"His wives" (he had buried two) "had privately complained unto the
neighbors about frightly apparitions of evil spirits with which their
house was sometimes infested; and many such things had been whispered
among the neighborhood."
We have previously quoted but did not comment upon the above which relates
to the appearance of apparitions. That statement may as well indicate that
the wives themselves, or any other persons resident in his house, were the
attracting or helping instrumentalities for producing the "frightly"
sights, as that Burroughs himself was, provided only that some one or more
of them were mediumistic. But the probabilities are, that the elements
emanated from him which rendered such presentations practicable.
His telling the purport of talks held in the house during his absence
indicates that his inner ears were opened to catch either the spirit of
mundane sounds, or sounds made by spirits, as could those of Margaret
Jones, Ann Hibbins, Joan of Arc, and many others. The same power in him is
indicated in the following extract:--
"One Mr. Ruck, brother-in-law to this G. B., testified that G. B., and he
himself, and his sister, G. B.'s wife, going out for two or three miles to
gather strawberries, Ruck, with his sister, the wife of G. B., rode home
very softly" (slowly) "with G. B. on foot in their company. G. B. stepped
aside a little into the bushes. Whereupon they halted and hollowed for
him. He not answering, they went homewards with a quickened pace without
any expectation of seeing him in a considerable while. And yet, when they
were got near home, to their astonishment they found him on foot with
them, having a basket of strawberries. (Philip was found at Azotus.) G. B.
immediately then fell to chiding his wife on account of what she had been
speaking to her brother of him on the road. Which when they wondered at,
he said he _knew their thoughts_. Ruck, being startled at that, made some
reply, intimating that the devil himself did not know so far; but G. B.
answered, My God makes known your thoughts unto me."
True and luminous fact! The humble, pious, intelligent, illumined
Burroughs, far-looker into the realm of causes--an observer of things
behind the vail which bounds the reach of mortal senses and pure
reason--stated that _God_--not the devil--made known to him the thoughts
of other and absent people. In other words, his intended meaning probably
was, that God's worlds and laws provide for legitimate inflowings, to
some minds, of knowledge of the thoughts and purposes of other minds, even
though far distant in space. The character, or rather the actual qualities
of this man, if we read him correctly, were truthfulness, humility, and
piety. When such a one deliberately said to a brother-in-law, under such
circumstances as stated above, "_My God makes known your thoughts unto
me_," he indicated his consciousness of possessing self-experienced
knowledge of the existence of an instructive and momentous fact pertaining
to human capabilities. Only few persons, relatively, have had proof by
personal experience of the extent to which the inner perceptives of
embodied mortals may reach forth and imbibe knowledge by processes common
to freed spirits, and in the realms of their abode. What the unfoldings of
Burroughs permitted him to do and know is possible with many others while
resident in mortal forms. If he could, some others may, come into that
condition in which thought itself shall be heard speaking itself out to
them, in which they shall be listeners to "_cogitatio
loquens_"--self-speaking thought--which Swedenborg says abounds in spirit
spheres; in which thought from supernal fonts shall make itself known to
the consciousness of an embodied man, and become matter of knowledge with
him. Others, and more in number, may have the inner ear opened and hear
the words of spirits.
With ears competently attuned, the meek and truth-loving Burroughs was
occasionally able to receive not only knowledge of the thoughts of mortals
in ways unusual, but also, as we judge, to receive spiritual truths
copiously from purer fountains than his cotemporaries generally could get
access to; and he thence obtained such truths as relaxed in him many
credal bonds which firmly held most of his cotemporary preachers to the
creeds, forms, ordinances, and customs common in the churches then. Many
questions put to him at his trial were, obviously, designed to draw forth
evidence of his lax regard for and inattention to the accepted ordinances
of religion. He admitted both that it was long since he had sat at the
communion table, and that some of his own children had not been baptized.
We presume that he was inwardly, wisely, and beneficently prompted to walk
somewhat astray from the narrow and soul-cramping paths then trod by most
New England clergymen. The spirit of the Lord was giving him more liberty
than most of his cotemporaries felt privileged to exercise. Using his
greater facilities than theirs for instruction in heavenly things, he
probably advanced far beyond his brethren generally in sinking the
_letter_, that is, sinking the forms, and ceremonies, and ordinances of
religion beneath its divine spirit, and his less illumined brethren
suspected him of an abandonment of religion itself, and of alliance with
the great enemy of all goodness. Some among them apparently looked upon
him as a combined heretic and wizard, withheld all sympathy from, and
exulted over the doom of, this double culprit.
But this victim may have been, and probably was, as high above most of his
crucifiers as freedom is above bondage, as the spirit above the letter, as
light above darkness, as sincerity above hypocrisy. The blood of such as
Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Mary Easty, GEORGE BURROUGHS, and probably
many others who in company with these took their exit from life shrouded
in witchcraft's blackening mists, may go far toward making Gallows Hill a
Mount Calvary--a spot on which zeal urged on the worse to crucify their
betters in true godliness--betters in all that fits immortal souls for
gladdening welcome into realms above.