"The nobler tendency of culture, and above all of scientific culture, is
to honor the dead without groveling before them--to profit by the past
without sacrificing it to the present."
The early colonists of the old Bay State deserve to be held in high esteem
and admiration; all noble sentiments conspire to honor them. Culture and
enlightenment will be derelict to their high calling if they traduce that
people before they turn thought backward through two centuries, scan the
imported creeds then prevalent here, observe circumstances then existing,
and enter into feelings and views then bearing resistless sway. Having
done that, let them calmly determine whither duty led true-hearted,
clear-headed, strong, courageous, and devout men in relation to witchcraft
matters. Many old beliefs may be discarded; many mistakes and errors of
the past be shunned. We are not called to grovel before our ancestors; but
shame, shame be to us if we brand them with egregious "credulity and
infatuation," solely or mainly because their senses perceived and they
described events which we cannot explain if we grant to them clear,
sagacious, and well-balanced intellects for reporting facts which they
observed. They were our peers in most good qualities and powers, and
deserve our admiration.
Did we know the spot where the dust of Charlestown's gifted physician
reposes, we might desire to see a modest monument there bearing the
following inscription:--
TO THE MEMORY
OF
MARGARET JONES,
America's first Martyr to Spiritualism:
Who was hanged in Boston,
June 15, 1648,
Because God had given her such Organization and Receptivities
that beneficent occult Powers, using her successfully
as an Instrument in curing
Human Ills,
So excited the Consternation of a Devil-fearing People,
That, knowing not what they did,
They cried,
CRUCIFY HER! CRUCIFY HER!