and the most sincerely built church in New York City-we are not afraid to say in the United States. It is in the Byzantine style, built of brown freestone, and finished in a style worthy of imitation. The edifice is not completed according to the designs of the architect; the two spires are yet wanting, but we are not certain that the general effect will be improved by them as the appearance of too great height, which the church now has, will be greatly increased by the addition of the slender spires, which are seen

the engraving. St. George's Church stands in a noble position, fronting Stuyvesant Square, and is the finest architectural feature which the eastern section of the city can boast of. The interior of this noble church is the grandest and most imposing of any of our city churches. The finish is extremely simple, and the absence of pillars, the

need of which has been obviated by a hanging gallery, gives it a very roomy and majestic appearance.

Calvary Church was erected in the year 1846-7, after the designs of James Renwick, Jr., at an expense of $80.000. The most that can be said for this edifice is that it has a picturesque exterior when it is not seen too closely. It is constructed of brown free-stone of a very sombre tint, and has two skeleton wooden spires which are painted to correspond with the body of the building. Each spire is surmounted by a wooden cross. There are many incongruities in Calvary Church which must be too obvious to every one who looks at it with a critical eye, to require pointing out. In the rear of the church is the rectory, which corresponds in style with the main building.

The First Presbyterian Church, on the Fifth Avenue, is a very pleasing edifice, much lighter and more delicate than its neighbor the Church of the Ascension, although the latter seems a more solid piece of work. We wish that other societies would follow the example of this church corporation, and give their buildings such

First Presbyterian Church.

admirable settings of turf and trees. The church is placed in the centre of one side of a square, the grounds belonging to it extend to the streets on the north and south of the lot. It is refreshing to see these little bits of verdure and leafiness in the midst of our city, but "position" is a grace which our architects and church corporations have not sufficiently studied.

Our Frontispiece-the Church of the Ascension, on Fifth Avenue, corner of Tenth-street, is erected from drawings by Mr. Upjohn, the architect who designed Trinity Church and Chapel. It is solidly and sincerely built of brown stone, and the walls are clustered with a beautiful garment of our American ivy (ampelopis) which, although a mass of dry sticks in winter, is a treasure of verdant loveliness in the light and shade of spring and summer, and glows in gorgeous scarlet and richest browns and purples through the autumn days. Will not the architect of Calvary and Grace take this hint of a natural veil, and persuade the several corporations of these buildings of its efficacy in such desperate cases as these?

(To be continued.)

Yun Helmont.

THE history of the Salem Witchcraft is

rarely alluded to in modern times, except to furnish the foundation for an invective against the Puritans, or to overthrow some new theory that involves occult or supernatural influences. It appears to us that the opinions of the world concerning the phemomena witnessed in that era, have been rather hastily formed. Men seem to attach but little weight to evidence, however unimpeachable its source, if it contradict their experience, or, if the conclusions to which it leads be either heretical, or beyond the limits of what they consider possible. Skepticism is the easiest philosophy. To stand upon the negative costs but little effort of reason, and involves no risk of reputation. But it is neither ingenuous nor manly to attempt to dismiss a stubborn fact with an incredulous sneer, or a philosophic doubt. Besides, the doubter may fall into the opposite extreme of credulity by attributing a foresight, power and ubiquity to the supposed contrivers of imposture, more wonderful even than the vulgar, supernatural theory.

The distance in point of time from an occurrence can make no difference with any fair mind as to the evidence on which it rests, provided the parties concerned, and the relator, are known to be above suspicion. The memorials of the era of Witchcraft are ample, and, with the construction we shall give them, are reliable. It is perhaps here due to the character of the Puritans, to make a brief comment upon a few paragraphs from Macaulay's essay on Milton, which may occur to the reader as tending to invalidate their testimony.

