an bishoprics
when those under trial for witchcraft there had at last, in their
desperation or madness, charged the very bishops and the judges upon
the bench with sorcery. The party of reason grew stronger. The Rev. Mr.
Parris was soon put upon the defensive: for some of the possessed began
to confess that they had accused people wrongfully. Herculean efforts
were made by certain of the clergy and devout laity to support the
declining belief, but the more thoughtful turned more and more against
it; jurymen prominent in convictions solemnly retracted their verdicts
and publicly craved pardon of God and man. Most striking of all was the
case of Justice Sewall. A man of the highest character, he had in view
of authority deduced from Scripture and the principles laid down by the
great English judges, unhesitatingly condemned the accused; but reason
now dawned upon him. He looked back and saw the baselessness of the
whole proceedings, and made a public statement of his errors. His diary
contains many passages showing deep contrition, and ever afterward, to
the end of his life, he was wont, on one day in the year, to enter into
solitude, and there remain all the day long in fasting, prayer, and
penitence.

Chief-Justice Stoughton never yielded. To the last he lamented the "evil
spirit of unbelief" which was thwarting the glorious work of freeing New
England from demons.

The church of Salem solemnly revoked the excommunications of the
condemned and drove Mr. Parris from the pastorate. Cotton Mather
passed his last years in groaning over the decline of the faith and the
ingratitude of a people for whom he had done so much. Very significant
is one of his complaints, since it shows the evolution of a more
scientific mode of thought abroad as well as at home: he laments in his
diary that English publishers gladly printed Calef's book, but would no
longer publish his own, and he declares this "an attack upon the glory
of the Lord."

About forty years after the New England epidemic of "possession"
occurred another typical series of phenomena in France. In 1727 there
died at the French capital a simple and kindly ecclesiastic, the
Archdeacon Paris. He had lived a pious, Christian life, and was endeared
to multitudes by his charity; unfortunately, he had espoused the
doctrine of Jansen on grace and free will, and, though he remained in
the Gallican Church, he and those who thought like him were opposed by
the Jesuits, and finall