majority. Grave divines did not like to be pelted with such epithets as
these: "Thou fiery fighter and green-headed trumpeter! thou hedgehog and
grinning dog! thou mole! thou tinker! thou lizard! thou bell of no metal
but the tone of a kettle! thou wheelbarrow! thou whirlpool! thou
whirligig! thou firebrand! thou moon-calf! thou ragged tatterdemalion!
thou gormandizing priest! thou bane of reason and beast of the earth!
thou best to be spared of all mankind!"--all of which are genuine
epithets from the Quaker books of that period, and termed by Cotton
Mather, who collected them, "quills of the porcupine." They surpass even
Dr. Chauncy's catalogue of the unsavory epithets used by Whitefield and
Tennent a century later; and it was not likely that they would be
tolerated by a race whose reverence for men in authority was so
comprehensive that they actually fined some one for remarking that Major
Phillips's old mare was as lean as an Indian's dog.

There is a quaint anecdote preserved, showing the continuance of the
Quaker feud in full vigor as lately as 1705. A youth among the Friends
wished to espouse a fair Puritan maiden; but the Quakers disapproved his
marrying out of their society, and the Congregationalists his marrying
into theirs; so in despair he thus addressed her:--"Ruth, let us break
from this unreasonable bondage. I will give up my religion, and thou
shalt give up thine; and we will marry and go into the Church of
England, and go to the Devil together." And they fulfilled the
resolution, the Puritan historian says, _so far_ as going into the
Church, and marrying, and staying there for life. But probably the
ministers thought it to be another case of synecdoche.

With the same careful discrimination we must try to study the
astonishing part played by the ministers in the witchcraft delusions. It
must be remembered that the belief in this visitation was no new or