Unfortunately, as we judge, for his posthumous reputation, Mather was scribe of a convention of clergymen who met and deliberately put forth advice to the courts and government pertaining to evidence and processes which might properly be used at trials for the crime of witchcraft. As scribe, Mather reduced the opinions of the convention to form for publication, if he had not previously drawn up his own, and at the meeting obtained their adoption. Since the advice of this convention has been extensively regarded as disastrous in its results, Mather has been deemed an efficient, if not the most efficient of all promoters of the executions at Salem. We seriously question the justice of such imputation upon him, and we doubt whether the advice of the convention incited to the special course of action pursued by the courts, though it partially permitted it, perhaps. That advice commended "a very critical and exquisite caution ... _that there may be nothing used as a test for the trial of the suspected, the lawfulness whereof may be doubted by the people of God_." So far, good. This, to us at this day, looks like a caution to avoid the admission of _spectral evidence_, as it was then called, and distinct statement is made that such evidence alone was not enough to justify conviction; also it looks like a caution against cruel methods of extorting pleas and confessions. But the concluding paragraph of their advice, which is in the following words, _may_ have greatly nullified the softening force of all that preceded it. "We cannot but humbly recommend unto the government the speedy and vigorous prosecution of such as have rendered themselves obnoxious, according to the directions given in the laws of God and wholesome statutes of the English nation, for the detection of witchcraft." This advice came forth June 15, 1692, just when the flames of witchcraft at Salem village had become alarming to the whole community; when scores of people were under arrest there upon suspicion of witchcraft, and when the courts were anxiously seeking to know how to conduct their trials. The advice seems to us somewhat ambidexter, holding forth in one hand exhortations to caution and leniency, and in the other an exhortation to make vigorous and prompt application of English witchcraft laws and usages which permitted and implied resort to most barbarous processes, and admitted all imaginable sorts of evidence. The general impression upon our mind, made by our recent readings, is, that the clergy generally were opposed to much reliance upon spectral evidence, and that their advice was meant to give that impression; while the civil _magistrates_ at Salem held a different opinion, acted according to it, and obtained convictions upon spectral evidence in cases where none other was attainable. It was the civil magistrates, much more than the clergy, whose opinions, when embodied in action, outwrought the horrors of Gallows Hill.