USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Old South church (Third church) Boston. Memorial addresses, Sunday evening, October 26, 1884 > Part 4
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The most interesting historical point in the life and character of Judge Sewall, is his part in connection with the Witch- craft tragedy. Hopeless and vain it seems to try to set right for superficial readers and flippant triffers, the absurd yet stock- folly which singles out for emphasis in scorn and reproach the little wilderness village of Salem, two hundred years ago, for its share in a stark delusion universal in Christendom. That delusion gave us a score of tragedies here, while there were thousands and hundreds of thousands of them, then and afterwards, all over Europe. The real stress for New England should be laid upon the small space within which the phrenzy wrought its horrors, and the brevity of the time during which its pall hung over our community. Executions for witch- craft in various parts of Europe continued long after they had ceased and been sorely grieved over here. We have no more right to censure those whose official trusts compelled them to deal with that dread panic here, than we have to charge upon the physicians of our day the ravages of the cholera. Much has been said of the absence of trained lawyers and the lack of legal forms and methods on the bench and in the court. It certainly was not for want of law in the case that those victims perished. The court followed strictly the English Statutes, even in pressing to death poor Giles Corey for refus- ing to plead to the indictment. The foremost judges and jurists of Europe presided over witchcraft trials and con- demned those adjudged guilty.
But there are two distinctive and most honorable facts which signalize the history of our share in those harrowing tragedies.
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In the first of these we may challenge a revering tribute for Sewall. When, five years after, the portentous shadow which had hung over our community was lifted, and dismay and re- morse for what had been done harrowed the hearts of this people, the Province authorities appointed a solemn Fast Day in homes and churches for services of humiliation and peni- tence. Then Sewall, who had sat as a judge in the woful phrenzy, in his reverent attendance, conspicuous and honored, upon what he calls " the solemn assembly," rose in his seat and bowed his head, as his pastor read his note of meek contrition, for his possible share in blood guiltiness. Did ever a judge in Christendom, even the wisest and the best of them, ever do that, before or since? Sewall was then but second in rank on that bench. His chief was William Stoughton, a man of austere and grim spirit, persistent in what he called following his conscience, the literal word of scripture against witches, and the light which was before him, though it was really dark- ness. He disapproved this act of Sewall, and would not imitate it.
Yet one other signal honor might well offset-if there were any reason for it-the silly slander which concentrates the shame of witchcraft on this colony. I speak the fact grate- fully and boastingly. The Province of Massachusetts, by legislative process, allowed pecuniary compensation, so far as that would atone, to those who had suffered in repute or property through the delusion. Did any other government in Christendom ever do that for its thousands of wronged and tortured victims? It is to be hoped that these facts may soon find their way into the new, more exact and more faithful histories which are to be written for us.
It interests us to ask what was the quality of the possible error or guilt with which Sewall charged himself, and how much was covered by his " Confession." The words of the " Bill put up" by him on the Fast Day, are as follows-the reference in the beginning being to his recent domestic afflictions :
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" Samuel Sewall, sensible of the reiterated strokes of God upon himself and family; and being sensible, that as to the Guilt contracted upon the opening of the late Commission of Oyer and Terminer at Salem (to which the Order for this Day relates) he is, upon many ac- counts, more concerned than any that he knows of, Desires to take the Blame and Shame of it, Asking pardon of men, And especially de- siring Prayers that God, who has an Unlimited Authority, would pardon that sin and all other his sins ; personal and Relative; And ac- cording to his infinite Benignity and Sovereignty, Not visit the sin of him, or of any other, upon himself or any of his, nor upon the Land, &c."
Now we are not to infer from this that Sewall had come to disbelieve or even doubt that what was called witchcraft, a contract or covenant made with the devil, for purposes of sorcery and evil, was a possible and actual iniquity to be recognized by law. Neither the intelligence nor the scepti- cism of the most enlightened and devout in Christendom had at that time reached so far as to question the reality of that dreadful sin. Among the other appalling aggravations of the fearful delusion which struck such terror into the community, was the fact that many of the accused, under the dismay and bewilderment of the charges made against them, confessed, with details of acts and circumstances, to having had deal- ings with the devil. Sewall's misgivings are probably to be referred to his deep distrust of that part of the evidence against the accused, upon which the court had proceeded to sentence-known as " spectre testimony." It had been ac- cepted in belief that Satan could empower his dupes in spectral or shadowy forms, to impersonate or assume the shape of their principals, and so to torment their victims when them- selves distant in the living body. The further prosecutions for witchcraft broke down under the distrust of this spectral testimony. It is probable that Sewall's sharp self-reproach- ings centred there. Occasionally, but very rarely, he refers in his journal to painful reminders.
