apers. The violence of the opposing party knew no bounds;
they insisted that inoculation was "poisoning," and they urged the
authorities to try Dr. Boylston for murder. Having thus settled his case
for this world, they proceeded to settle it for the next, insisting that
"for a man to infect a family in the morning with smallpox and to
pray to God in the evening against the disease is blasphemy"; that the
smallpox is "a judgment of God on the sins of the people," and that
"to avert it is but to provoke him more"; that inoculation is "an
encroachment on the prerogatives of Jehovah, whose right it is to wound
and smite." Among the mass of scriptural texts most remote from any
possible bearing on the subject one was employed which was equally
cogent against any use of healing means in any disease--the words of
Hosea: "He hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will
bind us up."

So bitter was this opposition that Dr. Boylston's life was in danger; it
was considered unsafe for him to be out of his house in the evening; a
lighted grenade was even thrown into the house of Cotton Mather, who had
favoured the new practice, and had sheltered another clergyman who had
submitted himself to it.

To the honour of the Puritan clergy of New England, it should be said
that many of them were Boylston's strongest supporters. Increase and
Cotton Mather had been among the first to move in favour of inoculation,
the latter having called Boylston's attention to it; and at the very
crisis of affairs six of the leading clergymen of Boston threw their
influence on Boylston's side and shared the obloquy brought upon him.
Although the gainsayers were not slow to fling into the faces of the
Mathers their action regarding witchcraft, urging that their credulity
in that matter argued credulity in this, they persevered, and among the
many services rendered by the clergymen of New England to their country
this ought certainly to be remembered; for these men had to withstand,
shoulder to shoulder with Boylston and Benjamin Franklin, the
same weapons which were hurled at the supporters of inoculation in
Europe--charges of "unfaithfulness to the revealed law of God."

The facts were soon very strong against the gainsayers: within a year
or two after the first experiment nearly three hundred persons had been
inoculated by Boylston in Boston and neighbouring towns, and out of
these only six had died; whereas, during the same period, out of