Magistrate.--"Pray, what ails these people?"
Magistrate.--"But what do you think of them?"
Martin.--"I don't desire to spend my judgment upon it."
Magistrate.--"Don't you think they are bewitched?"
Magistrate.--"Tell us your thoughts about them."
Martin.--"No; my thoughts are my own, when they are in; but when they are out, they are another's. Their master----"
Magistrate.--"Their master? Whom do you think is their master?"
Martin.--"If they be dealing in the black art, you may know as well as I."
Magistrate.--"Well, what have you done toward this?"
Magistrate.--"Why, 'tis you, or your appearance."
Magistrate.--"If it be not your master, how comes your appearance to hurt these?"
Martin.--"How do I know? He that appeared in the shape of Samuel, a glorified saint, may appear in any one's shape."
No wonder that a writer having occasion to examine into the evidence a few years ago, and commenting on it, should exclaim:
"Great God! and is this the road our ancestors had to travel in their pilgrimage in quest of freedom and Christianity? Are these the misunderstood doctrines of total depravity?"
Reverend Mr. Noyes seemed to rival Mr. Parris in the persecution of witches.
"You are a witch. You know you are," he said to Sarah Good, while urging her to confession.
"You are a liar," the poor woman replied, "and, if you take my life, God will give you blood to drink."
Confessions became important in the prosecutions. Some, not afflicted before confession, were so, presently, after it. The jails were filled; for fresh accusations were needed to confirm the confessions. Mr. Hale says:
"Some, by these their accusations of others, hoped to gain time, and get favor from the rulers. Some of the inferior sort of people did ill offices, by promising favor thereby, more than they had ground to engage. Some, under these temptations, regarded not as they should what became of others, so that they could thereby serve their own turns. Some have since acknowledged so much. If the confessions were contradictory; if witnesses uttered apparent falsehoods, 'the Devil,' the judges would say, 'takes away their memory, and imposes on their brain.'"
Who, under such circumstances, would dare to be skeptical, or refuse to believe the confessors? Already, twenty persons had been put to death for witchcraft. Fifty-five had been tortured or terrified into penitent confessions. With accusations, confessions increased; with confessions, new accusations. Even "the generation of the children of God" were in danger of "falling under that condemnation." The jails were full. One hundred and fifty prisoners awaited trial, two hundred more were accused or suspected. It was also observed that no one of the condemned confessing witchcraft had been hanged. No one that confessed, and retracted a confession, had escaped either hanging or imprisonment for trial. No one of the condemned who asserted innocence, even if one of the witnesses confessed to perjury, or the foreman of the jury acknowledged the error of the verdict, escaped the gallows. Favoritism was shown in listening to accusations, which were turned aside from friends or partisans. If a man began a career as a witch-hunter, and, becoming convinced of the imposture, declined the service, he was accused and hanged.