Where forlorn and wretched old women, together with tricksy and roguish girls, and a few low-lived, malicious mortals of both sexes are regarded as the actual authors of all witchcraft phenomena, Mather's reports of that class of occurrences are an offense--are a stumbling-block in the pathway of satisfactory solution. So long as his statements are left unimpeached, such agents as witchcraft has of late been imputed to are incompetent to the work ascribed to them. That author, therefore, must needs be discredited; consequently sneer, and slur, and ridicule have been brought to bear against his accuracy and trustworthiness. Some modern commentators have made _savage_ use of such weapons upon this original describer of witchcraft scenes. He has been by innuendoes caricatured and metamorphosed to an extent which seems distinctly reprehensible. Brightest minds may sometimes lack knowledge of some existing agents and forces; good men may be actual, though unintentional perpetrators of great wrong, when they depict the characters of some predecessors whose words seem extravagant to such as limit natural actors and forces to those which the external senses and human science have long been familiar with. Our recent readings have led us to regard Mather as a man of more than common efficiency in acquiring information, and more than common despatch in putting his acquisitions before the public. We find evidences in his works that, if he did not acquire, he put forth both more minute and more extensive knowledge of the marvelous phenomena of his times, than any other person then living in America of whom we have knowledge. Portions of his creeds helped him to frankness in description of marvels. His faith embraced many unseen intelligent agents, both good and bad, moving to and fro among men, ever walking the earth and influencing its affairs both "when we wake and when we sleep." Consequently he never had occasion to inquire whether anything whatsoever was _possible_ which his senses or the senses of other witnesses seemed to cognize. He doubted not that unseen powers competent to anything whatsoever were around both him and all other human beings. His only question was, did the thing occur? If it did, it was proper to describe it as it appeared to its beholders. _How_ it could occur was a question which he, as recorder, was not called upon to answer; and he did not permit it to modify his record. This weakness(?) of his was fraught with latent strength which becomes beneficent in our day by its revealing to us the former mysterious irruption upon society of precisely such _outré_ and seemingly unnatural antics and doings, not only of animated human forms, but of lifeless household utensils and ornaments, as we are witnessing. History by him repeats itself to-day, and to-day's marvels give credibility to his statements. Mather furnished broader and better bases for judging of the real sources, nature, character, and