Dr. Cotton Mather, in the time of New England witchcraft, took home one of the possessed damsels, to learn the ways and works of Satan. When the doctor called the family to prayers, she would whistle, and sing, and yell, to drown his voice, would strike at him with her fist, and try to kick him. But her hand or foot would always recoil when within an inch or two of his body; thus giving the idea that there was a sort of invisible coat of mail, of heavenly temper, and proof against the assaults of the devil, around his sacred person. She seemed to be greatly displeased at the thought of his making public the doings of her master, the evil one; and when he attempted to write a sermon against him, she would disturb and interrupt him all manner of ways. For instance, she once knocked at his study door, and said that there was somebody down stairs that would be glad to see him; he dropped his pen, and went down: upon entering the room he found no one there but his own family. He afterwards undertook to chide her for having told a falsehood. She denied that she told a falsehood. "Did not you say that there was somebody down stairs that would be glad to see me?" "Well," she replied, with great pertness, "is not Mrs. Mather always glad to see you?" She even went much further than this in persecuting the good man while he was writing his sermon: she threw large books at his head. But he struggled manfully at these buffetings of Satan, as he considered them to be, finished the sermon, related all these and other kindred circumstances in it, preached and published it. Richard Baxter wrote the preface to an edition printed in London, in which he declares that "he who will not be convinced, by the evidence Dr. Mather presents, that the child was bewitched, must be a very obdurate Sadducee." A few years since, a house in Maine was said to be haunted. The building and furniture were shaken, dreadful noises were heard, dismal sights were seen, and heavy blows were received. The occupant of the house had lately left a Calvinistic theological seminary. He afterwards became a settled Universalist preacher. "A neighboring family informed me," says the late Bernard Whitman, "that he now considered it the Spirit of God, haunting him to forsake Calvinism, and proclaim universal salvation." His explanation, though satisfactory to himself, may not be equally so to our readers. The devil should never be made a packhorse for our sins, nor should our thoughts be turned from within, causing us to neglect a watch upon our own lusts and passions, in looking for the assaults of some outward tempter. The effect sometimes produced upon the minds of children has a very unfavorable influence. A pious mother, not finding it convenient to attend her little son to rest, told him to omit his prayers for one night. "Mother," said the child, "will the devil forgive me if I neglect my prayers?"