Increase Mather delighted to blazon himself as Christ’s foremost champion in the land. He predicted, and with reason, that should those who had been already designated succeed him at Harvard, it would be fatal to that cause to which his life was vowed. The alternative was presented of serving himself or God, and to him it seemed unreasonable of his friends to expect of him a choice. And yet when, as was his wont, he would describe himself from the pulpit, as a refulgent beacon blazing before New England, he would use such words as these: “Every ... one of a publick spirit ... will deny himself as to his worldly interests, provided he may thereby promove the welfare of his people.... He will not only deny himself, but if called thereto, will encounter the greatest difficulties and dangers for the publicks sake.” [Footnote: Sermon, _The Publick Spirited Man_, pp. 7, 9.] The man had presumed too far; the world was wearying of him. On September 6, 1701, the government was transferred to Samuel Willard, the vice-president, and Harvard was lost forever. [Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 116.] No education is so baleful as the ecclesiastical, because it breeds the belief in men that resistance to their will is not only a wrong to their country and themselves, but a sacrilege toward God. The Mathers were now to give an illustration of the degree to which the theocratic training debauched the mind; and it is only necessary to observe that Samuel Sewall, who tells the story, was educated for the ministry, and was perhaps as staunch a conservative as there was in the province. 1701, “October 20. Mr. Cotton Mather came to Mr. Wilkins’s shop, and there talked very sharply against me as if I had used his father worse than a neger; spake so loud that people in the street might hear him.... I had read in the morn Mr. Dod’s saying; Sanctified afflictions are good promotions. I found it now a cordial.” “October 9. I sent Mr. Increase Mather a hanch of very good venison; I hope in that I did not treat him as a negro.” “October 2, 1701. I, with Major Walley and Capt. Samuel Checkly, speak with Mr. Cotton Mather at Mr. Wilkins’s.... I told him of his book of the Law of Kindness for the Tongue, whether this were correspondent with that. Whether correspondent with Christ’s rule: