him exceedingly, so that he could hardly fix his
thoughts upon what he read.

It was now a gloomy time in Boston. That terrible disease, the small pox,
had recently made its appearance in the town. Ever since the first
settlement of the country, this awful pestilence had come, at intervals,
and swept away multitudes of the inhabitants. Whenever it commenced its
ravages, nothing seemed to stay its progress, until there were no more
victims for it to seize upon. Oftentimes, hundreds of people, at once, lay
groaning with its agony; and when it departed, its deep footsteps were
always to be traced in many graves.

The people never felt secure from this calamity. Sometimes, perhaps, it
was brought into the country by a poor sailor, who had caught the
infection in foreign parts, and came hither to die, and to be the cause of
many deaths. Sometimes, no doubt, it followed in the train of the pompous
governors, when they came over from England. Sometimes, the disease lay
hidden in the cargoes of ships, among silks and brocades, and other costly
merchandise, which was imported for the rich people to wear. And,
sometimes, it started up, seemingly of its own accord; and nobody could
tell whence it came. The physician, being called to attend the sick
person, would look at him, and say,--"It is the small pox! let the patient
be carried to the hospital."

And now, this dreadful sickness had shown itself again in Boston. Cotton
Mather was greatly afflicted, for the sake of the whole province. He had
children, too, who were exposed to the danger. At that very moment, he
heard the voice of his youngest son, for whom his heart was moved with
apprehension.

"Alas! I fear for that poor child," said Cotton Mather to himself. "What
shall I do for my son Samuel?"

Again, he attempted to drive away these thoughts, by taking up the book
which he had been reading. And now, all of a sudden, his attention became
fixed. The book contained a printed letter that an Italian physician had
written upon the very subject, about which Cotton Mather was so anxiously
meditating. He ran his eye eagerly over the pages; and, behold! a method
was disclosed to him, by which the small pox might be robbed of its worst
terrors. Such a method was known in Greece. The physicians of Turkey, too,
those long-bearded Eastern sages, had been acquainted with it for many
years. The negroes of Africa, ignorant as they were, had likewise
practised it, and thus had shown th