Scanning Burroughs as well as accessible knowledge of him now permits, we judge that he was a quiet, peaceful, persistent laborer for the good of his fellow-men,--a humble, trustful, sincere servant of God,--a rare embodiment of the prevailing perceptions, sentiments, virtues, and graces which haloed the form of the Nazarene.
Why did the people of his time take his life? What were the accusations against him? In addition to the testimony that he was felt by many of the girls as a tormenting specter, he was accused of putting forth superhuman physical strength. Cotton Mather says,--
"He was a very puny man, yet he had often done things beyond the strength of a giant. A gun of about seven feet barrel, and so heavy that strong men could not steadily hold it out with both hands, there were several testimonies given in by persons of credit and honor, that he made nothing of taking up such a gun behind the lock with one hand, and holding it out like a pistol, at arm's end. In his vindication he was _foolish enough to say that an Indian was there, and held it out at the same time_; whereas, none of the spectators ever saw any such Indian; but they _supposed_ the black man (as the witches call the devil, and they generally say he resembles an Indian) might have given him that assistance."
That paragraph is very instructive. All subsequent historians, beginning back with Calef, have mentioned, what is no doubt true, that Burroughs was a small man, and yet was constitutionally very strong--was remarkable for physical powers even in his college days; and they have fancied that on that ground they have satisfactorily accounted for his marvelous exploits; they seemingly overlook the fact that it was Burroughs himself, and not other people, who said that "an Indian," invisible to others, stood by and held the gun out. Historians have explained the good and true man's seeming physical feats at the expense of his _veracity_. Heaven help the innocent when in the hands of such traducing commentators. The question is not what Burroughs could have done unaided, but it is whether _he told truth_ when he said an Indian helped him. His whole character and life argue that he would not have spoken as he is alleged to have done, unless he had been conscious of the presence of an Indian within or by himself, putting forth, in part at least, the strength which raised and supported that heavy gun. He said that such was the fact. What though all spectators failed to see the Indian? It was a disembodied Indian--a spirit Indian--and therefore necessarily invisible by external eyes. The non-perception of him by other men standing by is no evidence that the spirit Indian was not there; for spiritual beings are discernible by the inner or spirit optics alone, and not by the outer; so taught Paul.