"The following account will
afford to him that shall read with observation, a further clear
confirmation, that, there is both a God, and a devil, and witchcraft: that
there is no outward affliction, but what God may, (and sometimes doth)
permit Satan to trouble his people withal." [Footnote: _Memorable
Providences_, Preface.] Not content with this, Mather goaded his
congregation into frenzy from the pulpit. "Consider also, the misery of
them whom witchcraft may be let loose upon. What is it to fall into the
hands of devils?... O what a direful thing is it, to be prickt with pins,
and stab'd with knives all over, and to be fill'd all over with broken
bones? 'Tis impossible to reckon up the varieties of miseries which those
monsters inflict where they can have a blow. No less than death, and that
a languishing and a terrible death will satisfie the rage of those
formidable dragons." [Footnote: _Discourse on Witchcraft_, p. 19.] The
pest was sure to spread in a credulous community, fed by their natural
leaders with this morbid poison, and it next broke out in Salem village in
February, 1691-2. A number of girls had become intensely excited by the
stories they had heard, and two of them, who belonged to the family of the
clergyman, were seized with the usual symptoms. Of Mr. Parris it is enough
to say that he began the investigation with a frightful relish.
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