In that exquisite ballad of our beloved and venerable poet, Whittier, so graced with tenderness, sweetness, and reverent regard, entitled " The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall," we read,
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"Of the fast which the good man life-long kept With a haunting sorrow that never slept, As the circling year brought round the time, Of an error that left the sting of crime. * * * All the day long, from dawn to dawn, His door was bolted, his curtain drawn :
No foot on his silent threshold trod,
No eye looked on him save that of God, As he baffled the ghosts of the dead with charms Of penitent tears and prayers, and psalms,
And, with precious proofs from the sacred word Of the boundless pity and love of the Lord."
This may all have been as the gentle and loving spirit of the poet has visioned it in reading for us the heart of the good Judge. But it would be distressing to have to believe that he bore such a life-long burden and woe, chased by ghosts to be exorcised only by an annual fast from dawn to dawn, free as he was of guilt. So it relieves us to be able to refer all that is so gloomy in those lines to a very free indulgence of poetic license. There is no trace of any such mournful observance during the nearly forty years remaining of the Judge's life. The Judge, like other devout persons of his time, kept oc- casions of fasting and solitary self-communion. His Journal records for us many such occasions, with minute and special accounts of the subjects, the matter of his contrite exercises, and the topics of his prayers. But in no single instance is there a reference made to or a mention of his share in the proceedings at Salem.
The following extract from the Journal, in 1708, gives us the matter and the method of one of the Judge's Fast Days.
" The Appointment of a Judge for the Superior Court being to be made upon next Fifth day, Feb. 12. I pray'd God to Accept me in keeping a privat day of Prayer, with Fasting for That and other Im- portant Matters : I kept it upon the Third day, Feb. 10, in the upper Chamber at the North-East end of the House, fastening the Shutters next the Street. Perfect what is lacking in my Faith, and in the faith of my dear Yoke fellow, Convert my children ; especially Samuel and Hannah : Provide Rest and Settlement for Hannah : Recover Mary, Save Judith, Elizabeth and Joseph : Requite the Labour of Love of my Kinswoman Jane Tappin, Give her health, find out Rest for her. Make David a man after thy own heart, Let Susan live and be baptised with the Holy Ghost, and with fire. Relations. Steer the Government in
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this difficult time, when the Governour and many others are at so much variance : Direct, incline, overrule, on the Council-day, as to the special Work of it in filling the Superior Court with Justices : or any other thing of like nature : as Plymouth inferior Court. Bless the Company for Propagation of the Gospel, especiall Gov. Ashurst &c. Revive the Business of Religion at Natick, and accept and bless John Neesnumin, who went thither last week for that end. Mr. Rawson at Nantucket. Bless the South Church in preserving and spiriting our Pastor; in directing unto suitable Supply, and making the Church unanimous : Save the Town, College: Province from Invasion of Enemies, open, Secret, and from false Brethren : Defend the Purity of Worship. Save Connecticut, bless their New Gov- ernour : Save the Reformation under New York Government [then with a Roman Catholic Governor.] Reform all the European Plan- tations in America : Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, Dutch : Save this new World, that where Sin hath abounded, Grace may Superabound; that Christ who is stronger, would bind the strong man and spoil his house : and order the Word to be given, Babylon is fallen. Save our Queen [Anne], lengthen out her life and Reign. Save France, make the Proud helper Stoop. Save all Europe : Save Asia, Africa, Europe and America. These were general heads of my Meditation and prayer : and through the bounteous Grace of God, I had a very Comfortable day of it."
The two most pathetic entries in the Diary referring to the sad proceedings at Salem, are the following, the first being set down four years after the executions : "Dec. 24, 1696. Sam. recites to me in Latin Mat. 12. from the 6th to the end of the 12th verse. The 7th verse did awfully bring to mind the Salem Tragedie." The words are-" If ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless."
