exposed to ridicule by one who was designated as "a malignant,
calumnious, and reproachful man, a coal from hell." It was the
uncultured, but rational, Robert Calef. Cotton Mather wrote and spoke
much on the subject of witchcraft, long after the delusion had vanished.

[Illustration: Cotton Mather.]

The inexorable indignation of the people of Salem Village drove Parris
from the place. Noyes confessed his error and guilt, asked forgiveness
and devoted the remainder of his life to deeds of charity. Sewall, one
of the judges, by rising in his pew in the Old South meeting-house on a
fast day, and reading to the whole congregation a paper, in which he
bewailed his great offence, recovered public esteem. Stoughton and
Cotton Mather never repented. The former lived proud, unsatisfied and
unbeloved. The latter attempted to persuade others and himself that he
had not been specially active in the tragedy. His diary proves that he
did not wholly escape the impeachment of conscience, for it is stated
that Cotton Mather, who had sought the foundation of faith in tales of
wonders himself, "had temptations to atheism and to the abandonment of
all religion as a mere delusion."

As when a storm clears away, it leaves the atmosphere clearer, so the
common mind of New England became more wise. By employing a cautious
spirit of search, eliminating error, rejecting superstition as tending
toward cowardice and submission, the people cherished religion as a
source of courage and a fountain of freedom, and forever after refused
to separate belief from reason.

The actual fate of Mr. Parris is not certainly known. Some have
intimated that he died of a loathsome disease, others that, like Judas,
he took his own life; but we are assured that he received his share of
earthly torment for his base hypocrisy and cruel wrongs. Most of the
people who pretended to be afflicted afterward made confessions
admitting their error. Efforts were made by the legislature to make
amends for some of the great wrongs done at Salem; but such wrongs can
never be righted. The victims of Parris' hate and avarice have slept for
two hundred years on Witches' Hill, and there await the trump that shall
rouse the dead, when the just shall be separated from the unjust.

Salem Village is peaceful, happy and quiet. In the gentle murmur of
waves, the whisper of breezes and the laugh of babbling brooks, about
the quaint old town, all nature seems to rejoice that the age o