From the Supernaturalism of New England, in the Democratic Review for
1843.
IN this life of ours, so full of mystery, so hung about with wonders, so
written over with dark riddles, where even the lights held by prophets
and inspired ones only serve to disclose the solemn portals of a future
state of being, leaving all beyond in shadow, perhaps the darkest and
most difficult problem which presents itself is that of the origin of
evil,--the source whence flow the black and bitter waters of sin and
suffering and discord,--the wrong which all men see in others and feel
in themselves,--the unmistakable facts of human depravity and misery. A
superficial philosophy may attempt to refer all these dark phenomena of
man's existence to his own passions, circumstances, and will; but the
thoughtful observer cannot rest satisfied with secondary causes. The
grossest materialism, at times, reveals something of that latent dread
of an invisible and spiritual influence which is inseparable from our
nature. Like Eliphaz the Temanite, it is conscious of a spirit passing
before its face, the form whereof is not discerned.
It is indeed true that our modern divines and theologians, as if to atone
for the too easy credulity of their order formerly, have unceremoniously
consigned the old beliefs of Satanic agency, demoniacal possession, and
witchcraft, to Milton's receptacle of exploded follies and detected
impostures,
"Over the backside of the world far off,
Into a limbo broad and large, and called
The paradise of fools,"--
that indeed, out of their peculiar province, and apart from the routine
of their vocation, they have become the most thorough sceptics and
unbelievers among us. Yet it must be owned that, if they have not the
marvellous themselves, they are the cause of it in others. In certain
states of mind, the very sight of a clergyman in his sombre professional
garb is sufficient to awaken all the wonderful within us. Imagination
goes wandering back to the subtle priesthood of mysterious Egypt. We
think of Jannes and Jambres; of the Persian magi; dim oak groves, with
Druid altars, and priests, and victims, rise before us. For what is the
priest even of our New England but a living testimony to the truth of the
supernatural and the reality of the unseen,--a man of mystery, walking in
the shadow of the ideal world,--by profession an expounder of spiritual
wonders? Laugh he may at the old tales of astrology and witchcraft and
demoniacal possession; but does he not believe and bear testimony to his
faith in the reality of that dark essence which Scripture more than hints
at, which has modified more or less all the religious systems and
speculations of the heathen world,--the Ahriman of the Parsee, the Typhon
of the Egyptian, the Pluto of the Roman mythology, the Devil of Jew,
Christian, and Mussulman, the Machinito of the Indian,--evil in the
universe of goodness, darkness in the light of divine intelligence,--in
itself the great and crowning mystery from which by no unnatural process
of imagination may be deduced everything which our forefathers believed
of the spiritual world and supernatural agency? That fearful being with
his tributaries and agents,--"the Devil and his angels,"--how awfully he
rises before us in the brief outline limning of the sacred writers! How
he glooms, "in shape and gesture proudly eminent," on the immortal canvas
of Milton and Dante! What a note of horror does his name throw into the
sweet Sabbath psalmody of our churches. What strange, dark fancies are
connected with the very language of common-law indictments, when grand
juries find under oath that the offence complained of has been committed
"at the instigation of the Devil"!
How hardly effaced are the impressions of childhood! Even at this day,
at the mention of the evil angel, an image rises before me like that with
which I used especially to horrify myself in an old copy of Pilgrim's
Progress. Horned, hoofed, scaly, and fire-breathing, his caudal
extremity twisted tight with rage, I remember him, illustrating the
tremendous encounter of Christian in the valley where "Apollyon straddled
over the whole breadth of the way." There was another print of the enemy
which made no slight impression upon me. It was the frontispiece of an
old, smoked, snuff-stained pamphlet, the property of an elderly lady,
(who had a fine collection of similar wonders, wherewith she was kind
enough to edify her young visitors,) containing a solemn account of the
fate of a wicked dancing-party in New Jersey, whose irreverent
declaration, that they would have a fiddler if they had to send to the
lower regions after him, called up the fiend himself, who forthwith
commenced playing, while the company danced to the music incessantly,
without the power to suspend their exercise, until their feet and legs
were worn off to the knees! The rude wood-cut represented the demon
fiddler and his agonized companions literally stumping it up and down in
"cotillons, jigs, strathspeys, and reels." He would have answered very
well to the description of the infernal piper in Tam O'Shanter.
