The third minister was one Deodat Lawson, who is notable--besides his
learning--for his Sermon on the Devil, and for some mournful mystery
about his end. Of his last days there is nothing known but that
there was something woeful in them; but his sermon, preached at the
commencement of the outbreak in Salem, remains to us. It was published
in America, and then widely circulated in England. It met the popular
craving for light about Satan and his doings; and thus, between its
appropriateness to the time and occasion, and the learning and ability
which it manifested, it produced an extraordinary effect in its day. In
ours it is an instructive evidence of the extent to which "knowledge
falsely so called" may operate on the mind of society, in the absence of
science, and before the time has arrived for a clear understanding of
the nature of knowledge and the conditions of its attainment. Mr. Lawson
bore a part in the Salem Tragedy, and then went to England, where we
hear of him from Calamy as "the unhappy Mr. Deodat Lawson," and he
disappears.