 er a more baseless accusation against a good man 
 was ever made and repeated by a writer who had 
 claims to a historical reputation. His mode of 
 making charges, and his manipulation of evidence 
 to sustain them, reminds one unpleasantly of the 
 Salem method of trying alleged witches in 1692. 
 It would hang all the eminent clergymen of the 
 present day; and the more brilliant their talents, 
 commanding their influence, and devoted rheir pie- 
 ty, the sooner they would swing. They are respon- 
 sible for all the crimes and outrages in the commu- 
 nity ; for. if they had chosen, they might, with their 
 great personal influence, have prevented them. 
 This is the favorite noose which Mr. Upham al- 
 ways has ready for Cotton Mather, and he jerks it 
 often. Such was Mr. Mather's commanding posi- 
 tion that he might, if he had chosen, have prevented 
 Gov. Phips from appointing a special court to try 
 the Salem cases; he might, by the same influence, 
 have mitigated the rigors of the court, sheltered 
 the accused, and stopped the trials. If Mr. Up- 
 
13 
 
 ham's argument, as to the controlling influence Mr. 
 Mither had over Gov. Pnip*, proves any thing, it 
 proves that Mr. Mather through Phips, did, and is 
 entitled to the credit of doing, the noble acts last 
 named. 
 
 Mr. Mather was less than thirty years of age, 
 and never was in any official position. He was 
 simply a Christian minister. His father, on the 
 other hand, was the most eminentnnan in the Col- 
 ony, President of Harvard College, a statesman as 
 well as a minister. As a public -agent of the Col- 
 ony, he. had resided for years near the Court at 
 London, and had transacted the most difficult and 
 complicated business within the range of states- 
 manship. Through his nomination and influence 
 the Governor and the entire Council received their 
 appointments. We might naturally suppose that a 
 person of such antecedents would have some influ- 
 ence in the affairs oi State ; but Mr. Upham sees 
 little of this. It is the son, the young preacher, 
 who is the impersonation of the powers that be, 
 both in Church and State. The most enthusiastic 
 admirer of Cotton Mather, we believe, has never 
 before given him such a commanding position at 
 this early period of his life. Of Increase Mather 
 he says in his "Reply," "1 had no peculiar interest 
 in determining what his views were," and yet he 
 
couples him as accessory before the # act, with his 
 son in bringing about the Goodwin and the Salem 
 cases. Increase Mather, however, wro^e the most 
 important book concerning witchcrafc which was 
 prepared while the Salem trials were going on. No 
 reader simply of Mr. Upham's Lectures and Histo- 
 ry would ever ascertain the fact. 
 
 Mr. Upbam's theory is, that no sooner had Gov. 
 Phips landed in Boston, in May, 1692, than Cotton 
 Mather met him, gave him exaggerated accounts 
 of what had transpired at Salem, kept him away 
 from other leading men, and brought him so much 
 under the magic power of his own personal influ- 
 ence that the Governor became his tool. Tne Gov- 
 ernor's appointment of the Special Court to try the 
 cases at Salem was, so far as its responsibility was 
 concerned, Mr. Mather's act. For the present pur- 
 pose of the argument we will accept this statement. 
 Phip*, says Mr. Upham, was an illiterate person. 
 Mr. Bancroft says he was a dull, headstrong, fee- 
 ble-minded man, and in politics knew nothing of 
 general principles. As usual, Mr. Bancroft takes 
 his opinions at second-hand, and is wholly wrong. 
 The letters of Pnips, which Mr. Upham prints, are 
 very able ; but on our present theory we must sup- 
 pose they were written for him by Mr. Mather, who 
 was a noted letter- writer. Philip English and wife, 
 
*5 
 
 who were arrested at Salem and imprisoned in Bos- 
 ton, were, by the ministers of the town, stealthily 
 sent off to New York for their personal safety, 
 bearing a letter from Gov. Phips to Gov. Fletcher 
 of New York, commending the fugitives to his 
 hospitality and protection, and this they received. 
 Afcer the excitement was over the exiles returned 
 safe and sound. Honor again to Mr. Mather. Mr. 
 Upham cannot sufficiently express his gratitude to 
 Gov. Phips for stopping the executions at Salem 
 in the autumn of 1692. It was a very creditable 
 act, and it all redounds to the glory of Mr. Mather, 
 who held the conscience and controlled the acts of 
 the Governor ! No eulogist of Mr. Mather ever 
 claimed so much for him as this. 
 