To this popular notion of the impersonation of the principle of evil we
are doubtless indebted for the whole dark legacy of witchcraft and
possession. Failing in our efforts to solve the problem of the origin of
evil, we fall back upon the idea of a malignant being,--the antagonism of
good. Of this mysterious and dreadful personification we find ourselves
constrained to speak with a degree of that awe and reverence which are
always associated with undefined power and the ability to harm. "The
Devil," says an old writer, "is a dignity, though his glory be somewhat
faded and wan, and is to be spoken of accordingly."
The evil principle of Zoroaster was from eternity self-created and
existent, and some of the early Christian sects held the same opinion.
The gospel, however, affords no countenance to this notion of a divided
sovereignty of the universe. The Divine Teacher, it is true, in
discoursing of evil, made use of the language prevalent in His time, and
which was adapted to the gross conceptions of His Jewish bearers; but He
nowhere presents the embodiment of sin as an antagonism to the absolute
power and perfect goodness of God, of whom, and through whom, and to whom
are all things. Pure himself, He can create nothing impure. Evil,
therefore, has no eternity in the past. The fact of its present actual
existence is indeed strongly stated; and it is not given us to understand
the secret of that divine alchemy whereby pain, and sin, and discord
become the means to beneficent ends worthy of the revealed attributes of
the Infinite Parent. Unsolved by human reason or philosophy, the dark
mystery remains to baffle the generations of men; and only to the eye of
humble and childlike faith can it ever be reconciled to the purity,
justice, and mercy of Him who is "light, and in whom is no darkness at
all."
"Do you not believe in the Devil?" some one once asked the Non-conformist
Robinson. "I believe in God," was the reply; "don't you?"
Henry of Nettesheim says "that it is unanimously maintained that devils
do wander up and down in the earth; but what they are, or how they are,
ecclesiasticals have not clearly expounded." Origen, in his Platonic
speculations on this subject, supposed them to be spirits who, by
repentance, might be restored, that in the end all knees might be bowed
to the Father of spirits, and He become all in all. Justin Martyr was of
the opinion that many of them still hoped for their salvation; and the
Cabalists held that this hope of theirs was well founded. One is
irresistibly reminded here of the closing verse of the _Address to the
Deil_, by Burns:--
"But fare ye weel, Auld Nickie ben!
Gin ye wad take a thought and mend,
Ye aiblins might--I dinna ken--
Still has a stake
I'm was to think upon yon den
Fen for your sake."
The old schoolmen and fathers seem to agree that the Devil and his
ministers have bodies in some sort material, subject to passions and
liable to injury and pain. Origen has a curious notion that any evil
spirit who, in a contest with a human being, is defeated, loses from
thenceforth all his power of mischief, and may be compared to a wasp who
has lost his sting.
"The Devil," said Samson Occum, the famous Indian preacher, in a
discourse on temperance, "is a gentleman, and never drinks."
Nevertheless it is a remarkable fact, and worthy of the serious
consideration of all who "tarry long at the wine," that, in that state of
the drunkard's malady known as delirium tremens, the adversary, in some
shape or other, is generally visible to the sufferers, or at least, as
Winslow says of the Powahs, "he appeareth more familiarly to them than to
others." I recollect a statement made to me by a gentleman who has had
bitter experience of the evils of intemperance, and who is at this time
devoting his fine talents to the cause of philanthropy and mercy, as the
editor of one of our best temperance journals, which left a most vivid
impression on my mind. He had just returned from a sea-voyage; and, for
the sake of enjoying a debauch, unmolested by his friends, took up his
abode in a rum-selling tavern in a somewhat lonely location on the
seaboard. Here he drank for many days without stint, keeping himself the
whole time in a state of semi-intoxication. One night he stood leaning
against a tree, looking listlessly and vacantly out upon the ocean; the
waves breaking on the beach, and the white sails of passing vessels
vaguely impressing him like the pictures of a dream. He was startled by
a voice whispering hoarsely in his ear, _"You have murdered a man; the
officers of justice are after you; you must fly for your life!"_ Every
syllable was pronounced slowly and separately; and there was something in
the hoarse, gasping sound of the whisper which was indescribably
dreadful. He looked around him, and seeing nothing but the clear
moonlight on the grass, became partially sensible that he was the victim
of illusion, and a sudden fear of insanity thrilled him with a momentary
horror. Rallying himself, he returned to the tavern, drank another glass
of brandy, and retired to his chamber. He had scarcely lain his head on
the pillow when he heard that hoarse, low, but terribly distinct whisper,
repeating the same words. He describes his sensations at this time as
inconceivably fearful. Reason was struggling with insanity; but amidst
the confusion and mad disorder one terrible thought evolved itself. Had
he not, in a moment of mad frenzy of which his memory made no record,
actually murdered some one? And was not this a warning from Heaven?
