The fourth and last of the ministers of Salem Village, before the
Tragedy, was the Mr. Parris who played the most conspicuous part in it.
He must have been a man of singular shamelessness, as well as remarkable
selfishness, craft, ruthlessness, and withal imprudence. He began his
operations with sharp bargaining about his stipend, and sharp practice
in appropriating the house and land assigned for the use of successive
pastors. He wrought diligently under the stimulus of his ambition till
he got his meeting-house sanctioned as a true church, and himself
ordained as the first pastor of Salem Village. This was in 1689. He
immediately launched out into such an exercise of priestly power as
could hardly be exceeded under any form of church government; he set
his people by the ears on every possible occasion and on every possible
pretense; he made his church a scandal in the land for its brawls and
controversies; and on him rests the responsibility of the disease and
madness which presently turned his parish into a hell, and made it
famous for the murder of the wisest, gentlest, and purest Christians
it contained. [This man Parris must have had an inferior intellect,
small Conscientiousness, Benevolence, and Veneration; large Firmness,
Self-Esteem, Combativeness, Destructiveness, and Acquisitiveness.]