been altered and relaxed, but
perhaps nowhere so much as in the land where the descendants of those
Pilgrims lived."--Godley's _Letters from America_, vol. ii., p. 90,
133.]

[Footnote 339: "The arbitrary will of the single tyrant, the excesses of
the prerogative, seem light when compared with their (the Puritans')
more intolerant, more arbitrary, and more absolute power."--_Commentaries
on the Life and Reign of Charles I._, vol. iii., p. 28, by I. D'Israeli.
London, 1830.]

[Footnote 340: Mather affirms that the Quakers used to go about saying,
"We deny thy Christ: we deny thy God, whom thou callest Father, Son, and
Spirit; thy Bible is the word of the devil." They used to rise up
suddenly in the midst of a sermon, and call upon the preacher to cease
his abomination. One writer says, "For hellish reviling of the painful
ministers of Christ, I know no people can match them." The following
epithets bestowed by Fisher on Dr. Owen are said to be fair specimens of
their usual addresses: "Thou green-headed trumpeter! thou hedgehog and
grinning dog! thou tinker! thou lizard! thou whirligig! thou firebrand!
thou louse! thou mooncalf! thou ragged tatterdemalion! thou livest in
philosophy and logic, which are of the devil." Even Penn is said to have
addressed the same respected divine as, "Thou bane of reason and beast
of the earth." When the governor or any magistrate came in sight, they
would call out, "Woe to thee, thou oppressor," and in the language of
Scripture prophecy would announce the judgments that were about to fall
upon their head.--Neale, cap. i., p. 341-345. Mather, b. vii., cap. iv.
Hutchinson, p. 196-205.]

[Footnote 341: "Sir Matthew Hale burned two persons for witchcraft in
1664. Three thousand were executed in England during the Long
Parliament. Two pretended witches were executed at Northampton in 1705.
In 1716, Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, aged nine, were hanged at
Huntingdon. The last sufferer in Scotland was in 1722, at Dornoch. The
laws against witchcraft had lain dormant for many years, when an
ignorant person attempting to revive them by finding a bill against a
poor old woman in Surrey for the practice of witchcraft, they were
repealed, 10 George II., 1736."--Viner's _Abridgement_.]

[Footnote 342: Neale, vol. ii., p. 164-170. Mather, vol. ii., p. 62-64.

Arfwedson says, "Close to the town of Salem is Beverley, a small,
insignificant place, remarkable only in the annals of history as having
for