[Footnote 340: Mather affirms that the Quakers used to go about saying, "We deny thy Christ: we deny thy God, whom thou callest Father, Son, and Spirit; thy Bible is the word of the devil." They used to rise up suddenly in the midst of a sermon, and call upon the preacher to cease his abomination. One writer says, "For hellish reviling of the painful ministers of Christ, I know no people can match them." The following epithets bestowed by Fisher on Dr. Owen are said to be fair specimens of their usual addresses: "Thou green-headed trumpeter! thou hedgehog and grinning dog! thou tinker! thou lizard! thou whirligig! thou firebrand! thou louse! thou mooncalf! thou ragged tatterdemalion! thou livest in philosophy and logic, which are of the devil." Even Penn is said to have addressed the same respected divine as, "Thou bane of reason and beast of the earth." When the governor or any magistrate came in sight, they would call out, "Woe to thee, thou oppressor," and in the language of Scripture prophecy would announce the judgments that were about to fall upon their head.--Neale, cap. i., p. 341-345. Mather, b. vii., cap. iv. Hutchinson, p. 196-205.] [Footnote 341: "Sir Matthew Hale burned two persons for witchcraft in 1664. Three thousand were executed in England during the Long Parliament. Two pretended witches were executed at Northampton in 1705. In 1716, Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, aged nine, were hanged at Huntingdon. The last sufferer in Scotland was in 1722, at Dornoch. The laws against witchcraft had lain dormant for many years, when an ignorant person attempting to revive them by finding a bill against a poor old woman in Surrey for the practice of witchcraft, they were repealed, 10 George II., 1736."--Viner's _Abridgement_.] [Footnote 342: Neale, vol. ii., p. 164-170. Mather, vol. ii., p. 62-64. Arfwedson says, "Close to the town of Salem is Beverley, a small, insignificant place, remarkable only in the annals of history as having formerly contained a superstitious population. Many lives have here been cruelly sacrificed, and the barren hill is still in existence where persons accused of witchcraft were hung upon tall trees. Tradition points out the place where the witches of old resided. Cotton Mather records in a work, truly original for that age, that the good people who lived near Massachusetts Bay were every night roused from their slumbers by the sound of a trumpet, summoning all the witches and demons."--Cotton Mather's _Magnalia_; Arfwedson, vol. i., p. 186. "And thrice that night the trumpet rang, And rock and hill replied; And down the glen strange shadows sprang-- Mortal and fiend--a wizard gang, Seen dimly, side by side. "They gathered there from every land That sleepeth in the sun; They came with spell and charm in hand, Waiting their master's high command-- Slaves to the Evil One."--_Legends of New England._]