visits, but her mind
was very far from being poised in the just balance of its faculties. She
was of a good natural constitution and a fine temperament; but she
had been overwrought by all that she had passed through, and, though
happening to have been born in another land, she was of American
descent. Now, it has long been noticed that there is something in the
influences, climatic or other, here prevailing, which predisposes to
morbid religious excitement. The graver reader will not object to
seeing the exact statement of a competent witness belonging to a by-gone
century, confirmed as it is by all that we see about us.

"There is no Experienced Minister of the Gospel who hath not in the
Cases of Tempted Souls often had this Experience, that the ill Cases of
their distempered Bodies are the frequent Occasion and Original of their
Temptations." "The Vitiated Humours in many Persons, yield the Steams
whereinto Satan does insinuate himself, till he has gained a sort of
Possession in them, or at least an Opportunity to shoot into the Mind as
many Fiery Darts as may cause a sad Life unto them; yea, 't is well if
Self-Murder be not the sad end into which these hurried. People are
thus precipitated. New England, a country where Splenetic Maladies
are prevailing and pernicious, perhaps above any other, hath afforded
Numberless Instances, of even pious People, who have contracted these
Melancholy Indispositions which have unhinged them from all Service or
Comfort; yea, not a few Persons have been hurried thereby to lay Violent
Hands upon themselves at the last. These are among the unsearchable
Judgments of God!"

Such are the words of the Rev. Cotton Mather.

The minister had hardly recovered from his vexatious defeat in the
skirmish where the Widow Hopkins was his principal opponent, when he
received a note from Miss Silence Withers, which promised another and
more important field of conflict. It contained a request that he
would visit Myrtle Hazard, who seemed to be in a very excitable and
impressible condition, and who might perhaps be easily brought under
those influences which she had resisted from her early years, through
inborn perversity of character.

When the Rev. Mr. Stoker received this note, he turned very pale,--which
was a bad sign. Then he drew a long breath or two, and presently a flush
tingled up to his cheek, where it remained a fixed burning glow. This
may have been from the deep interest he felt in Myr