 Mr. Upham discovers that his argument is prov- 
 ing too much, and he attempts to hedge by assert- 
 ing that a coolness had intervened between the 
 Mathers and the Governor, and he knows the very 
 moment it commenced. In evidence of this he 
 states that at the next election ten anti-Matfeer 
 men, including Elisha Cooke, displaced as many 
 Mather men in the Council. This election did not 
 take place till May, 1693, and the last execu ions 
 were Sept. 22, 1692. The Council consisted of 
 twenty-eight members, and the ten new members 
 did not change the character of the Council. The 
 
i6 
 
 impression is giveD that this was a personal matter 
 whereas it was the political question of the old and 
 the new charter. The Mathers, who were not in 
 the government, were new-charter men. Elisha 
 Cooke and his party were old-charter men. The 
 new charter was now in full operation ; and it was 
 the part of political sagacity to introduce a repre- 
 sentation of the defeated party into the Council. 
 Without claiming that Cotton Mather had any such 
 influence over Phips as Mr. Upham alleges, it is 
 clear that there was a warm friendship and respect 
 existing between them, (which is evidence of 
 Phips's intelligence and sagacity ) and that this bond 
 was never sundered. Mr. Mather was the Govern- 
 or's biographer, and no one can read his affection- 
 ate eulogy in the Magnolia, without being im- 
 pressed with this fact. 
 
 The letter of Gov. Phips to the government was 
 written Oct. 14, 1692, "at the moment/' says Mr. 
 Upham, (how does he know this?) "when he Mad 
 made up his mind to break loose from those who 
 had led him to the hasty appointment of the 
 Special Court." The structure of the sentence im- 
 plies that these persons were the Mathers ; where- 
 as Phips says that "he depended on the judgment 
 of the coun" (or the persons composing the court, 
 of which Stoughton was the headj in the witch- 
 
17 
 
 craffc proceedings. This passage, again, Mr. Upbaist> 
 refers to the Mathers : "I was grieved," says Phips, 
 "to see that some who should have done their 
 majesties and the Province better service, have so 
 far taken counsel of passion as to desire the pre- 
 cipitancy in these matters." The passage obvi- 
 ously refers to Stoughton and the court, who were 
 in the service of their majesties and the Province, 
 which could not be said of the Mathers. Phips in 
 no instance alludes to the Mathers or to the clergy 
 as being in any way responsible for the proceed- 
 ings. 
 
 We have marked other points for examination, 
 but our allotted space is filled. We cannot see 
 that Mr. Upham has controverted any point in 
 Mr. Poole's paper. In attempting to vindicate his 
 own positions he has fallen into many historical 
 errors, and has shown that his 4 treatment ©f Mr. 
 Mather was wholly unfair, and nothing else than 
 the persecution which he himself cod demns. 
 
 Watchman and Reflector,. 
 c 
 
From the result of my own continued researches, and the 
 suggestion of others, I feel inclined to the opinion that no 
 very considerable alterations will be made ; and that subse- 
 quent editions will not impair the authority or value of the 
 work as originally published in 1867. C. W. UpJiam, 1869 
 
 He that can glory that in fourteen [forty?] years he hath 
 not altered nor improved his conceptions of some things, 
 shall not have me for his rival. C. Mather \ 1723: 
 
Cotton Mather, 
 
 URING his life, and For a hundred years 
 IS after his death, no name in the annals of 
 the Province of Massachusetts, was 
 held in more reverence than that of Cot- 
 ton Mather, unless it he that of his father, Increase 
 Mather. The son was a prodigy from his youth. 
 He knew more languRges, wrote more books, col- 
 lected more materials for history, and exerted a 
 wider religious and political influence than any 
 man who had lived in New England. During the 
 greater part of his long professional life his publi- 
 cations averaged one a month. His historical 
 works form the connecting link between the first 
 and fourth generations. He had a kind heart, a 
 genial manner, and a burning zeal for the cause of 
 
22' 
 
 evangelical religion. When he died, in February*, 
 1728, his funeral, though he had never held a 
 political office, was the largest and most impres- 
 sive that had ever taken place in Boston. "The 
 Lieutenant Governor, Council, and House of Rep- 
 resentatives walked in the procession," says a 
 contemporary account, " and then a large train of 
 ministers, justices, merchants, scholars, and other 
 principal inhabitants, both men and women. The 
 streets were crowded with people, and the win* 
 dows filled with sorrowful spectators all the way 
 to the burying- place." Four funeral sermons, 
 preached by the ministers of the town, were 
 printed at the time. Two of these sermons were 
 by Thomas Prince and Benjamin Colman, names 
 of the highest historical reputation, and who inti- 
 mately knew the man to whose memory they paid 
 the most glowing and affectionate eulogy. Their 
 texts were, "My father, my father! the chariots 
 of Israel and the horsemen thereof." " And Enoch 
 walked with God, and was not, for God took 
 him." 
 
