His partisans were enemies of his successor, of course. Mr. Burroughs
was a man of even distinguished excellence in the pastoral relation, in
days when risks from Indians made that duty as perilous as the career
of the soldier in war time; but his flock were divided, church business
was neglected, he was allowed to fall into want. He withdrew, was
recalled to settle accounts, was arrested for debt in full meeting--the
debt being for the funeral expenses of his wife--was absolved from all
blame under the cruel neglect he had experienced--and left the Village.
Before he could hear in his remote home in Maine what was doing at
Salem in the first days of the Witch Tragedy, he was summoned to his
old neighborhood, was charged with sorcery on the most childish and
absurd testimony conceivable, and executed in August, 1692. One of the
witnesses--a young girl morbid in body and mind--poured out her remorse
to him the day before his death. He, believing her a victim of Satan,
forgave her, prayed with her, and died honored and beloved by all who
were not under the curse of the bigotry of the time.