As renowned as any one among all sufferers under persecutions for witchcraft--a hero in the band--was Giles Corey, husband of Martha, more than fourscore years old, but still strong and resolute. He may have been wild and rough in youth and early manhood, but was efficient in business, and before the close of life was possessor of a very handsome estate for those times in that region. When the witchcraft prosecutions commenced, he sided with the multitude for a time; was vexed that his wife would not do the same, and, in his excitement, perhaps gave free vent to such hard epithets as his tongue had been allowed to put forth freely in his earlier years; some of which were soon brought to bear against his good dame, while she was subjected to examination. From some cause his sympathy with the prosecutors subsided when he saw his good wife maligned by them, and soon the witch detectors were after him also. He was arrested and imprisoned. His keen penetration perceived that acquittal, as things were going, was impossible, unless the accused pleaded guilty; which plea truth, honor, and manhood forbade him to make. To be tried and condemned would involve a forfeiture of his property, and take it from his children. But no trial could be had, and of course no condemnation, unless he should plead either guilty or not guilty to the indictment. His decision was soon formed. Taken into court, he closed his lips, and no power there could open them. Neither _guilty_ nor _not guilty_ could be wrung from them. The large, strong, old man stood in calm majesty before the court, his silence challenging the whole civil power of the province to shake his purpose. English custom in such cases--and he probably knew it--was to subject the recusant to lingering torture, trusting that pain or prostration would wring out a plea of either guilty or not guilty. Order was given by the court to lay this old man prostrate, pile over him heavy weights, and put him upon starvation diet for the purpose of bringing his stubborn will to subjection. But neither oppressing weights, the pangs of hunger, nor both combined, weakened the hold of that strong will upon its purpose. His only utterances then were, "More weight, more weight!" Corey himself testified at his preliminary examination, and the court tried to make it evidence of diabolism, that, twice at least, when attempting to pray, there was more or less stoppage of his utterance. Whether this was caused by the action of some outside intelligence bringing spirit forces to bear upon him is not apparent. The case as stated will hardly justify the presumption, though it suggests the possibility that it was. The dumbness that was formerly imposed upon the prophet Ezekiel and priest Zacharias, and that which frequently befalls mediums in our own age, teach that unseen intelligences sometimes can and do temporarily prevent the use of vocal organs by their legitimate owners.