ltitude in white glittering robes; and they sung the Song in
_Revelation_, v., 9, and the one hundred and tenth Psalm, and the one
hundred and forty-ninth Psalm; and said with herself, 'How long shall I
stay here?' 'Let me be along with you!' She was loth to leave the place;
and grieved that she could tarry no longer. This White man hath appeared
several times to some of them, and given them notice how long it should
be before they had another fit, which was, some times, a day, or day
and half, or more or less. It hath fallen out accordingly."

In the case of Margaret Rule, in Boston, the year after the Salem
Delusion, of which it is not to be questioned that Mather had the
management, this same "_White_" Spirit is made to figure; and also, in
another instance. Mather alludes to the "glorious and signal deliverance
of that poor damsel," Mercy Short, six months before. "Indeed," says he,
"Margaret's case was, in several points, less remarkable than Mercy's;
and in some other things the entertainment did a little vary." Margaret,
Mercy, and the "afflicted children" at Salem Village, all had their
"White Angel," as thus stated by Mather: "Not only in the Swedish, but
also in the Salem Witchcraft, the enchanted people have talked much of a
White Spirit, from whence they received marvellous assistances in their
miseries. What lately befell Mercy Short, from the communications of
such a Spirit, hath been the just wonder of us all; but by such a Spirit
was Margaret Rule now also visited. She says that she could never see
his face; but that she had a frequent view of his bright, shining and
glorious garments; he stood by her bed-side, continually, heartening and
comforting her, and counselling her to maintain her faith and hope in
God, and never comply with the temptations of her adversaries."--_Calef_,
3, 8.

This appearance of the "White and Shining," Spirit, or "White Angel,"
exercising a good and friendly influence, was entirely out of the line
of ordinary spectral manifestations; constituted a speciality in the
cases mentioned; and seems to have originated in the same source. Let
it, then, be considered that Cotton Mather's favorite precedent, which was
urged upon Sir William Phips, and which Mather brought to the notice of
Richards, and was so fond of citing in his writings, had a "White Angel."
In his account of the "most horrid outrage, committed in Sweedland by
Devils, by the help of witches," we find the following: "S