 Within the last forty years an attempt has been 
 made by historical writers, to reverse this contem- 
 poraneous record, and to heap reproach upon his 
 
23 
 
 name. This concerted hostility dates from the 
 larger development of *« liberal Christianity " in 
 Massachusetts. The first marked demonstration 
 appeared in Mr. James Savage's notes to Governor 
 Winthrop's Journal, printed in 1825. It is, some 
 one has said, a matter of doubt whether Mr. Sav- 
 age's chief object in this work was to annotate 
 Winthrop or to abuse Cotton Mather. These 
 strictures of Mr. Savage only touched upon his 
 reputation as a historian. Soon after, Kev- Charles 
 Went worth Upham, then a Unitarian clergyman 
 of Salem, prepared a course of Lectures on the 
 subject of Witchcraft, which he delivered in that 
 town and the vicinity, and in 1831 printed them in 
 a volume. Here appeared a new series of charges 
 bearing upon the moral and religious character of 
 Mr. Mather. He was accused of being the insti- 
 gator, fomenter and conductor of the witchcraft 
 prosecutions at Salem, 1692, — of delighting in 
 scenes of blood, — of dishonesty and corruption. 
 These views are found to-day in the text-books 
 used in our public schools* 
 
 On the publication of the Lectures in 1831, a 
 writer in the Christian Register (Unitarian) chal- 
 lenged these statements as being contrary to the 
 
24 
 
 historical record of Mr. Mather's character. Mr. 
 IFpham, in the Appendix of his second edition, 
 printed in 1832, noticed the above criticism, and 
 stated that it was a new view which he had him- 
 self discovered from a study of the documents of 
 that period. Before this time, he admits, "a. 
 shadow of doubt had never been suggested re- 
 specting Mr. Mather's moral and Christian charac- 
 ter ;" but having found that he was "in reality 
 dishonest and corrupt, a regard for truth and jus- 
 tice compelled me to express my convictions." 
 These accusations, brought out in 1831, were in- 
 tensified in his " History of Salem Witchcraft," 
 printed in 1867. 
 
 An article on " Cotton Mather and Salem Witch- 
 craft," appeared in the North American Review for 
 April, 1869, in vindication of Mr. Mather; show- 
 ing that Mr. Upham was either not familiar with, 
 or had intentionally misrepresented the contempo- 
 raneously printed literature on the subject, — that 
 the contents of well-known manuscript collections 
 had not been explored, — that he had suppressed 
 the most important printed documents of the 
 period, such as the " Advice of the Boston Minis- 
 ters," of June 15,. 1692, which was drawn, up. by* 
 
25 
 
 Cotton Mather, and " Cases of Conscience con- 
 cerning Witchcraft," written by Increase Mather, 
 at the request of the Boston ministers, while the 
 Salem trials were in progress, and which flatly 
 contradict the statements of Mr. Upham, — that he 
 had perverted the obvious meaning of Mr. Mather's 
 writings, — and that the authorities on which he 
 depended, such as Robert Calefs book, were 
 wholly unreliable. The writer of the review was 
 Mr. William F. Poole, a critic well versed in New 
 England history. 
 
 Mr. TJpham's "Reply" to Mr. Poole's review, 
 has appeared in the Historical Magazine, and both 
 papers have been printed in a separate form. The 
 question at issue is not simply the character of 
 Mr. Mather, but that of all the New England cler- 
 gy of that period. Mr. TJpham's " Reply " is un- 
 necessarily long and inexcusably tedious. He 
 introduces topics which have no relation to the 
 points in issue, and his whole treatment of the 
 subject is that of a partisan rather than an histo- 
 rian. He fails, it seems to us, to establish the 
 positions whinh he has set up in his previous 
 works, or to answer the strictures of his opponent. 
 The concessions he is obliged to make are fatal tG 
 
 D 
 

 26 
 
 his case. His theory has been, that Mr. Mather 
 was the chief instigator and conductor of the 
 trials at Salem. ^Nlr. Poole produced the proof 
 that Mr. Mather never attended one of the trials, 
 either as prosecutor, witness or spectator. Mr. 
 Upham admits this, and does not show why he 
 did not mention it in his Lectures or History, for 
 the fact is expressly stated in Mather's " Wonders 
 of the Invisible World," and Calef's *« More Won- 
 ders." Mr. Mather often went to Salem that 
 summer, and we know that he was selected by the 
 condemned persons, as their comforter and spir- 
 itual adviser. Would these persons have chosen 
 for such a duty, the man who had brought them 
 into their wretched condition ? Mr. Upham en- 
 deavors, by his logic, to show that Mr. Mather, 
 if not at any of the trials, was present at the 
 preliminary examinations. He has examined 
 the records, and finds almost every body else 
 there, but not a trace of Mr. Mather. Unless 
 he can show that the alleged chief conspirator 
 was present on one or more of these occasions, 
 he has no case. 
 
