Both of them conceded a commission by God to the devil. But we doubt whether his commission was ever more special than that which every created being, in either material or spiritual abodes, constitutionally holds at all times, to avail himself of whatever natural laws or forces his inherent powers and attending circumstances enable him to control. Words are often used which obscure proper, if not intended, meaning. Commission from God means no more than constitutional capabilities to perform at times certain specified things when conditions and circumstances favor command of natural forces. That special powers are often conferred upon mortals by some supernal beings whose recipients are prone to ascribe the gifts to _omnipotence_ is obviously true; though their increased abilities are only bestowments by finite invisibles. _What_ witchcraft was, and _who_ commissioned the devil, whether God alone or God and man jointly, were the two most prominent questions about which those contestants differed. They agreed that the devil enacted both witchcraft and possession, but Calef's beliefs necessarily caused him to regard vast many cases as only simple possession, which Mather could, if he saw fit, regard as witchcrafts; and he sometimes seemingly did, when called to act publicly in connection with them. Mather at home and Mather abroad were not always in harmony. Without designing, either here or subsequently, to make full presentation of the case of Margaret Rule, we shall freely adduce many parts of the record of it as helps in exhibiting leading positions and traits pertaining to the parties who crossed intellectual swords over them. Mather states, page 29, that "upon the Lord's day, September 10, 1693, Margaret Rule, after some hours of previous disturbance in the public assembly, fell into odd fits, which caused her friends to carry her home, where her fits, in a few hours, grew into a figure that satisfied the spectators of their being preternatural. A miserable woman who had been formerly imprisoned on the suspicion of witchcraft, and who had frequently cured very painful hurts, ... had, the evening before Margaret fell into her calamities, _very bitterly treated her, and threatened her_." That briefly antecedent treatment of her by a person who "had frequently cured very painful hurts," and therefore, and for other acts perhaps, been accused of witchcraft, is very important in its psychological indications, and is worthy of being borne along in the reader's memory. The wonderful _curing of painful hurts_--that is, her beneficence--had caused her imprisonment.