Leaving his bed and opening his door, he heard the words again repeated,
with the addition, in a tone of intense earnestness, "Follow me!" He
walked forward in the direction of the sound, through a long entry, to
the head of the staircase, where he paused for a moment, when again he
heard the whisper, half-way down the stairs, "Follow me!"
Trembling with terror, he passed down two flights of stairs, and found
himself treading on the cold brick floor of a large room in the basement,
or cellar, where he had never been before. The voice still beckoned him
onward; and, groping after it, his hand touched an upright post, against
which he leaned for a moment. He heard it again, apparently only two or
three yards in front of him "You have murdered a man; the officers are
close behind you; follow me!" Putting one foot forward while his hand
still grasped the post, it fell upon empty air, and he with difficulty
recovered himself. Stooping down and feeling with his hands, he found
himself on the very edge of a large uncovered cistern, or tank, filled
nearly to the top with water. The sudden shock of this discovery broke
the horrible enchantment. The whisperer was silent. He believed, at the
time, that he had been the subject, and well-nigh the victim, of a
diabolical delusion; and he states that, even now, with the recollection
of that strange whisper is always associated a thought of the universal
tempter.
Our worthy ancestors were, in their own view of the matter, the advance
guard and forlorn hope of Christendom in its contest with the bad angel.
The New World, into which they had so valiantly pushed the outposts of
the Church militant, was to them, not God's world, but the Devil's. They
stood there on their little patch of sanctified territory like the
gamekeeper of Der Freischutz in the charmed circle; within were prayer
and fasting, unmelodious psalmody and solemn hewing of heretics, "before
the Lord in Gilgal;" without were "dogs and sorcerers, red children of
perdition, Powah wizards," and "the foul fiend." In their grand old
wilderness, broken by fair, broad rivers and dotted with loveliest lakes,
hanging with festoons of leaf, and vine, and flower, the steep sides of
mountains whose naked tops rose over the surrounding verdure like altars
of a giant world,--with its early summer greenness and the many-colored
wonder of its autumn, all glowing as if the rainbows of a summer shower
had fallen upon it, under the clear, rich light of a sun to which the
misty day of their cold island was as moonlight,--they saw no beauty,
they recognized no holy revelation. It was to them terrible as the
forest which Dante traversed on his way to the world of pain. Every
advance step they made was upon the enemy's territory. And one has only
to read the writings of the two Mathers to perceive that that enemy was
to them no metaphysical abstraction, no scholastic definition, no figment
of a poetical fancy, but a living, active reality, alternating between
the sublimest possibilities of evil and the lowest details of mean
mischief; now a "tricksy spirit," disturbing the good-wife's platters or
soiling her newwashed linen, and anon riding the storm-cloud and pointing
its thunder-bolts; for, as the elder Mather pertinently inquires, "how
else is it that our meeting-houses are burned by the lightning?" What
was it, for instance, but his subtlety which, speaking through the lips
of Madame Hutchinson, confuted the "judges of Israel" and put to their
wits' end the godly ministers of the Puritan Zion? Was not his evil
finger manifested in the contumacious heresy of Roger Williams? Who else
gave the Jesuit missionaries--locusts from the pit as they were--such a
hold on the affections of those very savages who would not have scrupled
to hang the scalp of pious Father Wilson himself from their girdles? To
the vigilant eye of Puritanism was he not alike discernible in the light
wantonness of the May-pole revellers, beating time with the cloven foot
to the vain music of obscene dances, and in the silent, hat-canopied
gatherings of the Quakers, "the most melancholy of the sects," as Dr.
Moore calls them? Perilous and glorious was it, under these
circumstances, for such men as Mather and Stoughton to gird up their
stout loins and do battle with the unmeasured, all-surrounding terror.
