Rachel Dyer: A North American Story
9781465683397
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The early history of New England, or of Massachusetts Bay, rather; now one of the six New England States of North America, and that on which the Plymouth settlers, or “Fathers” went ashore—the shipwrecked men of mighty age, abounds with proof that witchcraft was a familiar study, and that witches and wizards were believed in for a great while, among the most enlightened part of a large and well educated religious population. The multitude of course had a like faith; for such authority governs the multitude every where, and at all times. The belief was very general about a hundred years ago in every part of British America, was very common fifty years ago, when the revolutionary war broke out, and prevails now, even to this day in the wilder parts of the New England territory, as well as in the new States which are springing up every where in the retreating shadow of the great western wilderness—a wood where half the men of Europe might easily hide from each other—and every where along the shores of the solitude, as if the new earth were full of the seed of empire, as if dominion were like fresh flowers or magnificent herbage, the spontaneous growth of a new soil wherever it is reached by the warm light or the cheerful rain of a new sky. It is not confined however, nor was it a hundred and thirty five years ago, the particular period of our story, to the uneducated and barbarous, or to a portion of the white people of North America, nor to the native Indians, a part of whose awful faith, a part of whose inherited religion it is to believe in a bad power, in witchcraft spells and sorcery. It may be met with wherever the Bible is much read in the spirit of the New England Fathers. It was rooted in the very nature of those who were quite remarkable in the history of their age, for learning, for wisdom, for courage and for piety; of men who fled away from their fire sides in Europe to the rocks of another world—where they buried themselves alive in search of truth. We may smile now to hear witchcraft spoken seriously of; but we forget perhaps that a belief in it is like a belief in the after appearance of the dead among the blue waters, the green graves, the still starry atmosphere and the great shadowy woods of our earth; or like the beautiful deep instinct of our nature for worship,—older than the skies, it may be, universal as thought, and sure as the steadfast hope of immortality. We may turn away with a sneer now from the devout believer in witches, wondering at the folly of them that have such faith, and quite persuading ourselves in our great wisdom, that all who have had it heretofore, however they may have been regarded by ages that have gone by, were not of a truth wise and great men; but we forget perhaps that we are told in the Book of Books, the Scriptures of Truth, about witches with power to raise the dead, about wizards and sorcerers that were able to strive with Jehovah’s anointed high priest before the misbelieving majesty of Egypt, with all his court and people gathered about his throne for proof, and of others who could look into futurity with power, interpret the vision of sleep, read the stars, bewitch and afflict whom they would, cast out devils and prophesy—false prophets were they called, not because that which they said was untrue, but because that which they said, whether true or untrue, was not from above—because the origin of their preternatural power was bad or untrue.
