Mrs. Hibbins lived among the _élite_ of a province, whose people were decidedly sagacious in matters of both private and public business, and were also probably possessed of as high moral and religious principles, as prevailed in any other community on the globe. As before stated, Richard Bellingham, one of the very eminent men of the country, and at that time deputy-governor of the province, was her brother; she was widow of one who had been among the most esteemed citizens of the town, and she is credited with having possessed more wit than her neighbors. Therefore we are hunting for a cause adequate to excite public indignation against a woman of bright intellect, of high position in society, and standing under the shelter of near kinship with those in authority. The cause must have been some strange one. _Skill at guessing_ was too common and natural, and does not meet the requirements.
We all unite in calling the people of 1656 infatuated in relation to witchcraft. But did their infatuation so affect them as to bring obtuseness upon their external senses and their intellectual ability for discerning the nature, character, and force of testimony and evidence? or, on the other hand, did it not show itself almost exclusively in their reception and tenacious retention of monstrous items in their witchcraft creed? Which? Admit an affirmative to the first part of the inquiry--admit that senses and intellects were befooled by external manifestations--and you make those noble forefathers but a band of dolts, heartless and bloodthirsty, taking life because they had not wit enough to read clearly the significance of observed external facts or to see the bearings and force of evidence. Admit the second, viz., that their creed was father of their infatuation, and you may look upon them as a band possessing clear perception of the exact meaning and logical results of all Christendom's fixed creed upon diabolism, and of unflinching purpose to fight for God and Christ against the devil. Demonologically they were infatuated, in common with the enlightened world; while yet for keen observance of outward facts, for just estimate of the adequacy of a cause to produce an observed effect, for determining the just significance of any well-observed fact, for discriminating application of evidence under the rules of their creeds both God-ward and devil-ward, no reason appears why they were not equal to any other community anywhere. Their infatuation was not first on the practical, but on the theoretical side. It was devil-ward, not man-ward _directly_, though through the creed it became man-ward.