"The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of Superior beings and eternal interests. Instead of catch

But, notwithstanding this, the Puritans were eminently distinguished for their solid common sense. As long as their minds were free from the dominion of fear, they took nothing to be true without the clearest evidence. We are able therefore to discriminate, in the relations which have come down to us, between such as will stand the scrutiny of daylight, and those that bear the impress of night, solitude and terror. During the intense excitement which prevailed, the most trivial and irrelevant matters were adduced as conclusive evidence of witchcraft; but, for a long time previous, when no such panic prevailed, when the minds of men were calm, there must have been something beyond the tales of old crones, to produce an impression so universal and so profound as that which rested upon the minds of our fathers. After rejecting whatever is manifestly absurd, or inconsistent,-after allowing for the exaggeration of excited minds, and for the share which private feuds and jealousies may have had in inventing or magnifying charges against supposed witches, there still remain well attested facts, which are utterly irreconcilable with the philosophy of to-day,-unless, indeed, one take refuge in the vague, and, as yet, indefinable notions of modern spiritualism. when children prate of seeing old women alight from aerial tours, transform themselves into cats, mice or monkeys, or fly away again as eagles, we may justly treat the whole relation with contempt. When young girls, with palpable symptoms of hysteria, would have us believe the ereations of their morbid imaginations to be real, bodily existences, we may recommend them to quiet their nerves with a little physic. When Cotton Mather tells us that the devil sat all night upon his chest, oppressing his breathing, and well nigh killing him with his weight, we may properly advise him to eat no more indigestible suppers, and to sleep no more on his back, and so be rid of the nightmare and the devil together. But when the same Cotton Mather and scores of other reputable people testify that they have seen the laws of gravity defied,—that they have seen a young woman raised from her bed to the ceiling, and held there

Thus,

horizontally for seconds together, without any apparent human agency, and under circumstances where trickery was impossible, we feel obliged to give some other answer than “humbug." We may not be disposed to refer the phenomena to supernatural agency; we may wait for a further developement of natural laws to explain what appears so miraculous. But simply because our reason is at fault we shall not take refuge in Sadducism, as Glanvil has it.

The reader would perhaps be pleased to see for himself the evidence of the "elevation" of Margaret Rule, the young woman of whose case we have spoken. Though this was in Boston, and some months after the tragical occurrences in Essex county, still in its main features it does not materially differ from others of an earlier date. We have selected it, because, having been the subject of some controversy, more full and satisfactory evidence of it has been preserved. The account is taken from "More Wonders of the Invisible World." a series of papers collected by Robert Calef, a merchant of Boston, and printed at London in 1700. Margaret Rule was a young woman of reputable character and parentage, and was reared under the spiritual instruction of Rev. Cotton Mather, by whom the account was written. She was afflicted in September, 1693, with the usual symptoms that were observed in "bewitched" persons, and so severely as to be confined to her bed for six weeks. According to the narrator, she was tormented with unusual assiduity. She was often choked, was stuck with an incredible number of pins; her jaws were wrenched violently asunder, while she struggled as though resisting the swallowing of some bitter dose, the room meanwhile being filled with a strong scent of brimstone, "whereof" as Mather says, "there are scores of witnesses." She kept a fast of eight days, looking nearly as well at the end as at the beginning. She seems also to have been at times what is termed a clairvoyant.

"This Margaret Rule once in the middle of the night lamented sadly that the spectres threatened the drowning of a young man in the neighborhood, whom she named unto the company: well, it was afterwards found that at that very time this young man, having been prest on board a man of war then in the harbor, was, out of some dissatisfaction, attempting to swim ashore; and he had been drowned in the attempt, if a boat had not seasonably taken him up: it was by computation a minute or two after the young woman's discourse of the drowning that the young man took the water. ****"

"And once her tormentors pulled her up to the ceiling of the chamber and held her there before a very numerous company of spectators, who found it as much as they could all do to pull her down again." More Wonders, &c. pp. 29, 30.

Mr. Calef was a stout skeptic in regard to witchcraft; indeed, the object of publishing his book seems to have been to attack the Mathers for their participation in the detection and trial of persons accused; and, by his version of the case just cited, he leaves us to infer that Margaret was not to be implicitly trusted,—that the whole account is highly colored, and that many supposed diabolic thaumata were the results of skilful imposture. But, though his explanations or conjectures as to most of the particulars are highly probable, he is evidently nonplussed by the account of her being raised to the ceiling; he stammers wofully over it, neither admitting nor denying. In fact there was nothing for him to say, for Mather had taken the precaution to procure deposi tions from various persons who had witnessed the spectacle. Thus:

"I do testify that I have seen Margaret Rule in her afflictions from the invisible world, lifted up from her bed wholly by an invisible force a great way towards the top of the room where she lay; in her being so lifted, she had no assistance from any use of her own arms or hands, or any other part of her body, not so much as her heels touching her bed, or resting on any support whatsoever. And I have seen her thus lifted, when not only a strong person hath thrown his whole weight across her to pull her down; but several other persons have endeavored with all their might to hinder her from being so raised up, which I sup pose that several others will testify as well as myself when called unto it.

