New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-11-24
COTTON MATHER.
WITH A NEW THEORY OF SALEM WITCH
CRAFT.

COTTON MArHER, THE PURITAN PRIEST. BY
Barrett Wendell 16mo, PIP. 321. Dodd, Mead Co.
Most modern accounts of Cotton Mather are not
merely unsympathetic, but hostile That there
should be little sympathy at this day with the
author Of the Magnolia" and the principal hgure'
in the Salem Witchcraft prosecutions is perhaps
quite natural but it is a special mark OF the
modern scientific spirit that it seeks, in dealing
with men of the past, to dvest itself OF all PreJu
dice and prepossession, and also to ascertain ana
allow for the influence of extinct conditions Oh
knowledge, belief and thought and not less OIL
the material environment The too preV"ie"o
view of Cotton Mather has been that OF narrow
minded bigot, lusting after power and domin'oh'
inclined greatly to cant and hypocrisy, puheu up
with self-conceit, yet given over TO pima creu"i
ity and gross superstition. Now this is not al
all the view presented by Professor wendell on
the contrary, his book is an honest enoeaVor I"
show Cotton Mather as he really was, ana U" en-
hibit the conditions which determined DOM IN"
Network and his standing with his contemporaries
The volume is appreciative, and to a certain ex-
tent apologetic, for there are some points IN the
New-Eneland life of 200 years ago which can
hardly be comprehended to-day, and which re-
ouire careful calculation at the hands of the his
torian and the biographer. II might be said with
out much danger Of exaggeration that Cotton
Mafher came into the world too late for his own
good He was the eliminating point of "a family
which had from generation to generation ex-
pressed, more and more strongly, that idea of q
Puritan, hierarchical government. all possibility
Of which was really past when he came upon the
scene
II was not alone the action Of the King Of Eng
land that wrought this change. The colonists
themselves had discovered the impracticability Of
a system in which the State was subordinated to
the Church. With the growth of prosperity pub
Tic sentiment had become more liberal. There was
less inclination 10 maintain the iRtOlerant policy
which was reproducing in America the tyranny
from which the Pilgrim Fathers had fled. 1t
would no doubt be easy to overestmate hese
changes of view, and a patent error to conclude
that the position arrived at by the most advanced
thinkers of the time Appropriated TO modern
IDEAS of liberalism But the old order had
changed, and was still changing. From the ex-
IRENE Puritan point of view the people were
more worldly and less pious. The strongest EVIL
dence of this Law in the diminished authority of
the ministry The latter continued to resist en-
croachments and maintained their former claims
rcsolutely though to little purpose. They still
for some time controlled educational matters, and
the force of custom assured them those outward
marks Of Difference which had been their due so
long But their word no longer law. The
community declined to be guided or bound by it,
and the independence Of society from the Church
was manifested more and more. Thus, all the
conditions were unfavorable to a man of Cotton
Nather's antecedents. aims and temperament
A Cavinst of the most rigid school, a man STEPPED
in the old belief in hierarchical government, OF
strong imagination, superstitious as was his age
and endowed with the exaltaton of spirit, which,
o1i Snln
path was from the first beset with difficulties.
Professor Wendell is, we think, fully justified
in taking the ground that Cotton MATHEW was sim
cere and honest in all that he did, and that in the
Salem troubles, concerning which he has been
most sharply attacked he acted in perfectly good
faith Opinion in regard to that matter has, in
deed been unduy excited, probably from the fact
that il is the only incdt Mt Of the kind in American
history AS James Russell Lowell observes, more
over the witch proceedings at Salem were really
not more cruel, but much less cruel, than those
of like kind in Europe. Nor can it be success
fully maintained that Cotton Mather showed an
especially crelulity in this connection. When
the Salem Witchcraft prosecutions occurred, all
the world believed firmly in Witchcraft-or very
nearly all the world. This belief, which sprang
into prominence about the beginning of the fif-
tenth century, might have passed away had not
The lnurCn taken III up anu Silululdbu ~ ~ Pci-
secution The Inquistion made it formidable and
mischcvous. and through it's system of examining
accused persons created body of dogma which
was to prove an ineNhaustbe magazine of super
stiton. The famous "MallcscO Malefcarum" Of
Spranger made more witches than it led TO the
rack and stake. The manual Of Eymeric the In
qistOr suggested to thousands of victir,s fancies
which would never have occurred TO them without
such prompting. The subject upon which
sects were for once united ProteTtants, no less
than Catholics believed in witches, and the more
the theory was accepted, aud the more the eccle-
sisstical power directed against the supposed
evil, the wider it spread everywhere. Cotton
Mather was a highly educated man. but his edu-
cation was theological. 1t was not possible for
such man to attain the point of view reached by
Wierus, Reginald Scot and few others who re-
sisted the prevailing superstition. His very faith
forbade him TO be sceptical
But this was not all. Cotton Mathcr's tenn
permanent predispoSed him powerfully to belief in
the supernatural. His journals are full of
evidence TO this effect: TO remarks about special
PrOvidcnces, explicit answers to prayer, signs from
heaven, spiritual mysteries of many kinds. There
are passages in these journals which might have
been written by St. Theresa or st. Francis Of
Assist, if one can put the style out Of mind for o
moment. lie had in him the elements of mys.
tcism. At all times he felt himsef,very near the
unseen world and often he seemed to himself to
he in touch with it. That he should believe i'm
the possibility of Satanic visitation of the COM
munity is in no way surprising; nor is it more
remarkable that he should have been convinced
of the reality of such visitation upon evidence
which, to the modern mind, appears nimsy and
puerile almost beyond expression. For upon just
such evidence, and often upon less valid testi.
mony, had scores of thousands Of wrctches been
condemned to cruel death all over Europe, and
grave and learned secular judges, as well as dig
ntaries OF the Church, had held it TO be all-suf-
fcent. Spectral eyidence-that is, the supposed
ute RANGES of supernatural beings whose exiscnce
was unproved-was freely accepted in witch-trials
everywhere. How. then, should Cotton Mather