The other passage is under. date of May 3, 1720. "Dr. Mather sends me Mr. Daniel Neal's History of New-England : It grieves me to see New-England's Nakedness laid open in the business of the Quakers, Anabaptists, Witchcraft. The Judges Names are mentioned, p. 502. My Confession, p. 536. vol. 2. The Good and Gracious God be pleased to save New-England, and me and my family."
To some of the wrongs here censured the Judge was not a party. The extreme and ever to be deplored dealings with 7
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the Quakers had taken place just before Sewall was brought hither as a child. But it must be admitted that what he afterwards saw and knew of the Quakers of his period excited his strong disapprobation and dread. He regarded them as arrogant, fanatical and intolerant of the profoundest religious convictions of others. They vilified the Puritan creed, minis- try and worship. Their claim to direct Divine Inspiration in the utterance of personal Judgments and the denouncing of direful calamities of fire, sword and plague were grievous of- fences. Sewall was deeply stirred when they broke in upon the exercises in the South Meeting-house, and in frantic garb, gesture and denunciation struck horror into the assembly. On June 17, 1685, he refused in the Council to grant the petition of Quakers to be allowed to enclose the spot on the Common where the four victims were buried. When a peti- tion was offered in Council, August 23, 1708, to permit the building of a Quaker Meeting-house in Boston, Sewall writes, " I opposed it : said I would not have a hand in setting up their Devil Worship." It may be profitless to ask, as it would be difficult to answer the question, Whether, if Sewall had been in full manhood and in magistratical office at the time when the four Quakers were executed, he would have ap- proved of the penalty. Possibly, if not probably-guided by the spirit of that age, happily, not of our own-he would have done so. He was as rigid a Puritan as was Endicott, and though of a tender heart, he notes with a stern censure the slightest deviation in opinion or observance from the Puritan rule, while an open contempt and mockery of it would have provoked his utmost severity. He would at least have shared the opinion which many hold at this day, that the Quakers themselves are justly censurable because, knowing the temper of the magistrates and their rightful claim to local jurisdic- tion, they persistently intruded and returned here, and so ex- asperated the authorities as to goad them to extremities of folly and cruelty which have left the darkest stain on the annals of Massachusetts.
Reference has been made to Sewall as a lawyer and a
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judge-subsequently the highest in office, though without legal training. A word on that point. The Colony of Mas- sachusetts from the first did not like lawyers, and would have been glad not to have had one of them on its soil, in fact, clearing off the first one that came here. Of course, there- fore, there had been in Sewall's time no means for training lawyers. His own Journal gives us but scant information about his entrance on the profession, or his furnishing for it, then, or afterwards, though he imported many law-books. It may be said of him that, " simple truth was his utmost skill." He had an awful sense of the supreme law of right- eousness, as set forth in the two great commandments. The Scriptures furnished a sufficient code to one whose heart was pure and whose eye was single. He followed the methods of natural equity, trying to bring simple common sense to bear as in arbitration and decision. He seems to have acted on the conviction that it is not for men to do what our legislators assume to do-" to make laws," but to discover what are the laws already put in force by the Divine Legislator, and to give them recognition.
