The theological spirit now devoted itself to barren questions of little moment, around which wordy battles raged and hatreds developed, only less destructive than those in the previous century because the divines were no longer the rulers of the state. Religion sank into a barren formalism, which had no noble or time-honored forms to redeem it from utter indifference. From this deplorable condition it was roused by three influences which led to a spiritual revival: the Episcopal movement in Connecticut, the preaching and writings of Jonathan Edwards in western Massachusetts, and the preaching of Whitefield. The dry bones once more lived, and the descendants of the Puritans manifest by their earnest activity and deep spirituality how stout and strong was the stock from which they have inherited many of their most precious characteristics. They may be thankful that the old bigotry has not returned, and that they are now saved from all danger of interfering with public affairs by the complete separation of church and state. Panic terror of the supernatural, whenever it has occurred, has been a parody of the prevailing form of religion. When the religious ideas are at once narrow and introspective, when the social life is poor and unsatisfying, and when there is also a profound ignorance of bodily and mental physiology, we have the combined conditions for the ready and serious development of religious panic. Such were the circumstances of the witchcraft delusion that followed the religious revival due to the preaching of the Franciscan friars; such were the circumstances in Sweden in the seventeenth century, and in Scotland in the eighteenth; such were the circumstances in New England at the period we have considered. The isolated cases which appeared in various countries from time to time were the result of superstition and ignorance. That they did not cause a panic may be attributed in some cases to the better social condition; in others, to the presence in the community of men of sense and character who prevented the spread of delusion and calmed, instead of exciting, the minds of their fellows. It is one of the saddest features of the Salem trials, that though prominent men whose influence might have been expected to be exercised on the side of soberness, disbelieved in the reality of the “possession” and criticised privately the methods employed, yet they allowed the delusion to proceed to its tragical extent without interposing their authority to prevent or at least to denounce it. Brattle, in his account of the delusion, written in October 1692, mentions many by name who agreed with him in condemning the proceedings of the justices in Salem, and the judges of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, but looked on while the unfortunates were tormented into confession and put to death at the demand of popular frenzy.[101]