trouble. The transactions in New England exerted a weighty influence on the other side of the Atlantic against witchcraft, and in 1736 the English statute was repealed.
The investigation justifies the conclusion that where witchcraft is not believed in there are no cases of it; where it is believed there are many, and in proportion to the intensity of the belief. It must be remembered that medical men generally were ignorant and superstitious, and the scientific practice of the healing art unknown. The press did not exist; there was no opportunity for the kind of investigation now made by reporters, for the free utterance of adverse opinion, or for any proper or generally circulated report of trials. If most of the clergy of this country believed in witchcraft, they could find an abundance of the kind of evidence that was admitted in 1692; and were there no press, free, active, and intelligent, it would be possible in a few weeks to originate an epidemic which would parallel any in the past.
The crucifixion of Christ, the cruelties of the Inquisition, the burning of Servetus, the atrocities of the first French Revolution, the hanging of witches and Quakers, are but manifestations of the possible excesses of human nature when governed by false and deeply rooted ideas, when strong passions are excited, and no adequate force, either of authority or of public opinion, restrains.
The solemn words of Longfellow are true of New England's part in the universal tragedy:
Be not too swift in casting the first stone,
Nor think New England bears the guilt alone;
This sudden burst of wickedness and crime
Was but the common madness of the time,
When in all lands that lie beneath the sound
Of Sabbath bells a witch was burned or drowned.