So far as Sewall's Journal, printed for a Society of limited membership and a small constituency, had worked its way to a more public attention, the editors found that, as they ex- pected, the passages in it which they most hesitated about printing, have been most readily seized upon for merriment and even ridicule. Let me state the case on its two sides. In matters upon which most men make fools of themselves in the course of their lives-this grave and solemn judge, in all his dignity, is brought to the level of our common humanity in what are called " affairs of the heart." And we have exposed him from behind the shutters. Some of the aspects of his repeated, and not always successful courtships, are certainly amusing. He did not mean that we should know anything about them. But he wrote them down in full, sometimes elated, sometimes, as the word is-" mit- tened." The editors did indeed pause over the putting into print the communicative and descriptive details of his court-
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ship of Madame Winthrop. We note the warming-up and the cooling-off process. She seems to have first suggested the arrangement to him. But he was ready. And when she was making up her mind adversely, Sewall was quick to see the signs. Her linen was not as clean as usual when she had received him; she kept on her gloves; she drew a small table between them, etc. etc. etc. Now Madame Winthrop was evidently a " worldly-minded" woman. Clearly Sewall might have won her had he been willing to gratify her in two exacted conditions. These were, first, by setting up an equipage at a greater expense than he, though fully able, thought it wise to indulge ; second, that like the great digni- taries of his time, he should wear a full wig. This latter de- mand touched Sewall at a sensitive point. He had an in- tensely religious objection to periwigs, had written against their use, and sharply rebuked some of his friends who wore them. His Maker, he said, provided him at his birth with a head dress. As it thinned with age, he wore a simple skull- cap-especially in his seat in the draughty and unwarmed meeting-house. So his suit to Madame Winthrop fell through. He turned his attention elsewhere, and easily succeeded. This and other tentative courtships, so artlessly and con- fidingly entered by Sewall in his Journal, when spread on the printed page for our day, do at first appear to trifle with his secrets, and to expose the dignified and honored Judge to ridicule and banter. Now look at the matter in another light, under which the ludicrous episode is, to my mind, not only relieved, but graced with a charm. Sewall had already en- tered on his seventieth year. He was a lonely man. His first wife, the mother of all his children, fourteen in number, was dead. His second wife had but a short tenure with him of seven months. Of his children, eight had died ; five had homes of their own, married. There was left to him only his oldest daughter, Hannah, invalid and bed-ridden. Though the father's patience and devotion were sorely tried by her protracted sufferings, they were never exhausted. Male and female physicians, possets, plaisters and appliances of all
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sorts, and the prayers of each of the ministers in town, had been engaged for her. She had a habit of falling down stairs ; had broken both her knee pans, and would doubtless have broken others, if she had had them. His house was a for- lorn and desolate scene. The edifice was spacious and every way attractive, in the old generous style of furnishing and comfort. Sewall was a bountiful provider, fond of large hospitality, given and enjoyed. What was he to do in his loneliness? He would not bring in and set at his table a hireling official, a housekeeper, so called. He therefore paid his tribute, and a noble one it was, to that wise, judicious, though exacting rule for the order and security of New Eng- land domestic life-that every home should have in it a pre- siding mistress, competent, congenial in mind and spirit, with its head-a wife, and for Sewall's rank, a lady. Romance for him was out of the question ; though it has played its tricks with some older men than he. If he had not set about looking for a wife, others would have done it for him, as was then usual in the case of all widowers. Indeed Madame Winthrop herself had discussed the qualities of six available widows with Sewall, who, as a class, seem to have been preferred to spinsters. The Judge, though not portly, was of stately and dignified presence, and of a benign countenance. He sets down his weight when fifty years of age as " 193 pounds, net. Had only my close Coat on."
A short reference may now be made to what suggests it- self when we take this typical man out of his own time and set him in our time.
My own readings and thinkings have led me to rest in the conclusion that what we call Puritanism-as expressing a body of opinions and convictions, a spirit and a method in conduct and in life, was limited in its fulness and intensity of sway and influence here to two generations of men and women, after which it yielded to softening and reducing agencies. It was earnest, sincere and mastering in the first comers here, and it descended from and was imparted by them to their direct progeny, to be manifested by these in even a somewhat
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more rigid and austere form than by their parents. A stern family discipline, teaching and example, the hard and rude con- ditions of life, labor, seclusion from the freer influences at work in the world, all helped to impress Puritanism on the first generation born on this soil. But their children became restive, non-compliant, indulging in a larger outlook, falling, as the phrase was, "from their first love." In accounting for this, while allowing for obvious natural reasons for it, we have also to recognize the very important fact that all of the first comers here were by no means in full sympathy with the chief master spirits, the leaders and guides of the enter- prise, those who had their all at stake, and who indulged an iron will. We detect friction, signs of restlessness, antago- nism and strong individual assertion from the first. Only the mastering of the stern unyielding rule of the foremost spirits kept down open opposition. Grievances soon demanded a hearing and a redress. The first spirit of zeal, resolve and dominance in leaders was steadily reduced in vigor and in securing its own way, by a rapidly strengthening force in the number and power of the discontented and the dissident.
