Five years after the unhappy episode ended, one of the judges, Samuel
Sewall, courageously made public confession of error. As the minister
read aloud Sewall’s confession of shame, the judge stood in his pew with
head bowed.
“Samuel Sewall, sensible of the reiterated strokes of God upon himself
and family, and being sensible that as to the guilt contracted upon
the opening of the late commission of Oyer and Terminer at Salem [_the
trials_], to which the order for this Day relates, he is, upon many
accounts, more concerned than any that he knows of, desires to take
the blame and shame of it, asking pardon of men and especially
desiring prayers that God, Who has an unlimited authority, would
pardon that sin and all other his sins, personal and relative: and
according to His infinite benignity and sovereignty not visit the sin
of him or of any other upon himself or any of his, nor upon the land:
but that He would powerfully defend him against all temptations to sin
for the future and vouchsafe him the efficacious saving conduct of His
word and spirit.”
Thereafter, for the rest of his life, Samuel Sewall observed one day of
prayer and fasting each year as penance for his part in the Salem witch
trials.