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The same thing was seen in the Protestant colonies of
America; but here, while plagues were steadily attributed to
Divine wrath or Satanic malice, there was one case in which it
was claimed that such a visitation was due to the Divine mercy.
The pestilence among the _Indians_, before the arrival of the
Plymouth Colony, was attributed in a notable work of that period
to the Divine purpose of clearing New England for the heralds of
the gospel; on the other hand, the plagues which destroyed the
_white_ population were attributed by the same authority to devils
and witches. In Cotton Mather's _Wonder of the Invisible World_,
published at Boston in 1693, we have striking examples of this.
The great Puritan divine tells us:
"Plagues are some of those woes, with which the Divil
troubles us. It is said of the Israelites, in 1 Cor. 10. 10.
_They were destroyed of the destroyer_. That is, they had the
Plague among them. 'Tis the Destroyer, or the Divil, that
scatters Plagues about the World: Pestilential and Contagious
Diseases, 'tis the Divel, who do's oftentimes Invade us with
them.
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