This popular fretting under the rigidity of the Puritan rule, compelling its relaxation, was illustrated in the opposition to the extreme dealings with the Quakers, less than thirty years after the planting of the Colony. It is to be remembered that the General Court, exercising all legislative, judicial and execu- tive functions, was constituted only of and by church members, a minority of the people. Even then the death penalty had only a single vote in the majority. The strong popular op- position to its enforcement required a band of soldiery, with noise of drums to drown it. Then the Court itself broke down in its extreme severity. The people would have no more executions. The imprisoned Quakers were all re- leased on their promise to leave the jurisdiction. After this the Magistrates received a letter from Charles II., interposing in behalf of the Quakers. The magistrates treated this royal interference as they always did such matters, with a feint of respect, and wrote the king in reply an account of their annoy-
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ance by the Quakers. Unfortunately he sent them a second letter authorizing them to pass "a sharp law " against their troublers, as he said he had himself been compelled to do.
Judge Sewall has been called "the last of the Puritans." There is truth enough in that statement to allow it to pass. Thorough and intense Puritan as he was, he stands distinct and eminent, even among his contemporaries of weight and dignity, as more of a Puritan than were some of them. Tak- ing him as a whole, in type of character, prominence of place, sum of personal influence, we may say that in the generation following there was no successor to him, no peer or repetition of him in the exemplification of the qualities, single and united, which so strongly marked his individuality.
The chief characteristic of real, full Puritanism was in its estimate and way of using and dealing with the Bible, as the only and the full and sufficient authority in religion-dispens- ing with, and even contemning and defying all ecclesiastical, traditionary and priestly auxiliaries or obstructions in its use. All religious deferences and confidences withdrawn from all other appliances for faith and obedience, centred upon the Bible. That was supremely prized and revered. Sewall's trust and love and awe, his joy and hope, his peace, and also his dread, rested in the "Word." He takes up the Bible with a serene and full confidence, as if he had received it in its English dress directly from the Divine hand through a luminous cloud : so written and certified, so self-explaining, as to be read only with simple and childlike confidence of heart and spirit. It was all alike through and through, as are slices and crumbs even from any part of a loaf of bread. There were passages in it which, so to speak, appalled and frightened him. But I think there is not a single token in his Journal of any sug- gestion from the critical faculty, any halting over perplexity, still less, any prompting to explain away. It was from this august estimate and this revering use of the Bible, that the Puritans derived the tenets of their stern creed and the prin- ciples of their church institution and discipline, fortified by a strong array of proof texts.
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Now if any one would have a vivid and full impression of the changes wrought by the silent lapse of time through two centuries in all the elements and workings of character, opinions, believings, habits and rules of life, estimates of principles and values, tolerances, prejudices, concessions and allowances, in all matters involving our own conduct and that of others,-let him take Sewall out of his own Book and stand him before us to-day. Put him, such as he was, to mark the individuality of a man who fills a like place, with like repute and influence in our time. Imagine that you have him resurrected before you, for private converse in a quiet apartment, or to be taken by the arm for a walk amid these very places, while you explain things to him. It would be an all-sufficient way of realizing that we live only for our own time and place, and should be utterly dazed if separated from our own surroundings and associates. Of course, in such an imagined interview and circuit with a revived digni- tary of the past age, very much would depend upon the men- tal and moral furnishing, the capacity and staple, the breadth and compass of intelligence and discernment in the man him- self. For instance, Dr. Franklin, and his early contemporary Cotton Mather, would look with widely different eyes, thoughts and judgments upon the marvellously changed as- pects of things in this, their childhood's home. A pretty fair test also would be found in such a companionship for ex- plaining the present to a man of the past, in the degree of your success in satisfying him which of all these changes have been positive improvements and advances, indicating real progress to the truth and right, the wise, the ex- pedient, the safe and the practically good. But let us con- fine ourselves to Sewall resurrected for companionship, and after a wide circuit through the city, brought in to collect his amazed, astounded and unutterable thoughts in this noble and richly adorned church. Seat him beside his own tablet. The last earnest act of his life, outside of the Court, his at- tendance on which prevented his being at an important church- meeting, was to send a most beseeching protest to that meet-
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