the Lord. He sat down at length from pure
exhaustion. Then Dr. Cotton Mather stood
forward; he did not utter more than a few
words of prayer, calm in comparison with what
had gone before, and then he went on to address
the great crowd before him in a quiet, argumentative
way, but arranging the mode and arrangement
of what he had to say with something
of the same kind of skill which Antony used in
his speech to the Romans after Cæsar's death.
Some of Dr. Mather's words have been
preserved to us, as he afterwards wrote them down
in one of his works. Speaking of those
"unbelieving Sadducees" who doubted the existence
of such a crime, he said. "Instead of their apish
shouts and jeers at blessed Scripture, and
histories which have such undoubted confirmation
as that no man that has breeding enough to
regard the common laws of human society will
offer to doubt of them, it becomes us rather to
adore the goodness of God, who from the mouths
of babes and sucklings has ordained truth, and
by the means of the sore-afflicted children of
your godly pastor has revealed the fact that the
devils have with most horrid operations broken
in upon your neighbourhood. Let us beseech
Him that their power may be restrained, and
that they go not so far in their evil machinations
as they did but four years ago in the city of
Boston, where I was the humble means, under
God, of loosing from the power of Satan the
four children of that religious and blessed man,
Mr. Goodwin. These four babes of grace were
bewitched by an Irish witch; there is no end to
the narration of the torments they had to submit
to. At one time they would bark like dogs,
at another purr like cats; yea, they would fly
like geese, and be carried with an incredible
swiftness, having but just their toes now and
then upon the ground, sometimes not once in
twenty feet, and their arms waved like those of
a bird. Yet at other times, by the hellish
devices of the woman who had bewitched them,
they could not stir without limping, for, by
means of an invisible chain, she hampered their
limbs, or sometimes, by means of a noose, almost
choked them. One in especial was subjected
by this woman of Satan to such heat as of an
oven, that I myself have seen the sweat drop
from off her, while all around were moderately
cold and well at ease. But not to trouble you
with more of my stories, I will go on to prove
that it was Satan himself that held power over
her. For a very remarkable thing it was that
she was not permitted by that evil spirit to
read any godly or religious book, speaking the
truth as it is in Jesus. She could read Popish
books well enough, while both sight and speech
seemed to fail her when I gave her the Assembly's
Catechism. Again, she was fond of that
prelatical Book of Common Prayer which is but
the Roman mass-book in an English and
ungodly shape. In the midst of her sufferings, if
one put the Prayer-book into her hands it
relieved her. Yet mark you, she could never be
brought to read the Lord's Prayer, whatever
book she met with it in, proving thereby
distinctly that she was in league with the devil. I
took her into my own house, that I, even as Dr.
Martin Luther did, might wrestle with the
devil and have my fling at him. But when I
called my household to prayer, the devils that
possessed her caused her to whistle, and sing,
and yell in a discordant and hellish fashion."

At this very instant a shrill, clear whistle
pierced all ears. Dr. Mather stopped for a
moment.

"Satan is among you!" he cried. "Look to
yourselves." And he prayed with fervour, as if
against a present and threatening enemy; but
no one heeded him. Whence came that ominous,
unearthly whistle? Every man watched his
neighbour. Again the whistle, out of their very
midst. And then a bustle in a corner of the
building, three or four people stirring, without
any cause immediately perceptible to those at a
distance, the movement spread, and directly
after a passage even in that dense mass of people
was cleared for two men, who bore forwards
Prudence Hickson, lying rigid as a log of wood,
in the convulsive position of one who suffered
from an epileptic fit. They laid her down among
the ministers who were gathered round the pulpit.
Her mother came to her, sending up a wailing
cry at the sight of her distorted child. Dr.
Mather came down from the pulpit and stood
over her, exorcising the devil in possession, as
one accustomed to such scenes. The crowd
pressed forward in mute horror. At length her
rigidity of form and feature gave way, and she
was terribly convulsed—torn by the devil, as
they called it. By-and-by the violence of the
attack was over, and the spectators began to
breathe again, though still the former horror
brooded over them, and they listened as if for
the sudden ominous whistle again, glanced
fearfully around, as if Satan were at their backs
picking out his next victim.

Meanwhile, Dr. Mather, Pastor Tappau, and
one or two others were exhorting Prudence to
reveal, if she could, the name of the person, the
witch, who, by influence over Satan, had
subjected the child to such torture as that which
they had just witnessed. They bade her speak
in the name of the Lord. She whispered a name
in the low voice of exhaustion. None of the
congregation could hear what it was. But the
Pastor Tappau, when he heard it, drew back in
dismay, while Dr. Mather, knowing not to whom
the name belonged, cried out, in a clear, cold voice,

"Know ye one Lois Barclay; for it is she who
hath betwitched this poor child?"

The answer was given rather by action than
by word, although a low murmur went up from
many. But all fell back, as far as falling back
in such a crowd was possible, from Lois Barclay,
where she stood, and looked on her with surprise
and horror. A space of some feet, where no
possibility of space had seemed to be not a
minute before, left Lois standing alone, with
every eye fixed upon her with hatred and dread.
She stood like one speechless, tongue-tied, as if
in a dream. She a witch! accursed as witches
were in the sight of God and man! Her smooth,