s of the time--Cotton Mather--who to a recent date has been
credited with the chief responsibility for the Salem prosecutions.

Did he deserve it?

Robert Calef, in his _More Wonders of the Invisible World_, Bancroft in
his _History of the United States_, and Charles W. Upham in his _Salem
Witchcraft_, are the chief writers who have placed Mather in the
foreground of those dreadful scenes, as the leading minister of the
time, an active personal participant in the trials and executions, and a
zealot in the maintenance of the ministerial dignity and domination.

On the other hand, the learned scholar, the late William Frederick
Poole, first in the _North American Review_, in 1869, and again in his
paper _Witchcraft in Boston_, in 1882, in the _Memorial History of
Boston_, calls Calef an immature youth, and says that his obvious
intent, and that of the several unknown contributors who aided him, was
to malign the Boston ministers and to make a sensation.

And the late John Fiske, in his _New France and New England_ (p. 155),
holds that:

"Mather's rules (of evidence) would not have allowed a verdict of guilty
simply upon the drivelling testimony of the afflicted persons, and if
this wholesome caution had been observed, not a witch would ever have
been hung in Salem."

What were those rules of evidence and of procedure attributed to Mather?
Through the Special Court appointed to hold the witch trials, and early
in its sittings, the opinions of twelve ministers of Boston and vicinity
were asked as to witchcraft. Cotton Mather wrote and his associates
signed an answer June 15, 1692, entitled, _The Return of Several
Ministers Consulted by his Excellency and the Honorable Council upon the
Present Witchcrafts in Salem Village_. This was the opinion of the
ministers, and it is most important to note what is said in it of
spectral evidence,[E] as it was upon such evidence that many convictions
were had:

"1. The afflicted state of our poor neighbors that are now suffering by
molestations from the Invisible World we apprehend so deplorable, that
we think their condition calls for the utmost help of all persons in
their several capacities.

"2. We cannot but with all thankfulness acknowledge the success which
the merciful God has given unto the sedulous and assiduous endeavors of
our honorable rulers to detect the abominable witchcrafts which have
been committed in the country; humbly praying that the discovery of
these my