's viewpoint as to
witchcraft.

In the very darkest depths of the witchcraft delusion, some
illustrations of splendid courage and noble unselfishness were
exhibited. Grewsome as it is, we cannot forbear quoting the example of
one Giles Cory, condemned to die as a witch, who knew that if he did not
confess he had bewitched people, his estate, which he wished his wife
and family to inherit, would be forfeited, and that he would be pressed
to death instead of being hanged.

Being hanged is a comparatively brief experience, while the other way is
prolonged and agonizing. But, for the sake of his family, brave old
Giles Cory calmly faced this terrible, lingering death. He must have won
from some, if not from all, the feeling that a stout-hearted and
generous man had proved his love for his own as no mere words could have
done.

John Hale appears to have been a worthy ancestor of the youth Nathan
Hale, who, a hundred years later, so freely made a sacrifice of his
life.

John Hale's son, Samuel, was Nathan's grandfather; he made his home in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire. One of Samuel Hale's sons, bearing his own
name, Samuel, was a Harvard man. Another son, Richard, Nathan's father,
born February 28, 1717, looking about to find the best farming lands for
the support of a future family, moved to Connecticut, and became a
farmer in South Coventry, thirty miles east of Hartford. Distinguished
from the beginning for his success in whatever he undertook in business
affairs, and also as a man of singularly upright character, Deacon
Richard Hale won the warmest regard of all who knew him. His advice and
help were sought, both in political and religious affairs, to the full
limit of the time at his command.

His farm was among the best in that section. The house that he first
occupied, probably one already on the place, was as comfortable and
convenient as the usual homes of the earlier colonists. Later a larger
house was built, big enough to accommodate a family of a dozen or more,
and many guests as well. The house in which Nathan lived as a boy is
still standing, and has fortunately come down to us with almost no
mutilation.

Though the forms and the voices of those who dwelt in them have long
since vanished, there still linger about these vacant rooms the most
tender and inspiring memories of the lives once developing there, now
gone forward; nothing wasted or lost, as we will believe, of anything
permanent they strove for o