strait and narrow way, and of the tortures of the afterworld led to
self-consciousness, introspection, and morbidness. The idea that Satan
was at all times seeking to undermine the Puritan church also made it
easy to believe that anyone living outside of, or contrary to, that
church was an agent of the devil, in short, bewitched. As it is only the
useful that survives, it was essential that the army of devils be given
a work to do, and this work was evident in the spirit of those who dared
to act and think in non-conformity to the rule of the church. The
devil's ways, too, were beyond the comprehension of man, cunning,
smooth, sly; the most godly might fall a victim, with the terrible
consequence that one might become bewitched and know it not. At this
stage it was the bounden duty of the unfortunate being's church brethren
to help him by inducing him to confess the indwelling of an evil spirit
and thus free himself from the great impostor. And if he did not confess
then it were better that he be killed, lest the devil through him
contaminate all. Why, says Mather, in his _Wonders of the Invisible
World_: "If the devils now can strike the minds of men with any poisons
of so fine a composition and operation, that scores of innocent people
shall unite in confessions of a crime which we see actually committed,
it is a thing prodigious, beyond the wonders of the former ages, and it
threatens no less than a sort of dissolution upon the world."

To avoid or counteract this desolation was the purpose of the legal
proceedings at Salem. It was believed by fairly intelligent people that
Satan carried with him a black book in which he induced his victims to
write their names with their own blood, signifying thereby that they had
given their souls into his keeping, and were henceforth his liegemen.
The rendezvous of these lost and damned was deep in the forest; the time
of meeting, midnight. In such a place and at such an hour the assembly
of witches and wizards plotted against the saints of God, namely, the