The spectacle of the ruin that was left is very melancholy. Orphan children were dispersed; homes were shut up, and properties lost; and what the temper was in which these transactions left the churches and the village, and the society of the towns, the pastors and the flocks, the Lord's table, the social gathering, the justice hall, the market, and every place where men were wont to meet, we can conceive. It was evidently long before anything like a reasonable and genial temper returned to society in and about Salem. The acknowledgments of error made long after were half-hearted, and so were the expressions of grief and pity in regard to the intolerable woes of the victims. It is scarcely intelligible how the admissions on behalf of the wronged should have been so reluctant, and the sympathy with the devoted love of their nearest and dearest so cold. We must cite what Mr. Upham says in honor of these last, for such solace is needed:
"While, in the course of our story, we have witnessed some shocking instances of the violation of the most sacred affections and obligations of life, in husbands and wives, parents and children, testifying against each other, and exerting themselves for mutual destruction, we must not overlook the many instances in which filial, parental, and fraternal fidelity and love have shone conspicuously. It was dangerous to befriend an accused person. Proctor stood by his wife to protect her, and it cost him his life. Children protested against the treatment of their parents, and they were all thrown into prison. Daniel Andrew, a citizen of high standing, who had been deputy to the General Court, asserted, in the boldest language, his belief of Rebecca Nurse's innocence; and he had to fly the country to save his life. Many devoted sons and daughters clung to their parents, visited them in prison in defiance of a blood-thirsty mob; kept by their side on the way to execution; expressed their love, sympathy, and reverence to the last; and, by brave and perilous enterprise, got possession of their remains, and bore them back under the cover of midnight to their own thresholds, and to graves kept consecrated by their prayers and tears. One noble young man is said to have effected his mother's escape from the jail, and secreted her in the woods until after the delusion had passed away, provided food and clothing for her, erected a wigwam for her shelter, and surrounded her with every comfort her situation would admit of. The poor creature must, however, have endured a great amount of suffering; for one of her larger limbs was fractured in the all but desperate attempt to rescue her from the prison walls." (Vol. ii. p. 348.)