 His argument is this : Susannah Sheldon, one of 
 the • » afflicted children," testified on the 9 th of May* 
 
27 
 
 that there appeared to her a " shining white man." 
 Mercy Lewis, on the 1st of April, stated that she 
 had seen a " white spirit/' The spirits usually 
 testified to were of quite another color. Some- 
 body must have told these girls about a white 
 spirit. That person must have been Mr. Mather ; 
 and to do this he must have been present at the 
 examinations, stood by their side, and put the idea 
 in their ears. But why lay this charge especially 
 upon Mr. Mather ? Because nobody else knew 
 about a white spirit ; and he got the idea, so Mr. 
 Upham asserts, from a -Swedish book in his pos- 
 session, which he quoted in his " Wonders of 
 the Invisible World." A theory must be in a 
 desperate condition to need this sort of con- 
 firmation. Perhaps in following out this inci- 
 dent, we can as well illustrate Mr. Upham's 
 method, as by giving brief specimens of many 
 others we have marked. 
 
 The girls were testifying concerning what ap- 
 peared to be a good spirit ; and they evidently 
 borrowed the imagery of the New Testament, 
 where such spirits are uniformly represented as 
 clothed in white. Mercy Lewis saw her white 
 spirit "in a glorious place which had no candles 
 
28 
 
 nor sun, yet was full of light and brightness, and 
 where they sung the song in Revelation, v. 9/' 
 For a clergyman to fall into such a mistake as 
 this, and use it as historical evidence to convict 
 another clergyman of a dreadful charge, must be 
 classed among the curiosities of the clerical pro- 
 fession. 
 
 If Mr. Upham had been familiar even with witch 
 lore, a white spirit would not have struck him 
 with surprise. The books are filled with them. 
 Increase Mather, in his Remarkable Providences 
 of 1684, has a chapter on white spectres, and ad- 
 vises his readers to have nothing to do with them, 
 for they are nothing else than the Devil in dis- 
 guise. The service which the Swedish book is 
 made to play in the argument, is very comical. 
 Increase Mather was probably the owner of the 
 book, for he used it in making his Remarkable 
 Providences, before Cotton Mather had reached his 
 majority. Mr. Upham will find it quoted on page 
 132 of the London reprint of 1856. "Will he claim 
 that Increase Mather stood near the girls at the 
 examinations, and whispered in their ears about a 
 white spirit ? 
 
2 9 
 
 It is fortunate that Mr. Upham did not live in 
 Salem in 1692, with his present ideas of criminal 
 and historical evidence. There would have been 
 a dearth of ministers in the Province for the next 
 generation. His methods would hang both the 
 law and the prophets. 
 
 We never remember to have read a paper with 
 so many historical errors, so much illogical and 
 inconsequential reasoning, and such bald perver- 
 sions of the plain meaning of contemporaneous 
 documents. No one can read it without feeling an 
 increased respect for Mr. Mather, and appreci- 
 ating the spirit which animates his detractor. , 
 
 Mr. Abner C. Goodell, jr., the neighbor and 
 friend of Mr. Upham, has given a complimentary 
 notice of the " Reply " in the Genealogical Regis- 
 ter for April. He says : " As the writer in the 
 Edinburgh Review y for July, 1868, has said of the 
 History of Salem Witchcraft, — ■ no more accurate 
 piece of history has been written* — so say we 
 [A. C. G., Jr.] of this [Mr. Upham's] paper on 
 Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather." The force 
 of the compliment is impaired by the fact, that no 
 writer on the subject ever made so many mistakes 
 
30 
 
 as this same Edinburgh Reviewer. Besides re* 
 peating Mr. Upham's errors he manufactured them 
 by wholesale for himself. He did not know that 
 Salem Village was a different locality from Salem 
 town ; he made the date of the settlement 1620, 
 " under a charter granted by James I. to the Gov- 
 ernor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in 
 New England ; " and he makes a dreadful muddle 
 of New England names and events. How a 
 writer, who has not learned the alphabet of our 
 local history, is capable of forming so authorita- 
 tive an opinion as that expressed above, is quite 
 as inexplicable as that Mr. Goodell should 
 have used the extract in the manner 
 he has, unless he intended to 
 give his friend, what Calef 
 calls an " ambidex- 
 ter" endorsement. 
 Christian Era 
 
WSSSm 
 
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