It may be too much a Custom for us to dwell on the Errors and Misfortunes of People while living; and to err, on the other Hand, by making their Characters appear too perfect after they have passed away; especially if they have been sufficiently conspicuous in Life to require a written Memorial of them after their Decease. Though Dr. Cotton Mather had Enemies while living, his Memory has been pursued with more Malignity since his Death, than has happened to that of most Men; and, as we conceive, without sufficient Reason, and which could only be warranted by the most undoubted Proofs, that he has purposely led us into Errors, and that he acted falsely on the most important Occasions; and that, finally, he was too bad a Man to make any Acknowledgment of all this, though conscious of it when he took his final Departure with the Messenger of his last Summons. He had vituperative Enemies in his Lifetime, from some of whom he received abusive anonymous Letters. These Letters he carefully filed, and wrote upon them simply the Word "Libels," which was all the Notice he took of them. It was an invariable Rule with him, that if he was obliged to speak of the evil Ways of People to do so in Humility and Regret, and never in a Manner that could be offensive. In his Diary he speaks of _Pride_ as a Sin, "which all are subject unto, and more especially Ministers," and still more especially was it "the besetting Sin of young Ministers." Had he lived in these latter Days that Annoyance might have been less on Account of its Universality. Mr. Mather's Time was that of long Sermons, and we are told that he usually closed them with the _fourteenth_ Division of his Discourses. Besides his Labors on Sundays, he sometimes preached eleven Sermons in one Week besides. He also constantly had Students with him whom he instructed in various Branches of Knowledge. Of the Part Dr. Mather took in State Affairs, his Biographer says he was not at Liberty to omit an Account, although it was a difficult Section; and that he was "more at a Loss what to do about it than any one in the whole Book." The Author, however, concludes, as he could not omit the Subject, to treat it "in such a general Way as to give no One any Offence." And as it is a _Section_ of the Doctor's Life of great Interest, it will here be given entire in the Language of his Biographer, who wrote so near the Time that his Account carries its Readers back to those stirring Scenes of the Revolution of 1688, and furnishes a Picture, life-like, of the every-day Manners of our Fathers on that memorable and novel Event. The Account follows: "My Country is very sensible that in the Year 1688 (when one of the most wicked Kings was on the British Throne) Andros and his Crew were very violent, illegal and arbitrary in their Proceedings. I need not give any Narrative of their Managements here, because there has been an Account of them already given to the World.[29]