Let no man lightly estimate their spiritual knight-errantry. The heroes
of old romance, who went about smiting dragons, lopping giants' heads,
and otherwise pleasantly diverting themselves, scarcely deserve mention
in comparison with our New England champions, who, trusting not to carnal
sword and lance, in a contest with principalities and powers, "spirits
that live throughout, Vital in every part, not as frail man,"--
encountered their enemies with weapons forged by the stern spiritual
armorer of Geneva. The life of Cotton Mather is as full of romance as
the legends of Ariosto or the tales of Beltenebros and Florisando in
Amadis de Gaul. All about him was enchanted ground; devils glared on him
in his "closet wrestlings;" portents blazed in the heavens above him;
while he, commissioned and set apart as the watcher, and warder, and
spiritual champion of "the chosen people," stood ever ready for battle,
with open eye and quick ear for the detection of the subtle approaches of
the enemy. No wonder is it that the spirits of evil combined against
him; that they beset him as they did of old St. Anthony; that they shut
up the bowels of the General Court against his long-cherished hope of the
presidency of Old Harvard; that they even had the audacity to lay hands
on his anti-diabolical manuscripts, or that "ye divil that was in ye girl
flewe at and tore" his grand sermon against witches. How edifying is his
account of the young bewitched maiden whom he kept in his house for the
purpose of making experiments which should satisfy all "obstinate
Sadducees"! How satisfactory to orthodoxy and confounding to heresy is
the nice discrimination of "ye divil in ye girl," who was choked in
attempting to read the Catechism, yet found no trouble with a pestilent
Quaker pamphlet; who was quiet and good-humored when the worthy Doctor
was idle, but went into paroxysms of rage when he sat down to indite his
diatribes against witches and familiar spirits!
(The Quakers appear to have, at a comparatively early period,
emancipated themselves in a great degree from the grosser
superstitions of their times. William Penn, indeed, had a law in
his colony against witchcraft; but the first trial of a person
suspected of this offence seems to have opened his eyes to its
absurdity. George Fox, judging from one or two passages in his
journal, appears to have held the common opinions of the day on the
subject; yet when confined in Doomsdale dungeon, on being told that
the place was haunted and that the spirits of those who had died
there still walked at night in his room, he replied, "that if all
the spirits and devils in hell were there, he was over them in the
power of God, and feared no such thing."
The enemies of the Quakers, in order to account for the power and
influence of their first preachers, accused them of magic and
sorcery. "The Priest of Wakefield," says George Fox (one trusts he
does not allude to our old friend the Vicar), "raised many wicked
slanders upon me, as that I carried bottles with me and made people
drink, and that made them follow me; that I rode upon a great black
horse, and was seen in one county upon my black horse in one hour,
and in the same hour in another county fourscore miles off." In his
account of the mob which beset him at Walney Island, he says: "When
I came to myself I saw James Lancaster's wife throwing stones at my
face, and her husband lying over me to keep off the blows and
stones; for the people had persuaded her that I had bewitched her
husband."
Cotton Mather attributes the plague of witchcraft in New England in
about an equal degree to the Quakers and Indians. The first of the
sect who visited Boston, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher,--the latter a
young girl,--were seized upon by Deputy-Governor Bellingham, in the
absence of Governor Endicott, and shamefully stripped naked for the
purpose of ascertaining whether they were witches with the Devil's
mark on them. In 1662 Elizabeth Horton and Joan Broksop, two
venerable preachers of the sect, were arrested in Boston, charged by
Governor Endicott with being witches, and carried two days' journey
into the woods, and left to the tender mercies of Indians and
wolves.)
All this is pleasant enough now; we can laugh at the Doctor and his
demons; but little matter of laughter was it to the victims on Salem
Hill; to the prisoners in the jails; to poor Giles Corey, tortured with
planks upon his breast, which forced the tongue from his mouth and his
life from his old, palsied body; to bereaved and quaking families; to a
whole community, priest-ridden and spectresmitten, gasping in the sick
dream of a spiritual nightmare and given over to believe a lie. We may
laugh, for the grotesque is blended with the horrible; but we must also
pity and shudder. The clear-sighted men who confronted that delusion in
its own age, disenchanting, with strong good sense and sharp ridicule,
their spell-bound generation,--the German Wierus, the Italian D'Apone,
the English Scot, and the New England Calef,--deserve high honors as the
benefactors of their race. It is true they were branded through life as
infidels and "damnable Sadducees;" but the truth which they uttered
lived after them, and wrought out its appointed work, for it had a Divine
commission and Godspeed.
"The oracles are dumb;
No voice nor hideous hum
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving;
Apollo from his shrine
Can now no more divine,