"Though I am thus well in body yet I question whether my soul doth prosper as my body doth, for I perceive yet to this very day, little _growth_ in grace; and this makes me question whether grace be in my heart or no. I feel also daily great unwillingness to good duties, and the great ruling of sin in my heart; and that God is angry with me and gives me no answers to my prayers; but many times he even throws them down as dust in my face; and he does not grant my continued request for the _spiritual blessing of the softening of my hard heart_. And in all this I could yet take some comfort but that it makes me to wonder what God's _secret decree_ concerning me may be: for I doubt whether even God is wont to deny grace and mercy to his chosen (though _uncalled_) when they seek unto him by prayer for it; and therefore, seeing he doth thus deny it to me, I think that the reason of it is most like to be because I belong not unto _the election of grace_. I desire that you would let me have your prayers as I doubt not but I have them, and rest "Your Son, SAMUEL MATHER." A strong characteristic of English folk at the time of the settlement of the American colonies was superstition. This showed not only in scores of petty observances but in serious beliefs, such as those about comets and thunder-storms. It controlled medical practice, and was displayed in the religious significance attributed to trifling natural events. It was evinced in the dependence on dreams, and the dread of portents. Naturally children were imbued with the beliefs and fears of their parents, and multiplied the importance and the terror of these notions. It can readily be seen that religious training and thought, such as was shown in the families of Samuel Sewall and Cotton Mather, joined to hereditary traits and race superstitions, could naturally produce a condition of mind and judgment which would permit such an episode as that known as the Salem Witchcraft. Nor is it anything but natural to find that those two prominent Bostonians took such important parts in the progress of that tragedy. [Illustration: Charles Spooner Cary, Eight Years Old, 1786]