Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,075 pages of information about Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II.

Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,075 pages of information about Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II.

14.  Their eyes were, for the most part, fast closed in their trance-fits, and when they were asked a question they could give no answer; and I do verily believe, they did not hear at that time; yet did they discourse with the spectres as with real persons, asserting things and receiving answers affirmative or negative, as the matter was.  For instance, one, in my hearing, thus argued with, and railed at, a spectre:  “Goodw—–­, begone, begone, begone!  Are you not ashamed, a woman of your profession, to afflict a poor creature so?  What hurt did I ever do you in my life?  You have but two years to live, and then the Devil will torment your soul for this.  Your name is blotted out of God’s book, and it shall never be put into God’s book again.  Begone!  For shame!  Are you not afraid of what is coming upon you?  I know, I know what will make you afraid,—­the wrath of an angry God:  I am sure that will make you afraid.  Begone!  Do not torment me.  I know what you would have” (we judged she meant her soul):  “but it is out of your reach; it is clothed with the white robes of Christ’s righteousness.”  This sufferer I was well acquainted with, and knew her to be a very sober and pious woman, so far as I could judge; and it appears that she had not, in that fit, voluntary converse with the Devil, for then she might have been helped to a better guess about that woman abovesaid, as to her living but two years, for she lived not many months after that time.  Further, this woman, in the same fit, seemed to dispute with a spectre about a text of Scripture:  the apparition seemed to deny it; she said she was sure there was such a text, and she would tell it; and then said she to the apparition, “I am sure you will be gone, for you cannot stand before that text.”  Then was she sorely afflicted,—­her mouth drawn on one side, and her body strained violently for about a minute; and then said, “It is, it is, it is,” three or four times, and then was afflicted to hinder her from telling; at last, she broke forth, and said, “It is the third chapter of the Revelations.”  I did manifest some scruple about reading it, lest Satan should draw any thereby superstitiously to improve the word of the eternal God; yet judging I might do it once, for an experiment, I began to read; and, before I had read through the first verse, she opened her eyes, and was well.  Her husband and the spectators told me she had often been relieved by reading texts pertinent to her case,—­as Isa. 40, 1, ch. 49, 1, ch. 50, 1, and several others.  These things I saw and heard from her.

15.  They were vehemently afflicted, to hinder any persons praying with them, or holding them in any religious discourse.  The woman mentioned in the former section was told by the spectre I should not go to prayer; but she said I should, and, after I had done, reasoned with the apparition, “Did not I say he should go to prayer?” I went also to visit a person afflicted in Boston; and, after

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Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.