,
disembodied and embodied, invisible demons, and confederate human
agents. He was seen in everything, everywhere. His steps were traced in
extraordinary occurrences and in the ordinary operations of nature. He
was hovering over the heads of all, and lying in wait along every daily
path. The affrighted imagination, in every scene and mode of life, was
conversant with ghosts, apparitions, spectres, devils. This prevalent,
all but universal, exercise of credulous fancy, exalted into the most
imposing dignity of theology and faith, must have had a demoralizing
effect upon the rational condition and faculties of men, and upon all
discrimination and healthfulness of thought. When error, in its most
extravagant forms, had driven the simplicity of the Gospel out of the
Church and the world, it is not to be wondered at that the mind was led
to the most shocking perversions, and the conscience ensnared to the
most indefensible actions.

The superstition of that day was foreshadowed in the ferocious cannibal
of classic mythology--a monster, horrific, hideous in mien, and gigantic
in stature. It involved the same fate. The eye of the intellect was
burned out, the light of reason extinguished--_cui lumen ademptum_.

Having always given himself up to the contemplation of diabolical
imaginations, Cotton Mather was led to take the part he did, in the
witchcraft proceedings; and it cannot be hidden from the light of
history. The greater his talents, the more earnestly he may, in other
matters, have aimed to be useful, the more weighty is the lesson his
course teaches, of the baleful effects of bewildering and darkening
superstition.

There is another, and a special, explanation to be given of the
disingenuousness that appears in his writings. He was a master of
language. He could express, with marvelous facility, any shade of
thought. He could also make language conceal thought. No one ever
handled words with more adroitness. He could mould them to suit his
purposes, at will, and with ease. This faculty was called in requisition
by the special circumstances of his times. It was necessary to
preserve, at least, the appearance of unity among the Churches, while
there was as great a tendency, then, as ever, to diversity of
speculations, touching points of casuistical divinity or ministerial
policy. The talent to express in formulas, sentiments that really
differed, so as to obscure the difference, was needed; and he had it. He
knew ho