Mather states that this girl, at times, by whistling, yelling, and in other ways, disturbed him when at family prayers. Upham says, "She would strike him," Mather, "with her fist and try to kick him"--probably meaning, try both to strike and kick him, for he adds, "her hand or foot would always recoil when within an inch or two of his body; thus giving the idea that there was an invisible coat of mail, of heavenly temper, and proof against the assaults of the devil around his sacred person." That "_idea_" looks much more like a child born within the historian's own mind than a gift to him by Mather. A statement by the latter that her hand or foot would always recoil when within an inch or two of his body, hardly justifies the slurring innuendo which seems to be appended to it. But ignorance of many operating laws, forces, and agents pertaining to the subject discussed by the modern historian, let him sometimes become as tempting a target for the shafts of ridicule as he found Mather to be. Without presuming that Mather perceived that natural laws generated repulsion between matter animated and moved by a disembodied spirit and matter in its normal conditions, we can state that extensive observation has generated the conclusion that unless there exists rapport with, or at least an absence of repulsion between, the sphere of the spirit using the borrowed hand or foot, and the sphere of the normal person aimed at, natural law forbids their contact. William Morse made such observation as caused him to say in his deposition that "the wedge and spade flying on his wife _did not touch her_." Forceful and rapid approximations of hands and feet under control of invisibles, toward the bodies of surrounding witnesses, and marvelous arrestings of those moving limbs so that no contact ensues, are of very frequent occurrence. Very many parlor ornaments and household utensils, hard and soft, light and heavy, are, by spirits, not unfrequently set in rapid motion back and forth, and crosswise, promiscuously over and amid a crowd of people in a room, and yet but few persons are ever hit, and the few sensitives in rapport with the performers, and contributors to their apparatus, if hit, are never hurt. The temper of Mather's shielding coat of mail was just as heavenly as that of each other human being's coat which the Master Armorer in nature's boundless shop forges and furnishes for the protection of each human child who is sent forth to fight the battles of life in gross flesh and bones. Not his own holiness, but either nature's antipathies or spirit forbearance saved Mather from the blows, and the historian wronged him perhaps when he intimated that the divine thought otherwise; for that man, halting as his steps were, and small as his advance was, made nearer approach toward a fair comprehension and exposition of our witchcraft than any other American who wrote upon that subject, till since the publication of "History of Witchcraft."