Yet, among other evidences of departure from ancient landmarks, and of the propagation even to New England of a spirit of doubt, were growing suspicions as to the reality of that everyday supernaturalism which formed so prominent a feature of the Puritan theology. The zeal of Increase Mather against this rising incredulity had engaged him, while the old charter was still in existence, to publish a book of _Remarkable Providences_, in which were enumerated, among other things, all the supposed cases of witchcraft which had hitherto occurred in New England, with arguments to prove their reality. What at that time had given the matter additional interest was the case of a bewitched or haunted house at Newbury. An intelligent neighbor, who had suggested that a mischievous grandson of the occupant might perhaps be at the bottom of the mystery, was himself accused of witchcraft and narrowly escaped. A witch, however, the credulous townspeople were resolved to find, and they presently fixed upon the wife of the occupant as the culprit. Seventeen persons testified to mishaps experienced in the course of their lives, which they charitably chose to ascribe to the ill-will and diabolical practices of this unfortunate old woman. On this evidence she was found guilty by the jury; but the magistrates, more enlightened, declined to order her execution. The deputies thereupon raised a loud complaint at this delay of justice. But the firmness of Governor Bradstreet, supported as he was by the moderate party, and the abrogation of the charter which speedily followed, saved the woman's life. This same struggle of opinion existed also in the mother-country, where the rising sect of "freethinkers" began to deny and deride all diabolical agencies. Nor was this view confined to professed freethinkers. The latitudinarian party in the Church, a rapidly growing body, leaned perceptibly the same way. The "serious ministers," on the other hand, led by Richard Baxter, their acknowledged head, defended with zeal the reality of witchcraft and the personality and agency of the devil, to deny which they denounced as little short of atheism. They supported their opinions by the authority of Sir Matthew Hale, lord chief justice of England, as distinguished for piety as for knowledge of the law, under whose instructions two alleged witches, at whose trials he had presided shortly after the Restoration, had been found guilty and executed. The accounts of those trials, published in England on occasion of this controversy and republished at Boston, had tended to confirm the popular belief. The doubts by which Mather had been alarmed were yet confined to a few thinking men. Read with a forward and zealous faith, these stories did not fail to make a deep impression on the popular imagination.