The bewitched girl, as she ceased to be an object of popular attention, seems to have returned to her former behavior. But the seed had been sown on fruitful ground. After an interval of nearly four years, three young girls in the family of Parris, minister of Salem village, now Danvers, began to exhibit similar pranks. As in the Boston case, a physician pronounced them bewitched, and Tituba, an old Indian woman, the servant of Parris, who undertook, by some vulgar rites, to discover the witch, was rewarded by the girls with the accusation of being herself the cause of their sufferings. The neighboring ministers assembled at the house of Parris for fasting and prayer. The village fasted; and presently a general fast was ordered throughout the colony. The "bewitched children," thus rendered objects of universal sympathy and attention, did not long want imitators. Several other girls and two or three women of the neighborhood began to be afflicted in the same way, as did also John, the Indian husband of Tituba, warned, it would seem, by the fate of his wife. Parris took a very active part in discovering the witches; so did Noyes, minister of Salem, described as "a learned, a charitable, and a good man." A town committee was soon formed for the detection of the witches. Two of the magistrates, resident at Salem, entered with great zeal into the matter. The accusations, confined at first to Tituba and two other friendless women, one crazed, the other bedrid, presently included two female members of Parris' church, in which, as in so many other churches, there had been some sharp dissensions. The next Sunday after this accusation Parris preached from the verse, "Have I not chosen you twelve, and one is a devil?" At the announcement of this text the sister of one of the accused women rose and left the meeting-house. She, too, was accused immediately after, and the same fate soon overtook all who showed the least disposition to resist the prevailing delusion.