Two chapters of this book were devoted to sorceries, and the
reverend author took occasion to intimate his opinion that those who might
doubt the truth of his relations were probably themselves either heretics
or wizards. This movement of the clergy seems to have highly inflamed the
popular imagination, [Footnote: Hutch. _Hist._ ii. 24.] yet no immediate
disaster followed; and the nervous exaltation did not become deadly until
1688. In the autumn of that year four children of a Boston mason named
Goodwin began to mimic the symptoms they had so often heard described; the
father, who was a pious man, called in the ministers of Boston and
Charlestown, who fasted and prayed, and succeeded in delivering the
youngest, who was five. Meanwhile, one of the daughters had "cried out
upon" an unfortunate Irish washerwoman, with whom she had quarrelled.
Cotton Mather was now in his element. He took the eldest girl home with
him and tried a great number of interesting experiments as to the relative
power of Satan and the Lord; among others he gravely relates how when the
sufferer was tormented elsewhere he would carry her struggling to his own
study, into which entering, she stood immediately upon her feet, and cried
out, "They are gone! They are gone! They say they cannot--God won't let
'em come here." [Footnote: _Memorable Providences_, pp.
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