modern society, the common functions we may class as general "good
times," were denied the soul, and it turned back to feed upon itself.
The following hint by Sewall, written a few years before the witchcraft
craze, is significant: "Thorsday, Novr. 12. After the Ministers of this
Town Come to the Court and complain against a Dancing Master, who seeks
to set up here, and hath mixt Dances, and his time of Meeting is
Lecture-Day; and 'tis reported he should say that by one Play he could
teach more Divinity than Mr. Willard or the Old Testament. Mr. Moodey
said 'twas not a time for N.E. to dance. Mr. Mather struck at the Root,
speaking against mixt Dances."[22] And again in the records by another
colonist, Prince, we note: "1631. March 22. First Court at Boston.
Ordered That all who have cards, dice, or 'tables' in their houses shall
make way with them before the next court."[23]

But the lack of social safety valves seemingly did not suggest itself to
the Puritan fathers; not the causes, but the religious effect of the
matter was what those stern churchmen sought to destroy. Says Cotton
Mather: "So horrid and hellish is the Crime of Witchcraft, that were
Gods Thoughts as our thoughts, or Gods Wayes as our wayes, it could be
no other, but Unpardonable. But that Grace of God may be admired, and
that the worst of Sinners may be encouraged, Behold, Witchcraft also has
found a Pardon.... From the Hell of Witchcraft our merciful Jesus can
fetch a guilty Creature to the Glory of Heaven. Our Lord hath sometimes
Recovered those who have in the most horrid manner given themselves away
to the Destroyer of their souls."[24]

Where did this mania, this riot of superstition and fanaticism that
resulted in so much sorrow and so many deaths have its beginning and
origin? Coffin in his _Old Times in the Colonies_ has summed up the
matters briefly and vividly: "The saddest story in the history of our