Witness my hand, SAMUEL AVES." Two similar depositions follow, signed by five persons.

An occurrence like this could not fail to attract considerable attention, even at the present day. But to understand the full weight of the impression made upon our fathers, we must bear in mind the great changes that have taken place since the close of the seventeenth century. Then the spiritual world was not a dim shadow, a far off sphere, whose existence was recognized only in the words of a formal ritual; with them it was an ever present reality, an entity that presented as tangible ideas to their minds as London or Leyden. "Not content with acknowledging in general terms an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for

whose inspection nothing was too minute." The long contest between the Good and Evil principles, was with them no myth, but an actual strife, in the result of which they had an incalculable personal interest. The Devil, whose name from very familiarity has come to be associated with ludicrous, quite as often as with terrific ideas, was the embodiment of all that could affright the soul. They could not ignore or forget him; for they were continually aware of his wiles. Ubiquitous, vigilant, crafty, daring, he strove to win to his service, if it were possible, the very elect. We suspect that the boldest Puritan never cast a furtive glance over his shoulder at night, without fearing that the baleful eyes of the arch enemy might be glaring at him through the dark :

"Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,

And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread."

The intellect at that period did not seem to have a healthy, free action; hemmed in by rigid rules, and feeling a distrust of its powers from disuse, it tottered like an infant if once away from its accustomed surroundings. Though wise at the council board, brave in the field of battle, and ready to die sooner than renounce their faith, their free spirit animated them only while their feet rested on a tangible, firm foundation. To soar with free wings to the heavens, and follow the stars in their circling courses, to descend into the abysses of night, and to pierce there the heart of mystery, was not given to them. In this age, neither height nor depth is beyond the reach of the dauntless inquirer; nothing in the universe is too sacred or too trivial for investigation or analysis. And, with the spirit of free inquiry that has become part of our existence, we find it difficult to sympathize with the childlike timidity of two centuries ago, creeping cautiously along the narrow limits of the known, and nearly as ignorant of the mighty secrets of the earth on which its head rested, as the infant is of the mechanism of the watch that ticks at its ear. Not to speak of the great circle of natural sciences, that age was not familiar with the experiments which we have witnessed in mesmerism and clairvoyance. almost miraculous power of the human will, whose occult mode of influence has thus far baffled all philosophic inquiry, was known to but few even of the learned; and by them only from Van Helmont, who attributed it directly to a supernatural source. Tables were not then endowed with gyratory and see-sawing propensities. Nor were disquieted ghosts

The

evoked by pale, bright-eyed "mediums" to give their faintly-heard rap-a-taps, while the noiseless fingers hovered over the alphabet, or to animate the passive hand with a capricious and electric energy, not its own, while it dashes off telegraphic dispatches from beyond the Styx, as though fleet Puck or tricksy Ariel bestrode the pencil.

We need adduce nothing further to show that the popular belief in witchcraft did have some substantial basis; at least what in an age of limited knowledge, and of fervent religious enthusiasm, appeared to be substantial. And, whether true or false, that belief might have existed for a century, as it had done for nearly a century before, without leading to any very serious results, had it not been for an unfortunate sequence of circumstances that roused the half-dormant superstition into a frantic terror.

The history of the lamentable delusion which commenced in Salem village, now Danvers, in which twenty or more persons were executed, is doubtless so familiar, that but a brief mention of it will be necessary to introduce what we have gleaned from the State papers.

1691 1892

The first persons afflicted were some children of the family of Mr. Samuel Parris, the minister; this was in February An intelligent physician of the present day would have no difficulty in referring their symptoms to epilepsy or hysteria. Seeing that their cases attracted unusual attention, they probably concealed none of their ailments, if, indeed, they did not feign more. An Indian woman named Tituba, a servant in the family, who had evidently filled the children's minds with all the traditional lore of witchcraft, attempted to open their spiritual eyes to behold the tormentor, by the use of cakes; not salsa fruges, but rather less savory. The charm operated so well that they accused Tituba herself. She at length confessed that the devil had urged her to sign his book, and also to afflict the children. She was committed to prison, and lay there till sold for her fees. The account she gave of it was, that Mr. Parris, her master, beat her to make her confess, and to discover and accuse her sister witches; that her confession, and her accusation of others, came solely from this ill usage: and that he had refused to pay her jail fees unless she stood to what she had said. Whether this were true or not, it will be evident that Mr. Parris may justly be suspected of unchristianly conduct in subsequent cases.

