t, by adjournment, in the first week of November, to continue--as
the Ministers, in their _Advice_, expressed it--their "sedulous and
assiduous endeavours to defeat the abominable witchcrafts which have
been committed in the country."

Little did those concerned, in keeping up the delusion and prolonging
the scenes in the Salem Court-house and on Witch-hill, dream that the
curtain was so soon to fall upon the horrid tragedy and confound him who
combined, in his own person, the functions of Governor,
Commander-in-chief, President of the Council, Legislative leader of the
General Court, and Chief-justice of the Special Court, and all his
aiders and abettors, lay and clerical.

XII.

"WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD," CONTINUED. PASSAGES FROM IT. "CASES OF
CONSCIENCE." INCREASE MATHER.

In addition to the reports of the trials of the five "Malefactors," as
Mather calls them, the _Wonders of the Invisible World_ contains much
matter that helps us to ascertain the real opinions, at the time, of its
author, to which justice to him, and to all, requires me to risk
attention. The passages, to be quoted, will occupy some room; but they
will repay the reading, in the light they shed upon the manner in which
such subjects were treated in the most accredited literature, and
infused into the public mind, at that day. The style of Cotton Mather,
while open to the criticisms generally made, is lively and attractive;
and, for its ingenuity of expression and frequent felicity of
illustration, often quite refreshing.

The work was written under a sense of the necessity of maintaining the
position into which the Government of the Province had been led, by so
suddenly and rashly organizing the Special Court and putting it upon its
bloody work, at Salem; and this could only be done by renewing and
fortifying the popular conviction, that such proceedings were necessary,
and ought to be vigorously prosecuted, and all Sadduceeism, or
opposition to them, put down. It was especially necessary to reconcile,
or obscure into indistinctness, certain conflicting theories that had
more or less currency. "I do not believe," says Mather, "that the
progress of Witchcraft among us, is all the plot which the Devil is
managing in the Witchcraft now upon us. It is judged that the Devil
raised the storm, whereof we read in the eighth Chapter of Matthew, on
purpose to overset the little vessel wherein the disciples of our Lord
were embarked with h