[Illustration: "Its motions were quicker than those of my axe."]
"On going a little further, there appeared unto me a black puppy, somewhat bigger than the first, but as black as a coal. Its motions were quicker than those of my axe; it flew at my belly, and away; then at my throat; so, over my shoulder one way, and then over my shoulder another way. My heart now began to fail me, and I thought the dog would have torn my throat out; but I recovered myself and called upon God in my distress; and, naming the name of Jesus Christ, it vanished away at once."
Charles Stevens tried to argue with Bly that he had had an attack of blind staggers, and that the dog was only an optical delusion; but he could in no way convince him that it was not a reality, and that he was not bewitched.
According to Mr. Bancroft, New England, like Canaan, had been settled by fugitives. Like the Jews, they had fled to a wilderness. Like the Jews, they had looked to heaven for a light to lead them on. Like the Jews, they had heathen for their foes, and they derived their highest legislation from the Jewish code. Cotton Mather said, "New England being a country whose interests are remarkably inwrapped in ecclesiastical circumstances, ministers ought to concern themselves in politics." Cotton Mather and Mr. Parris did concern themselves in politics, and the latter, being unscrupulous and ambitious as well as fanatical, caused hundreds of unfortunate people to mourn.
The circle of children who had been meeting at the house of Mr. Parris began to perform wonders. In the dull life of the country, the excitement of the proceedings of the "circle" was welcome, no doubt, and it was always on the increase. The human mind requires amusement, as the human body requires food, exercise and rest, and when healthful and innocent amusements are denied, resort is had to the low and vicious. Mr. Parris, who preached sermons against the evils of the theatre and excommunicated the child of an actor, fostered in his own house an amusement as diabolical and dangerous as has ever been known. Results of that circle were wonderful. Whatever trickery there might be--and, no doubt, there was plenty; whatever excitement to hysteria; whatever actual sharpening of common faculties, it is clear that there was more; and those who have given due and dispassionate attention to the process of mesmerism and its effects can have no difficulty in understanding the reports handed down of what these young creatures did and said and saw, under peculiar conditions of the nervous system. When the physicians of the district could see no explanation of the ailments of the afflicted children "but the evil hand," they, with one accord, came to the conclusion that their afflictions were through the agencies of Satan.