These girls, Elizabeth, the minister's daughter, Abigail Williams, his niece, and their play-fellow Ann Putman, were not

only the prime beginners of the mischief, but continued to be accusers of most that were arrested during the whole excitement. Though they might at first have been self-deluded by the thick-coming fancies of hysteria or some other morbid state of the nervous system, there can be little doubt, we think, that when the legal mockeries called trials became frequent, their evidence was but a tissue of lies. If Mr. Parris, instead of beating the simple squaw into an acknowledgment of guilt, had tied the little hussies to a bed-post with their garters, or administered a wholesome correction with birch twigs, more temporum, the Salem Witchcraft might never have been heard of. But the number of the accused increased. Sarah Good, melancholy and half crazed, Goody Osborne, a bed-rid woman, Goodwives Cory and Nurse, and many others, were arraigned and tried.

The examinations took place in presence of all the accusing witnesses; nor was the common rule of criminal trials observed, of separating the witnesses, in order to test their agreement with each other. The afflicted persons alleged that they were grievously tormented whenever the witch's eye fell upon them, but were restored by her grasping their arms. Sometimes this was varied by their complaining of receiving hurt when she adjusted her dress, as by pinning a collar anew. The examinations which follow will give an idea of the whole.

"The examination of Mary Black, (a negro)

at a court held at Salem Village, 22d Apr. 1692. By the Magistrates of Salem.

'Mary, you accused of sundry acts of witchcraft: Tell me be you a witch?'. Silent.

'How long have you been a witch?' 'I cannot tell.'

'But have you been a witch?'
I cannot tell you.'

"Why do you hurt these folks?'
'I hurt nobody.'
"Who doth?'

'I do not know.'

cried out they were prickt. Mary Walcott was prickt in the arm till the blood came Abigail Williams was prickt on the stomach, and Mary Lewes was prickt in the foot."

Taken by SAMUEL PARRIS.

Mass. Archives, Vol. 135, Fol. 20. "The examination of Sarah Buckley, 18 May, 1692.

"Abig. Williams said, "This is the woman that hath bit me with her scragged teeth a great many times.'

66

Mary Walcot, Ann Putman, and Susan Shelden unable to speak. Mary Lewes said she see her upon her feet last night.

"Mary Walcot's testimony read.

"Eliz. Hubbard said, 'I see her last Sab. day hurt Mary Walcot in the meeting-house, but I do not know that she hurt me.'

"Ann Putman's testimony read.

"Mary Warren said that 'She saw this woman and a great company, and that this woman would have her, the said Warren, go to their Sacrament up to Mr. Parris.'

"Susan Shelden said this woman hath tore her to pieces, and tempted her with the book.

"Ann Putman, carried to this examinant in a fit, was made well upon the exami nant's grasping her arm.

When the exa

"Susan Shelden the like. "Mary Warren the like. minant was pressed to confess, She said She did not hurt them, She was inocent. Susan Sheldon said 'there is the black man whispering in her ear.'

"This is a true copy of the substance of the original examination of the above 24 Sarah Buckley. Witness my hand, upon my oath, taken this day in Court, 15th Sept. 1692. SAM. PARRIS

"Ib. Feb. 22."

It seems difficult to imagine how men reared under the influence of English institutions could have departed so far from the principles of jurisprudence which were then well settled. Evidence which would provoke only a smile from us, did we not know that it had driven tender women to the scaffold, was received in court without any apparent sense of its absurd irrelevancy. Indeed, very little of it rested upon the bodily senses of the witnesses; they testified that the acts complained of were done by the "spectres," or "shapes" of the accused: and these they did not pretend to behold with their bodily eyes. The injunction in the Pentateuch, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," by an odd process of reasoning, is made to serve a double purpose. To those who denied the existence of witches, it was urged, that the Divine command was surely not in vain; that the malediction would be pointless, if their exploits were fabulous. And if the objector then insisted that upon a capital trial the long established