_ p. 62.] At his house
her mind recovered its tone and when she again appeared she not only
retracted the wild opinions she had broached while at Joseph Welde's, but
admitted "that what she had spoken against the magistrates at the court
(by way of revelation) was rash and ungrounded." [Footnote: Winthrop, i.
258.]
But nothing could avail her. She was in the hands of men determined to
make her expiation of her crimes a by-word of terror; her fate was sealed.
The doctrines she now professed were less objectionable, so she was
examined as to former errors, among others "that she had denied inherent
righteousness;" she "affirmed that it was never her judgment; and though
it was proved by many testimonies ... yet she impudently persisted in her
affirmation to the astonishment of all the assembly. So that ... the
church with one consent cast her out.... After she was excommunicated her
spirit, which seemed before to be somewhat dejected, revived again and she
gloried in her sufferings." [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 258.] And all this
time she had been alone; her friends were far away.
That no circumstances of horror might be lost, she and one of her most
devoted followers, Mary Dyer, were nearing their confinements during this
time of misery. Both cases ended in misfortunes over whose sickening
details Thomas Welde and his reverend brethren gloated with a savage joy,
declaring that "God himselfe was pleased to step in with his casting vote
.
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