From early manhood to the close of his life, Mather was an unfaltering believer in Protestant Christendom's great witchcraft devil, backed by countless hosts of lesser ones, and he also believed in her special witchcraft. He had full faith in a devil as ubiquitous, active, and malignant as his own vigorous and expansive intellect could conjure up; had faith that extra manifestations of afflictive might, of knowledge, or of suffering in the outer world were produced by the devil, and faith also that even that mighty evil one was unable to afflict men outwardly, excepting either at the call or by the aid of some human servant who had entered into a covenant with his Black Majesty. The woe-working points of this man's faith were, that special covenantings with the devil were entered into by human beings, in consequence of which the covenanting mortals became witches--that is, they thence became able to command all his powers, as well as he theirs; also that only through such covenanted ones could he or his do harm to the bodies and external possessions of men. Therefore, he reasoned, that, whenever extra and unaccountable malignant action appeared, some covenanter with the devil must be in the neighborhood of the malignant manifestation. And yet, practically, Mather was not disposed to let the public get knowledge of the covenanter. His choice was, to keep secret the names of bewitched actors, the afflictors of the suffering ones, and to strive by prayers, fastings, manipulations, &c., to relieve the unhappy sufferers. Had his policy been adopted by the public, had his example been widely followed, there would have been no execution for witchcraft in his generation. We can--and we are glad that we can--state that Mather's faith embraced some other invisible beings than malicious ones, who had access to man. In that respect he probably differed from, and was favored above, most of the clergy and church members of his times; and perhaps his possession of faith in the ministry of _good_ angels made him a more lenient handler and more patient observer of the afflicted, than were most of his cotemporaries. His prolonged attention to Martha Goodwin, to Mercy Short, to Margaret Rule, and his offer to take care of five or six Salem ones if he could be allowed the management of them, bespeak kindness in him above what was common in his age toward those deemed to be under "an evil hand." He once wrote thus:-- "In the present evil world it is no wonder that the evil angels are more _sensible_ than those of the good ones. Nevertheless it is very certain that the _good_ angels continually, without any defilement, fly about in our defiled atmosphere _to minister_ for the good of them that are the heirs of salvation.... Now, though the angelic ministration is usually behind the curtain of more visible instruments and their actions, yet sometimes it hath been with extraordinary circumstances made more obvious to the sense of the faithful."