It is surely incumbent upon us to possess ourselves of correct and just views of a transaction thus indissolubly connected with the reputation of our home, with the memory of our fathers, and, of course, with the most precious part of the inheritance of our children.  I am apprehensive that the community is very superficially acquainted with this transaction.  All have heard of the Salem witchcraft; hardly any are aware of the real character of that event.  Its mention creates a smile of astonishment, and perhaps a sneer of contempt, or, it may be, a thrill of horror for the innocent who suffered; but there is reason to fear, that it fails to suggest those reflections, and impart that salutary instruction, without which the design of Providence in permitting it to take place cannot be accomplished.  There are, indeed, few passages in the history of any people to be compared with it in all that constitutes the pitiable and tragical, the mysterious and awful.  The student of human nature will contemplate in its scenes one of the most remarkable developments which that nature ever assumed; while the moralist, the statesman, and the Christian philosopher will severally find that it opens widely before them a field fruitful in instruction.

Our ancestors have been visited with unmeasured reproach for their conduct on the occasion.  Sad, indeed, was the delusion that came over them, and shocking the extent to which their bewildered imaginations and excited passions hurried and drove them on.  Still, however, many considerations deserve to be well weighed before sentence is passed upon them.  And while I hope to give evidence of a readiness to have every thing appear in its own just light, and to expose to view the very darkest features of the transaction, I am confident of being able to bring forward such facts and reflections as will satisfy you that no reproach ought to be attached to them, in consequence of this affair, which does not belong, at least equally, to all other nations, and to the greatest and best men of their times and of previous ages; and, in short, that the final predominating sentiment their conduct should awaken is not so much that of anger and indignation as of pity and compassion.

Let us endeavor to carry ourselves back to the state of the colony of Massachusetts one hundred and seventy years ago.  The persecutions our ancestors had undergone in their own country, and the privations, altogether inconceivable by us, they suffered during the early years of their residence here, acting upon their minds and characters, in co-operation with the influences of the political and ecclesiastical occurrences that marked the seventeenth century, had imparted a gloomy, solemn, and romantic turn to their dispositions and associations, which was transmitted without diminution to their children, strengthened and aggravated by their peculiar circumstances.  It was the triumphant age of superstition.  The imagination had been